quête:slow

Neuauflage des ikonischen ersten Warp-Albums von Brian Eno aus dem Jahr 2010. Eine exzellente Kollaboration mit den damaligen Jungtalenten Leo Abrahams und Jon Hopkins.

Temple Haze joins the rows of Tal der Verwirrung label, presenting his four-track debut vinyl full of mellow guitar, ethereal vocals and an intriguing, nebulous ambience.

A1 Ethereal vocals blend into spheric ambience, lush piano fills the gaps left by a kick drum which is beyond all smoothness. Temple Haze creates a title track which starts as a blurry dream an unfolds into a well known, universal memory.

A2 Straightforward percussive delays and a gentle hum spread good vibes from the start, while catchy guitar riff melts together with a warm baseline, altogether creating an intriguing pull into the track's gravity field. When Temple Haze joins in with marvelously creamy vocals, the story takes another turn and brings us somewhere we have not been before.

B1 Temple Haze invites us to a moment of contemplation and reflection, we swim in a warm cloud of misty thoughts. There is no start and no beginning, only connections and loose ends.

B2 A gentle guitar arpeggio and organic drum cycles immediately bring the heat of the summer with all its tempting sensations. Melodic elements are slowly spiraling towards each other, like two birds dancing together in a dark blue sky.

GILA is an electronic music producer from Denver, Colorado. His debut album, Energy Demonstration, blends bass-heavy, leftfield techno with detailed ambient textures, and showcases GILA’s impeccable production style.
Energy Demonstration - out 20th November on Lex Records - follows earlier, club-focused releases on XL Recordings, LuckyMe & Benji B’s Deviation. GILA, (pronounced “hee-la”) takes his name from the gila monster, the only venomous lizard native to the United States -- slow yet powerful with a potentially deadly bite, this colourful reptile possesses many of the same qualities as GILA’s music.
GILA started to make his mark as one half of rap duo, Gorgeous Children, before striking out on his own. As GILA, his signature, hard-edged sounds have been championed by Thom Yorke, Flying Lotus, Benji B, Jamz Supernova, and led to collaborations with Boys Noize and Rustie. Since signing with Lex, GILA’s released a pair of EPs; 2019’s Trench Tones and 2020’s Three Riders.
As a DJ GILA has shared stages with Metro Boomin, Telefon Tel Aviv and fellow Lucky Me alumni Rustie & Hudson Mohawke.

We are back on wax again with a very special release. It means a great pleasure for us to have one of the pivotal figures of the Madrid underground techno scene on board, Herr Unkle Fon.

Some years ago, Madrid clubscene was formed by conventional clubs in conventional locations with conventional opening and closing times and usually, conventional programming. Manuel Cano then founded Utopía Secret Society and things changed forever for the city’s underground nightlife.

Now as you may have noticed there is no club scene at all, neither conventional nor illegal, sign of the times.

Musically speaking, Manuel started as a guitarist and soon evolved into studio engineer, label owner, club promoter, record shop owner (Ater Cosmo), social agitator… and adventurous character that reflects in his productions all his knowledge of the dancefloor.

Jisatsu is a slow paced broken beat surrounded with smooth textures, soon joined by a repetitive synth line that adds the hypnotic component.

Genroku Ako follows with a cosmic approach, continuous percussive and synthetic lines run together on a fast BPM exercise obsessive, linear and mental.

On the flip side, 47 Ronin uses dreamy stabs over a relentless groove mixing liquidity with tension.

Closing the release Shuppatsu is an almost beatless exercise, just with 909 rimshots, toms and snares spiced with ethereal components

A timeless futuristic release that can wait on your record bag until things go in better directions.

After the very successful EP releases of quickly, quickly’s “Over Skies” in mid 2018 (27m spotify-streams) and Please Wait’s “Black & White” in late 2019 (6,4m spotify-streams to this day) Jakarta Records and Ta-ku take their joint label to the next level presenting 823’s very 1st longplayer - a compilation feat. an international line-up of already established as well as up & coming Lo-Fi producers, handpicked and curated by none other than 823 label-head Ta-ku himself.
1st single to be released on 21st of August is „Serenity“ by prolific 27 year old producer eevee (1,5m monthly listeners) from the Netherlands aka „the queen of Lo-Fi“ delivering a loopy and very hypnotic tune w/ quite jazzy horns feeling like watching the sunset on a desert planet like Dune - from outer space.
2nd single will be a double-single, coming on September 11th w/ finnish indie-producer Idealism (2,5m monthly listeners) and his tune “Somehow” – a steady and softened beat w/ colorfull and chilled piano chords – on the one side and Ta-ku’s “Remember Me” - another powerful Lo-Fi anthem by the Australian allrounder and 823 patron - on the flipside.
The compilation’s 3rd drop will be a double-single as well featuring 19 year old, US-based self made producer Peachy! (2,6m monthly listeners), delivering his Shanghai inspired, very spheric walk-by tune “Stroll” on one side while Laguna contributes his slowly uplifting but very keen “Lone Rider” on the flipside, catching that specific moment when switching from boredom to euphoria right away.
All singles off the compilation will be accompanied by customized visuals from different filmmakers catching the songs’ very own vibes. The compilation’s artwork comes along in its very own and unique 823-style.
Worldwide web promotion for this release will be handled and taken care of by Jonathan Kim.
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Ta-ku’s 823 label represents the appreciation for the people, ideas and places that inspire and push their protagonists forward. The artwork is shot by the artists themselves and each release has an accompanying photo zine that acts as a visual story to compliment the music being showcased. 823 is also the numerical representation of the phrase 'Thinking Of You'.

“823 celebrates the simple beauty of everyday life and the people in it that inspire us. In that spirit we are proud to present our very first compilation featuring artists we love. All Things Considered Vol.1” (Regan Matthews aka Ta-ku)

studio mule is back with another amazement, opening the roster towards sophisticated spiritual sounds on the crossroads of electrified jazz, oriental fourth-world spheres and deeply composed experimental sounds. this time the label welcomes japanese artist ya-sukazu sato aka yas-kaz, a university-trained percussionist, that gained global success as a composer for the internationally known butoh dance troupe sankai juku, that tours around the world since 1975. his infrequent musical amalgamation of ancient eastern genres, airy soundscapes, and ritualistic dance percussions perfectly accompanied the modern dance movements of an avantgarde dance group that is known for slow, mesmerizing dance passages, whose repetitive body movements sometimes focusing only on the feet or fingers. besides his theatre work, yas-kaz composed scores for japanese movies, performed live along stars like us-american jazz saxophonist wayne shorter or legendary japanese new-age musical group himekami and recorded a number of collabo-rative and solo albums.

with “virgo indigo”, studio mule reissues his third solo album, originally published on the japanese label canyon in 1986. the album opens with “djidanda”, a composition whose melodic drive and percussive groove reminds on moondog’s spirit. melancholic strings, loose guitar riffs, spiritual cowbells and wild, yet mild rhythms form a repetitive maelstrom that is made for all sorts of acrobatic body movements. it gets followed by the album’s title track “virgo indigo”, a spiritual jazz leaning arrangement featuring wayne shorter on the soprano saxophone, delivering a crystal-clear performance above tribal rhythms and traces of gamelan. the story-arc of the ten-minute long composition brings also minimalistic percussive moments, oriental ambient zones and some electronic drones, all calm and lively at the same time.

a versatileness, that marks the other four arrangements on the album, too. “kara-kira ~windscape iii~” comes around as an airy spiritual illusionist, that melds joyful flute notes with gentle chime melodies. the b-side’s epic opener “wadji” starts industrial, just to break down into a manic, again moondogish atmosphere full of darkish sounds and nebulous ambient deepness. subsequent yas-kaz enters with “notarinotari” the oriental zones, seducing with a jazz-laden romantic soundtrack mood. the final tune is yet another surprise, as “jasmin” is percussive driven neon cocktail bar pop, that features a hum-ming female voice and mesmerizing synth and guitar melodies. six tracks that introduce six different locations of yas-kaz’s ramified artistic work, which combines sweetish melodies, dynamic percussions, statuesque minimalism and world music traditions in spacious compositions that stay surprising until the very last second.

The full 11 minutes 49 seconds was too long to be included on the vinyl release of the recent Family of Swede LP 'Family Album.' We believed that it deserved it's own 12" space to ensure that the strength of the song could be heard in full. It's a cosmic soul extravaganza that takes us on a journey through space, with some excellent playing from the group and a lead vocal that glides effortlessly alongside great harmonies. 'Mellow' also features on vinyl for the first time with a funky clav lead and a mad percussive break that rocks. The song itself slow's down into a slower groove that's worthy of it's own platform. We've also chosen 'Life' to close the 12" off with it's swinging modern swagger.

By 1995 Kwaito was already a well established and distinguishable sound compared to the International House Remixes that preceded. The tempo was slowed down, Soulful vocal samples were replaced by catchy and repetitive hooks and versus sang in vernacular. The new hit sound had a template and studios worked around the clock to pump fresh releases into the demanding market.

After the successful 1995 release of Import mixes Vol 4, The Groove City team behind the productions now decided to venture into the territory of Mid Tempo. They would craft an album for a young frontman with the help of Kwaito pioneer Oscar Warona, and without much trouble, the team had their first hit on their hands. Filling the boots of their cars with copies of the cassettes and taking the stock to various townships around Johannesburg the tape quickly circulated and sold out every new batch that was printed. Demand was high for the release but as with much of the music at the time, the fast paced demand for the music moved on. Without a follow up release Scotch failed to ride the momentum built by the debut and remained largely unknown although he is still in the music industry to this day.

Even with their first artist release being a success, the following years proved more difficult in reaching such a large audience for the Kaleidosound studio. With popularity for the genre growing, the simple templates for early classics were changing as Kwaito fused with hip hop. Rapping took over as the preferred vocals for the masses. Mysterious production teams and labels that served as guides for music lovers were eclipsed by frontmen and groups that could draw crowds. The fight for fresh sounds continued as the airwaves became the main battleground for artists and the more club oriented music was pushed back underground, eventually evolving into some of the earliest examples of Deep House seen on the continent. The Kaleidosound production team would finally strike gold again in 1997 when reviving Groove City for vol. 5 which acted as the debut for the newly formed group Chiskop. The group would become superstars of the new commercial era that followed, sparking solo careers for the members and creating some of the biggest hits the genre knew.

To this day Scotch remains one of the best albums to come out of the golden era of Kwaito. Although it was outperformed by other groups from the time it has a special place for those who knew it and can still be found as a treasured piece in many collections. The various people involved created a one off fusion of sound that has remained fresh for 25 years. Playful lyrics over floaty grooves resulted in favourites like “Jam Alley” which uses catch phrases from the beloved TV show and “Bafana Bafana” guaranteed to get the boys on the dance floor. Here you have these two tracks taken from the album pressed on a club ready Maxi Single for the Deejays

The eighteenth release on Second Circle is the label's second exploration into an artists archival works; this time presenting a selection of four early tracks by theatre, film and music producer Can Oral under his Khan alias.

Can moved to Williamsburg, New York in the early 90's along with good friend and fellow musician Jimi Tenor. Born in Germany of Turkish-Finnish parents, he would frantically start buying equipment (such as a TR808, TB303 and Korg Polysix) from junk shops across New York, becoming greatly prolific in his recordings which he would work on throughout the night. During the daytime though, Can set up and ran the now defunct Temple Records, a seminal Soho record store, and later label, largely importing Techno and Acid from Europe. Though a small store, Temple Records would count musicians and DJs such as Björk, Tricky, Dee-Lite, Josh Wink and Joey Beltram among its regular customers. Also he would host many such guests to play live or DJ at his weekly Techno party “Killer” which was held at Save The Robots in New York’s East Village.

Can Oral's nightly studio sessions eventually led to an almost inexhaustible discography with over a dozen monikers each representing a different aspect of his productions. SC018 focuses then on his early electronic works as Khan.

Named after the color painted studio where the EP was produced between 1993-1996, 'Blue Box Sessions' is a collection of four analogue machine driven cuts, covering different tempos and ethos within electronic music. Initially live recorded to an old DAT recorder, and without any overdubs, SC018 is a lost and found artefact to Khan's unquestioned raw talent and timeless relevance.

After their two acclaimed edits EPs, Mister T. Records are now joining forces with LA based producer DJ Duckcomb, to deliver a groovy selection of leftfield italo-disco cuts reworked for dancefloors. One year after the release of their 2nd EP, a tribute to Brazilian music, Mister T. records are now back with a 12” EP showcasing their love for obscure disco and Duckcomb’s amazing digging skills. This record aims to be a tribute to the very special sound of the late 80s electronic music and to both the artist’s and label’s lifelong passion for obscure italo disco.
Famous as a record collector, Duckcomb has also made himself a name by editing forgotten jewels from classic disco to islands reggae. Part of both duos Sharegroove and Trap.Avoid, he’s been
sharing his work and latest discoveries on his bandcamp and soundcloud for years and he has already released two EPs on Universal Cave and Pleasure of Love as well as edits on Cultures of
Soul and Emotional Rescue.
He’s now joining Mister T. Records with a 3-track EP compilation of hard to classify, slow-tempo, disco edits. On the A-side, Duckcomb partnered up with his longtime friend and DJ partner Dino
Soccio, boss of California label Pleasure of Love, for a powerful rework of the German protohouse tune “Holidays”, with a new dancefloor oriented beat and emphasized tropical influences.
On the B-side, he showed his editing skills working on two obscure downtempo tracks with that recognizable late 80s melancholic atmosphere. By removing not danceable parts, building DJfriendly grooves and removing unnecessary vocal parts, he managed to come up with a smooth italo ballad with acid accents on “S.O.S.” and a beautiful balearic new-beat jam on “King (of) a Beat”.

Having previously released a slew of tapes on labels such as Clan Destine Records and Live Adult Entertainment, Penelope’s Fiancé lands on Hypermedium for his vinyl debut. Hailing from Stavroupoli, Thessaloniki, Penelope’s Fiancé has been keeping over the past few years a fast pace of work, constantly producing tracks and releasing new music, having shaped a unique sound that drifts across the borders of lo-fi, post-industrial and fuzzy techno. The Cutting Edge Of A Knife is the culmination of all these previous excursions, a solid display of his ability to craft emotionally intense tracks, merging a ghostly, gloomy grandeur with squelching percussive patterns. Opener ‘Lethe’ emerges from the haze with its cryptic atmosphere, moulded in lethargic drones, scattered vocalisms and sparse yet piercing beats and rhythmic build-ups. A panic-fuelled, 160bpm ravey epic, ‘Futile Endevours’ brandishes an ecstatic, pumelling rhythm over recurring trance- flavored melodic phrases and unnerving vocal samples. ‘I Wasn’t Always There’ is a seductive, dark elegy whose melancholic and lush synth melodies wash over chopping kicks and ice-cold hi-hats. ‘Anxiety’ sounds like a slow techno roller, where frozen metallic percussion meets a cavernous bass, right before the off-kilter, cacophonous buzz of ‘The Lie Closest To The Truth’. Closing track ‘The Cutting Edge Of A Knife’ is an intoxicated oriental-stepper, soaked in vaporous middle-eastern percussion and muezzin-like chants.

In these dark times of Covid we still have our music. We have the sounds to soothe us, distract and take our minds away from the chaos and uncertainty.
We can't dance like we used to but we can hear and feel. Our release must be found in another way, we must look within. We find solace and grant ourselves space and time in the music.

Sam McQueen (Indio co-producer with John Beltran, Indigo Aera, Delsin Records, Furthur Electronix) presents his debut album Dreams In Sepia for Mojuba sub label a.r.t.less and hits us with a real time soundscape of the moment, an epic-like document of these times. The rhythms are subtle, sometimes broken, the time structures often complex, this is not primarily dance floor orientated music. These sounds are way more cerebral, for the heads. They reflect perfectly the complexities of life we are experiencing in 2020.

The edges are rounded with occasional strolling bass lines and comfy chords. Slabs of keys and spaced out female vocals like a psychedelic journey that scares you at first yet comforts you soon after. Sam McQueen's mediatory sounds give an overwhelming sense of the moment. The music makes you take time out and listen. Its purposeful manner suggests there are more hours in the day, like time slowing down a pause, like the sun slithering slowly behind the horizon. These are sunset sounds for dark back-rooms.

Daytime or night, it works. This is the soundtrack for the other room, the deeper sounds not designed to make you dance. This music doesn't get in your face, it creeps up and smacks you on the ass. There are elements of early nineties UK Techno, a warmth and delicateness that pervades a distinct lack of four four dance floor in the beat structures, a softer tone throughout than the harder Detroit techno sounds of the same era but still nods and acknowledgements to the D in the layout and way the sounds present themselves. Think John Beltran, Symbols and Instruments, Black Dog or Kirk DeGiorgio, mid 90s Berlin sounds from Basic Channel / Rhythm & Sound, but in lockdown. Music for today's modern lacking landscape. The sounds often familiar, analogue, the drums, hi hats and snares, shimmer, jazz style. They accentuate and push the rest of the elements around them.
?In a bygone era this would be crudely classed as Chill Out music. In 2020 Covid era its about how it makes you feel as you relax and really listen to it. It is about emotion and empathy, a oneness, a new unknown and a deeper train of thought for the listener. Much like 2020, Sam McQueen lays the pieces round the edge of the jigsaw and lets you fill in the rest.

In a year of global shift and continuous changes, Figure takes a leap of faith and extends its catalog by introducing a completely new compilation series to the label. The Open Space series will feature forward-thinking Electronica and Ambient from a well-curated list of seasoned producers. Compositions that invite to let the mind wander, weaving stories, and conjuring up emotions.
While these softer genres have already played a respected role in former Figure releases, for the first time in the label’s history they are now being given the center stage. Volume 1 sets the mark by providing producers whom we’ve come to love for their dancefloor-centric output with an open space to showcase another side of their skillset. Open Space remains open to various strains of Electronica and Ambient, ranging from the introspective synth-monologues (Sebastian Muellaert / Kirilik), drony dub-experimentalism (Moritz Von Oswald), alive and breathing takes on the genre (JakoJako), to singular compositions which slowly build their own lasting narrative and thus develop a genuine, emotive quality (John Beltran / Tin Man ). Len Faki himself proves the artistic breadth of Open Space, sharing a powerful and conscious message through a rare and delicate moment of him exploring the form of spoken words. Other contributions include Jesper Dahlbäck as The Persuader, Luke Slater as 7th Plain, or Ralf Hildenbeutel - a former production partner of Sven Väth and now a successful composer of film soundtracks. Unfairly reduced to background music, it is not the kind of Ambient featured on the Open Space series. It is an engaging body of music, bonded by its contemplative, enveloping nature. Open Space bands together an array of fascinatingly skilled producers, finally given the opportunity to present some of their most creative and emotional material yet to date.

Reissue of this mesmerizing record including an unreleased alternate mix of "Subterranean Zappa Blues". Hypnotic rhythms made of slow minimal beats, industrial textures, intoxicating drones and repetitive voices that seem to merge from dreams. Everything built by two of the most brilliant industrial music minds: Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter.

"This album arrived somewhere after a dream meeting of several individuals, Graham Bond, Joe Meek, Jacques Berrocal and myself. After a few beers and a heated disscussion of puncture repair we all lay down in a circle and point our penises at Venus, telepathic messages are sent out to Colin saying he can use the two golden microphones. He did, and here we are." Steven Stapleton, 17.1.94.

Rock 'n Roll Station began life with Steven Stapleton asking engineer Colin Potter to remix some of the more rhythmic elements of 'Colder Still' from 1992's Thunder Perfect Mind. As Potter gradually warped these sections into weirder and weirder pieces, a new album began to emerge. Potter himself explained it to David Keenan in England’s Hidden Reverse: “What I sometimes did in the studio was to ‘over-use’ effects and processors to totally mutate a piece into something completely different” while Stapleton observed how “it was almost as though telepathic messages were sent over to Colin. We’d started an album together at IC Studio that was never finished. He then sent me some vague mixes, which were just what I had in mind. So, from that basis, I started putting the album together.”

Potter would quickly become a key player in Nurse With Wound’s productions, a position he continues to fulfil to this day. He was first credited as a member on 1992’s Thunder Perfect Mind, a tour-de-force of cold, at times hostile, machined atmospheres, but considers Rock ‘N Roll Station from the following year to still be his favourite.

Building on percussion and drone elements, Stapleton and Potter throw in a huge range of bizarre and atmospheric elements: didgeridoos, chanting voices, and their usual selection of unidentifiable sounds.

Its strong focus on rhythm was erroneously surmised by some as an attempt to join the then rising electronic dance music scene. But it was Stapleton’s recent obsession with the music of ‘King of the Mambo’ Pérez Prado that was beating at the heart of Rock N’ Roll Station’s heady rhythms.

The album’s title alluded to two specifically rock-related stations of influence: the song of the same name by Jac Berrocal, of which a surprisingly straight cover opens the album in homage; and the tragic life of the Sixties British R&B organist Graham Bond who influenced bands such as Deep Purple and Cream. Beset by mental health problems (at one point believing he was the son of Aleister Crowley), Bond died under a train at a Tube station in 1989 and it is this tragic scene that Rock ‘n Roll Station’s closing track, ‘Finsbury Park, May 8th, 1:35 PM (I'll See You In Another World)’, sets in sound.

Cameroonian Joe Bisso's earliest musical influences didn't come primarily from his homeland, but more from the neighbouring Congo, where the kind of early 60's Congolese Rumba played by the likes of Franco / TP Ok Jazz, and Tabu Ley Rochereau was establishing itself as a musical force in the region.

Alongside this exuberant, swinging, jazz influenced sound, the growing impact of the all conquering US soul titans became inescapable, and sprinkled with a bit of Johnny Halliday & Co's smooth chanson over the top, we get a snapshot of where Jo Bisso and friends post school musical experimentation was headed in the late 60's.

As that decade drew to a close, the single minded Bisso headed off to France to begin his quest for the future, and by 1972 could afford the journey to the US that he'd long dreamed of.

Enrollment at the Berkeley School of Music in Boston soon lead to a new band coming together, and by 1974 the all conquering, multi faceted approach that marks Bisso's musical career, meant he'd written, produced and sung on his debut single for the mighty Decca Records. 'Flying To The Land Of Soul' drew heavily from James Brown's propulsive dancefloor funk, whilst wearing it's African colours loud and proud via 'African Express' chants, and drums front and centre.

At the same time, Bisso and friends had started to immerse themselves in the fast emerging disco sound pulsing outwards from Downtown NYC into the Boston nightclubs, and by the time his debut album 'Dance To It' was released on France's influential Le Disques Esperance in 1976, it was the driving, 4/4 floor power of disco that was to define Bisso's sound on that, and the following two albums.

Whilst Bisso's immersion in Disco was based around it's energy and musicality (rather than any associated hedonism), 'African Disco Experimentals (1974 to 1978)' paints a picture of an artist dedicated to the underground club side of the scene, rather than focused exclusively on the fast emerging pop potential of the sound at the time.

The album's tone is set by 3.20 mins of building, tribal percussion and rolling rhythms of the opener 'Love Beat', a 'strictly dancefloor' approach mirrored in the near 11 mins of 'Love Somebody', building from soulful keys to deep bass funk, extended percussion breaks, joyous squelchy Moog licks, breathy vocals and more (interesting footnote : Bisso is credited as Producer / Writer / Arranger, but 'Recorded by' is attributed to Joe Chiccarelli, better known in recent years for his work with The White Stripes, Shins, and Broken Social Scene.)

Still clocking in at a healthy 6 mins plus, "The Mystery With Me" (1978) makes a nod towards more radio friendly waters with it's hooky, floaty choruses and tight structures (a then 22 year old Arthur Baker is credited as sole writer on Discogs - Bisso himself doesn't seemed convinced by this idea, but that's another story...)

'Let's Keep it Together' (1977) loops the song title over a slower groove, with free form electric guitar licks adding new textures, whilst 'Disco Madonna' (1976) showcases Bisso at his most playful, combining spoken word Hispanic vocals, rattling percussion and more of the always welcome Moog, switching up keys at the end for an unselfconsciously camp finale.

And if anything sums up the ambition of Bisso's work in the field at the time, 'Play Me' (1978) can lay claim to being the magnum opus. It's presented here as a continuous 16 minute extravaganza (as opposed to the 4 parts it came in originally) : lush strings, hypnotic vocal sections, irresistible basslines, crisp drums, the odd Barry White style interjection, disco moans, the occasional nod to a chorus vocal. None of it seeming in much of a hurry to go anywhere in particular, choosing instead to joyfully revel in the expansiveness of the form.

Metal is a collaborative endeavor between Bristol and London artists Jamie Paton and Mike Bourne of Cage & Aviary and Teeth Of The Sea, respectively. A shared love for modular synthesis brought the two together in 2018 for a series of improvised live performances and the tracks featured on this EP were born from rehearsals for those sessions. What draws ESP to this music is its paradigmatic nature. The tracks are exercises in improvisation yet there is a level of control in which the performance slowly comes alive. Jam sessions allow for artistic gratification, a freedom of form often at the expense of the listener, but when artists set forth exacting parameters, there grows an opportunity for alternate forms of fulfillment on both sides of the experience. As is typical among stylistic prototypes, a reduction of tools frees the artist to narrow their focus and explore more singular modes of performance.

Jamie and Mike chose texture as a concept, namely Metal, and following the aforementioned methods, minimized their instrumentation toward the aesthetic representation of that element. Operating in a void without the convenience and advantages of the infinite tools we’re now accustomed to, they exhausted a short list of granular details, honing their concept to a fine point. Throughout these three iterations on the theme, we hear timbres that depict metal literally, but moreover we gain a view into the duo’s visceral attachment to its materiality, abstractions of its surfaces, and an overall transgression from conventional constructs of beauty. The idea is simple, designed with discipline to romanticize both the crudeness and elegance in one of Earth’s most industrious and enigmatic elements. Metal.

Daniel Maunick returns with a new EP, Musica Encantada via Far Out Recordings. Continuing the theme of his debut album Macumba Quebrada – which saw support from the likes of Moodymann, Ron Trent, Gilles Peterson, and Benji B – Maunick draws on the deep-rooted Brazilian influences from the many years he has spent in the country, producing records with Azymuth, Marcos Valle, Sabrina Malheiros and Ivan 'Mamão' Conti.

The bossa-jazz house smash ‘Black Magic’ stays exclusive to the vinyl, while the percussive deep-house roller ‘A Chance To See Again’, the tight and groovy ‘Hurt Feelings’, and the slow-mo Brazilian Balearic ‘Africana’ will all see a limited vinyl and digital release on the 23rd October 2020.

The Futurists rejected tradition and introduced experimental sounds and this fact, that influenced a lot of composers during the 20th century, helped them to build a concept that started the career of Barcelona based duo Iro Aka. The evolution of their music started with this EP, fluctuating through psychedelic and esoteric influences, taking as its main references the continuous technological evolution and those new techniques to make electronic music. “Futur” is an extract of the first ideas of Iro Aka. They started the project at the beginning of the 2017 and this EP was produced then, showing the abstraction that they felt at that moment, a path drawn by different sounds that came from different people and different places.

Tapan leaves their mark on Zukunft with reimagining the original as a slowly building, tribal inspired and almost sitting in an alternative timeline. Clever use of percussive elements does not take away from the track being playable in the club.

The slightly psychedelic dance floor experience is delivered by Anatolian Weapons. Pulsating rhythms intertwine with classic drum sounds and paint a mood almost contradicting the vocals of the track. Perfect secret track for any dance-floor.

A culmination of paranoia emerges as we lose the human dimension of the city. Glittering canals shape the light in our eyes as we pass by, guiding our spirits safely home as the sounds slowly fade away into night sky. It’s not our time to go although the balancing act slowly becomes more extravagant and abstract until we find another way to stand on one toe. Piecing together all the perplexations, realization that all the shit that you have chatted float down the ether stream to Timbuktu never to be seen again, and the lion at the end dribbles and spits, waiting for words of shite to come walking his way so him and his lioness can slowly butcher every last note, until just dust is left.

Mow Records proudly presents L’enfants De Kita, the third album from a series of five, all produced by label owner Mowgan. Each album features vocalists and performers with African heritage, channeling Mowgan’s passion for the continent’s diverse sounds into vibrant, highly emotive productions. On L’enfants De Kita he teams up with Fanta Sayon Sissoko, a female performer from West African nation Mali. Based in Toulouse, where the album was recorded, Fanta’s musical roots go deep - her father played guitar and ngoni for Baaba Maal and her grandmother is Kandia Kouyaté, one of Mali’s best-known griot singers.

Mowgan always dreamed of working with a female singer from Mali, enchanted by their vocal style. After moving back to France a few years ago he bumped into Eric Diaouré, an old friend who he worked with in his teens. Eric is also a musician and just so happens to be from Mali. Mowgan revealed his ambitions to Eric and a meeting with Fanta was arranged - within a few days they were in the studio together.

Like the other albums in this series, L’enfants De Kita is a fusion of Mowgan’s love for African music and his penchant for electronic sounds. Fanta’s raw, affecting vocals are complemented by Mowgan’s considered production throughout with additional instrumentation from a range of performers, including a group of schoolchildren on ‘Tubani’. Featured artists include Solo Sanou (whose album ‘Soya’ was the second release on Mow Records) playing percussion, Mamadou ‘Madou’ Dembele, a multi-instrumentalist who plays ngoni, Yohan Hernandez on guitar and bass plus Madani Touré aka Chanana (a famous Malian rapper from the nineties) contributing to lead vocals on the album’s title track, with Tim Xavier handling mastering.

Mowgan’s approach to creating albums is to get a vibe going with the singer, produce a batch of songs and then select the best seven for each LP. It’s a pressure-free attitude that has led to some truly heartfelt productions, which encapsulate the purity of the creative process when it’s liberated from rigid constraints. You can hear this freedom of expression throughout L’enfants De Kita, Fanta in her element as she sings with passion and grace across all seven tracks.

The album begins with the title song ‘L’enfants De Kita’, which pays homage to Fanta’s hometown, Kita, in Mali. It is the centre of griotism, the local style of passing on knowledge from one generation to the next via spoken-word storytelling. Chanana joins Fanta on this one, which is the most ‘western’ sounding cut on the LP, Mowgan’s deft touch taking us to the dance floor, while Chanana adds extra depth with his rapid-fire vocal refrain. The glorious ‘Tubani’ tells the story of Djene Tubani, a girl who thought she was a bird. She disobeys her parents and neglects her friends, but eventually learns the error of her ways. Fanta’s vocals are amplified by the voices of a group of schoolchildren, including her own daughter.

‘Mobaya’ is a reminder that we can possess wisdom and deep knowing, but we can also enjoy ourselves; dance, sing and party. This is a club-focused production with 4x4 beats and a traditional house feel, which provide a wonderful accompaniment to Fanta’s uplifting vocals. Next up is ‘Dakan’, a cut which is all about destiny: Everyone has been put on Earth for a reason and by working together we can all achieve our destiny. Layers of percussion skip over the warm low end, with a lively trumpet appearing in the second half.

‘Dounouya’ explores the notion that we live in a world where everyone faces negative criticism. Fanta encourages us to take responsibility and move forward no matter what others think of us with this inspiring guitar-led cut. ‘Djonya’ highlights the fact that slavery still exists in today’s world - modern slavery, hidden from public view but still very much alive. “Our Africa is going to be okay if we all hold hands, if we are all together, all united,” she says. Finally,‘Badeya’, a great outtro which focuses on unity. We are all one family on this planet and this song speaks of people coming together but also respecting ourselves above everything else. The pace is slow and the instrumentation perfectly balanced to allow Fanta’s vocals to flourish.

To accompany the 18 track, 2 x CD Planisphere – Atmospheres release, we’re delighted to present another duo of vinyl for the purists. Atmospheres 2 x 12” Vinyl Album Sampler will feature 5 remastered originals alongside the brand-new Atmospheres. George and Laurent continue to click in the studio, and as the excitement built over the last few months, we just knew they were going to create greatness once again.

Vinyl 1 will house the main track Atmospheres. Taking up Side A, this hybrid groove encapsulates that Planisphere sound beautifully. Theatrical, cinematic, melodic and intriguing. Ambient sequences join a tight breaks pattern before a more driving bassline takes over along with 4x4 beats, leaving us thoroughly gratified and wanting more. On the flip, we have two gems. B1 has So Many Ways, a track that found its way into sets from the bedroom to the mega-party and beyond. A real epic, progressive trance groove filled with swirling, captivating pads and a melody that juts melts into your soul. B2 hosts Lektrophony, a solid breaks track that locks you in with its hypnotic charm and 303 lines. A relentless groover, the breakbeats are so addictive and the acid lines give it a real nice touch. Another epic smasher that never disappoints.

Vinyl 2 features the mighty Deep Blue Dream on the A side. With its relentlessly powerful bassline and dreamy melodies, this one remains a go to track to keep the groove solid. Besides the epic flavour of the track, the break on this is huge. Descending into slow moving pads, the arps never really fades before it all builds and builds into a wonderful climax, revealing powerful, sweeping strings and pads. Over on the B1 slot we have Cyborganic which intros with a Pete Namlook-esque arpeggio sequence alongside a deep droning bass before punchy kicks and huge synths take over. A proper peak time slice full of energy and drive. Rounding up this must have vinyl set in the B2 position, we have the impressive The Lost Planet, which was originally found in a superb two-part release, Sounds From Outer Space back in 2000. This one has everything, a Balearic groove with a spacey vibe. Undertones of 303 lurk as sweet, dreamy pad melodies allow us to drift.

This 2-part sampler is a must have for all vinyl enthusiasts, with limited quantities, keep an eye out for pre-order on our website and socials.

Follow-up EP for Multi Culti from this Berlin duo merging sleek Krautrock influences, decades long production experience, jazz-percussion chops and funky German vocals.

‘Kometenschweif’ will sound the most familiar to fans of Sascha Funke’s club-ready tracks, with percussive and vocal flourishes from Niklas Wandt. ‘Kreidekreis’ takes the tempo down while ramping up the trippiness, a circular journey into funk bass, synth prog, and again, a percussion masterclass.

Finally, ‘Weg Vom Leder’ sounds like a lost Falco tune, brought up to date. On the remix side, Alexander Arpeggio somehow manages to swing ‘Kreidekreis’ into a digital reggae slowburner, while Whodamanny turns Kometenschweif toward indie-kraut-wave bop.

SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN are MONIKA KHOT (NORDRA, ZEN MOTHER), WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA (MAMIFFER), and AARON TURNER. (SUMAC, SPLIT CRANIUM).

Wildfires plagued Washington state during the summer of 2017, their smoke drifting westward toward the Seattle area and toxifying the air. Shortly before that trauma, MONIKA KHOT, WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA, and AARON TURNER had gathered at the latter two musicians' House Of Low Culture studio on idyllic Vashon Island with revered producer RANDALL DUNN. There they cut eight songs that capture the makeshift band's feelings of what COLOCCIA calls "a kind of doomsday lurking in the background." It's as if these highly attuned players had a premonition.

"Summer Of Seventeen" -which was edited and arranged by MONIKA KHOT, who records apocalyptic music solo as NORDRA and plays in the avant-rock band ZEN MOTHER—is a nuanced admixture of these musicians' sounds and a culmination of all of their previous collaborations. COLOCCIA and TURNER have created eldritch folk and chamber rock for over a decade in MAMIFFER while engaging in various solo and group projects that explore their profound spirituality in sound. MENCHE has been a fixture on the abstract composition scene for 31 years and COLLINS is a savvy explorer of drone and ambient forms. Their ephemeral summit meeting has yielded a masterwork for the ages.

A heaven/hell and beauty/beastliness dichotomy pervades the album—as if a titanic struggle was transpiring in that small studio. The fearsome trumpet fanfare that starts "Chorus Of The Innocents" heralds a baleful fate. With a subliminal industrial rhythm bristling beneath the eerie exhalations, the song submerges us in a slow-motion maelstrom, a horror-film facsimile of MILES DAVIS' "Bitches Brew". "Perceived Slight" threads death-metal screams through a stark, suspenseful atmosphere, with austere glints of guitar and beats like fists on a casket lid intensifying the dread.

Angelic chants and celestial drones perfume the air in several of the songs on "Summer Of Seventeen", countered with muted blast beats, serrated hums, jagged glitches, simulacra of grinding gears and lightning. It's as if no good deed goes unpunished. "Spirits Of Redeemer" could be an elegy for the human race while "Cultural Orphan" sounds like a symphony for a malfunctioning factory. The album ends with "Theatre Needs An Audience," a harrowing ballad somewhere between EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and MERZBOW; it's a savage rent in the space-time continuum.

"Thinking about this record now," COLOCCIA recalls, "it seems like we were all sort of anticipating something like this current pandemic happening, although we were thinking about it as fire in the hands of man (literal fire, and also gunfire) that would overturn the normal running of things and reveal the current false beliefs systems holding up most of America."

That grave aura infiltrates "Summer Of Seventeen", However, a hopefulness bubbles beneath the foreboding architecture of sound and noise summoned here. The bunker is the new penthouse.

-Dave Segal, April 2020

On December 26th, 2018, Emily Cross received an excited email from a friend: Brian Eno was talking about her band on BBC radio. “At first I didn’t think it was real,” she admits. But then she heard a recording: Eno was praising ‘Black Willow’ from Loma’s self-titled debut. He said he’d had it on repeat.
At the time, a second Loma album seemed unlikely. The band began as a serendipitous collaboration between Cross, the multi-talented musician and recording engineer Dan Duszynski and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg, who wanted to play a supporting role after years at the microphone. They’d capped a gruelling tour
with a standout performance on a packed beach at Sub Pop’s SPF 30 festival, in which Cross leapt into the crowd and then into the sea, while the band carried on from the stage - an emotional peak that also felt like a natural ending. “It was the biggest audience we’d ever had,” she says. “We thought, why not stop here?” Following the tour, Cross went to rural Mexico to work on visual art and a solo record, while Meiburg began a new Shearwater effort. But after a few months apart
(and Eno’s encouraging words), the trio changed their minds and reconvened at Duszynski’s home in rural Texas, where they began to develop songs that would become ‘Don’t Shy Away’. Loma writes by consensus and, though Cross is always the singer, she, Duszynski and Meiburg often trade instruments. Meiburg compares their process to using an Ouija Board and says the songs revealed themselves slowly, over many months. “Each of us is a very strong flavor,” he says, “but in Loma, nobody wears the crown, so we have to trust each other - and we end up in places none of us would have gone on our own. I think we all wanted to experience that again.” The album that emerged is gently spectacular - a vivid work whose light touch belies
its timely themes of solitude, impermanence and finding light in deep darkness. “Stuck / beneath / a rock,” Cross begins, as if noticing her predicament for the first time. Then she adds: “I begin to see / the beauty in it.” A series of guests contributed to the absorbing soundscapes of ‘Don’t Shy Away’, including touring members Emily Lee (piano, violin) and Matt Schuessler (bass), Flock of Dimes/Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and a surprisingly bass-heavy horn section.
And then there’s Brian Eno. Loma invited him to participate in the mantra-like ‘Homing’, which concludes the album and sent him stems to interact with in any way he liked. He never spoke directly with the band but his completed mix arrived via email late one night, without warning and they gathered to listen in the converted bedroom Duszynski uses as a control room. “I was a little worried,” says Cross.
“What if we didn’t like it?” But it was all they’d hoped for: minimal but enveloping, friendly but enigmatic, as much Loma as Eno - a perfect ending to an album about finding a new home inside an old one. “I am somewhere that you know,” Cross sings, above a chorus of her bandmates’ blended voices. “I am right behind your eyes.”
First LP pressing on dark green vinyl.

Having studied the complicated art of dreaming on Live At The Robert Johnson earlier this year, DC Salas returns with another remarkable clutch of cosmic excursions. Linking up with long-standing Parisian chic beat connaisseurs Slowciety, it's time for Salas to show us a little 'Exquisite Chaos'…
Presentation (long version)
The clue is in the title; 'Exquisite Chaos' is smooth, classy, hi-definition piece of intergalactic drama. Sweeping synths, rocket-fuelled kicks and a bassline that could circumnavigate the universe many times over without needing to refuel, it's a classic DC Salas trip, the likes of which we've soaked up on labels such as Correspondant, Nein, BPitch and beyond.

It's backed up by the poignantly titled 'Undivided'. A call for unity, it's rattled with acid and sinewy synth lines all thrusting upwards with the positivity we missed for so long this year. Finally 'Forgotten Memories' if a full-on march into a neon unknown. Complete with flying flurries of breakbeats and rasping acid missives, it wraps up Salas's chaos theory exquisitely…. And it's backed by a remix from Roman Flügel.

Ensuring the EP climaxes with a fitting bang Flügel divides 'Undivided' into three movements, each one more bulldozing than the last. Supercharged with venomous acid and neck-snap breakbeats, it's Flügel at his most chaotic. And Slowciety at their most exquisite. We wouldn't expect anything less from DC Salas.

Beyonce's sixth album Lemonade (when life serves you lemons, make lemonade) is an album that follows a clear story, the discovery of your partner cheating, the anger which is followed by her leaving him, reconciling, and ending with the beginning of a fresh start together. The music has a very Southern Blues feel to it overall (harking back to Beyonce's childhood and the roots of her parents), but also has a couple of the Beyonce-standard piano lead slower numbers, and a few feisty hip-hop leaning grooves that are a bit similar to the BEYONCE era tracks. Telling such a painful and personal story through the songs gives Beyonce's vocals amazing depth and power, from her vulnerability in Pray You Catch Me, the anger in Don't Hurt Yourself, defiance in Sorry, the sadness behind Sandcastles, acceptance in Freedom, to the hope tinged delivery of All Night - Lemonade delivers it all.

The hour-long film is composed of the music videos for every song strung together to form the visual story of the potential destruction of a relationship, the journey of emotions and self-discovery the wronged party goes through, and finding forgiveness. Beyonce did the 'visual' concept for the deluxe edition of B'Day and for BEYONCE, but Lemonade is heads and shoulders above them - the videos here aren't about Beyonce looking pretty, rather adding to the emotive tale of the songs.

- 12 TRACKS
- HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL
- FULL COLOR LABELS + PICTURE SLEEVE

The specially designed game and accompanying music video pertains to the overall theme of the EP, which shows an absurd society obsessed with social media descending into a dystopian world. It is a paranoid graphic vision, set in Brussels, Strapontin’s hometown, that puts you in control of a role playing game as you march round the city collecting social points with scant regard for others.

Besides being a dancer, performer and on-and-off “Madame pipi”, French-born, Brussels-based Strapontin is also a DJ and producer who mixes up slow and rough techno with thrilling soundtracks and groove driven disco. He has released on Nein and I’m Single amongst others and marks this 10th Hard Fist release in fine style.

Opening up the EP is ‘Nervous Days’, a gallivanting techno-disco groove with rugged loops and jumbled percussion that sounds like a rampage through a cityscape, as per the video. Then comes ‘But The Nice One!’, a stomping and rough and ready ride on lumpy drums and bass that is dark but playful. The quality continues on ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, with some brilliantly heavy and reverberating drums making you jerk your body while sci-fi effects float and drift about up top.

Blindetonation label regular and esteemed modern disco man Thomass Jackson remixes ‘But The Nice One!’ In his capable hands it becomes a melon twisting workout with spangled synth lines, psyched-out synths and percolating drums that are finished with a vulnerable and eerie vocal. Last of all is a Damon Jee remix of ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, His music can be heard on the underground’s most sought-after labels including Roam, Hafendisko, Suara and Sincopat to name just a few. His version is a more direct affair, with searching laser synths and a hypnotic space-techno vibe that carries you off to the stars at increasingly high speeds.

This is a fittingly brilliant EP from the vital Strapontin on ever-excellent Hard Fist.

When Yiğit Bülbül knocked on our door and put his debut album on the table, Fever took our hearts in a storm. The Turkish born, London based musician and producer knows how to craft his own contemporary avant-garde pop projections with a rich musical heritage shining through from the 1980s and 90s. His style erupts into silly, absurd moments of synth blurps, percussive extravaganza and psyched horns, It’s always colourful and trippy, but in a light way. It’s exactly what we want to release in a year of distress. The album is framed by two contemplative tracks, which are reminiscent of Holger Czukay’s oeuvre. The saxophone in the opening track "The Heath" undulates like an introvert leading voice in a meditation. The long and meticulously crafted ambient outro "Txalaparta" features a spoken word sample by the Basque folk musician Txomin Artola from 1978. The four tracks at the heart of the album are beat driven, percussion-heavy, loaded with synths and random horn samples. "Alo?" sounds like Snakefinger tries to get on a Skype call with Serge Gainsbourg. "Cacti All Over My Head" could well be a Ween instrumental with long arching synth lines over a slowed down bossa nova beat. Fever is a frivolous album which bursts with exalted charm and guest musicians. This is not another greetings-from-the-lockdown album, but with the obvious reference in the title it’s almost a tongue-in-cheek name about creative obsessions of our times. It's the debut album by the multi-instrumentalist Y Bülbül who has learned his trade working with various interesting artists and bands in London in the past 10 years. He is also a passionate crate digger and DJ. His own radio show is unerringly titled "Bülbül's Gemüsement Park", which airs on Netil Radio, a community broadcasting station in Hackney. Bonus fact, Bülbül is the Turkish name for a brown-eared passerine bird, one that's into singing.

Multi Natural is a new example of Christina’s organic chamber music. We enter nine composed chambers. Nine rooms to inhabit, constructed out of elements that are slowly fusing. The album is a string of semi constant metamorphosis. A gesture appears, is elaborated upon—or is halted and replaced by a new gesture. Multi Natural has multi focal points, quite dissimilar to Christina’s other works that tend to have a more linear path.

Within this album lives a composer who is not afraid to let the content take over. In this, obviously composed work, there is still a large space for all those sounds to act freely. It is almost like Christina is waiting for the music to compose itself. This technique speaks of respect and trust for the listener, since it gives thelistener freedom to personally connect the lines.

When you put the needle on this record, everything turns to stone. The music flows and nurtures. Sounds that come from various realities—molded into a mutual understanding. With each spin, new events catch the ears. Like looking at alandscape, perceiving new details close and far with every gaze.

When Christina warps both time and space for you, it comes to you as a gift.

Hell Yeah call upon their merry crew of grown up groove makers to revisit key tracks from Quiroga's widely acclaimed Passages album, with Whodamanny, Jazz N Palms, A Vision of Panorama and My Friend Dario all stepping up.

The original album was noted as Piccadilly Records' Best Balearic Album of 2019 and a year on is still providing solace for us in these strange times. First to add his own spin to it is Periodica associate Whodamanny from Naples, whose magical take on 'Martinica Feelings' made it onto the excellent recent Buena Onda compilation, which is out now. It is a big hearted vocal reinterpretation filled with stomping kicks and twisted synths that bring the funk next to withering sci-fi effects and happy piano chords.

Then, up steps man of the moment Jazz N Palms, a resident at the cult Ibiza venue Pikes and regular at London's Ronnie Scotts. He has recently started his own self titled label and here offers a mad Latin jazz take on 'Africa Addio' that brims with energy and sunshines. The busy percussion will make you move your ass and the whole thing has a sexy 70s vibe.

Saint Petersbourg's very own balearic legend A Vision of Panorama is hailed as the king of the modern balearic sound thanks to EPs on labels like Omena. He takes care of 'The Zoist' with sentimental melodies and sunset grooves to die for. His arching pads speak to the soul and melt the heart.

Last of all, Hell Yeah's very own discovery My Friend Dario (who soon has an EP coming on NuNorthern Soul, recently remixed Calm and Gallo) tackles 'Chiaia Sunset'. The result is a laidback and cathartic track that slowly unfolds on tumbling drums and wooden hits as synths leave vapour trails high up in the clear blue sky above.

These are four more high class remixes that will keep the summer vibes alive long into Autumn.

The much sought after debut album from Manchester's Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family is back by popular demand.

Includes the singles "The Mourners of St Paul's" and "The City Is At Standstill“

Pressed on 180g translucent blue vinyl.

Recently featured on Tim Burgess’s Twitter Listening Party

Released originally in 2006, Liam Frost is described by Guy Garvey as "the UK’s answer to Bright Eyes".

"Young, fun and riotously talented, Liam Frost And The Slowdown Family are a free-wheeling 21st century folk carnival" -- NME

East London record shop World of Echo debuts on the other side of the counter with a reissue of Two Wishes, the solitary 12" by Anglo-German collective, Mutabor!. Seemingly lost to time, Mutabor! were first brought to World of Echo's attention when drummer/singer, Gary Asquith, played at the shop's first birthday celebrations while promoting one of his other bands, Rema Rema. And so the story goes...

Mutabor! emerged wraith-like from the monochromatic grit of Berlin's art punk underground late in 1981 when Asquith left London to set up temporary residence in the city following a chance meeting with Malaria's Bettina Koster backstage at a Birthday Party gig at the Lyceum earlier that year. Beguiled by the possibilities of collaboration, musical and otherwise, he was soon to make his own contributions to what was an already fecund scene. Partnering with Koster, and Gudrun Gut and Manon Duursma also of Malaria!, Mutabor! were publicly birthed via an impromptu performance at punk rock polestar the Risiko. Asquith found himself playing percussion in what would be a first, while the rest of the band ossified in front of him in typically idealistic post-punk democracy. Little documentation of the performance survives beyond that which exists in the memories of those playing - that itself shaky enough - though there was clearly sufficient encouragement for them to commit to a recording session.

Later that winter, the four booked time at Music Lab, the studio operated by Harris Johns, for what would ultimately be their only studio visit. Two songs were laid to tape, and soon after a photoshoot was to take place at Koster's flat, resulting in a handful of images that, along with the music, comprise the sum total evidence of the band's existence. 1001 Nights and Treats both found their way to Peter Kent, a co-founder of 4AD who had recently left the label with the ambition of starting his own imprint. Entitled Two Wishes, the two track 12" was to be the first and only release on Loaded. It seems that Mutabor! were to represent a series of firsts and lasts, a trend that continues now as they open the World of Echo imprint.

It's fitting to think of Mutabor! in these prescient terms given how they sounded. Berlin at that time shared a spiritual axis with New York, the conceptual & aesthetic discordance of no wave and a nascent off-beat dance culture underpinning much of the respective creative activity. There are shared signifiers, but even in that context, Two Wishes sounds oddly out of step, moving to its own unusual rhythm. 1001 Nights stutters along on a tribal beat that seems to run independent of skronking sax, spidery guitar lines and deadpan vocal incantations, the ghosts of two songs meeting in some kind of incompatible voodoo union. On the reverse, Treats slows down and dims the lights further, as Asquith sardonically recites desirous threats as an increasingly malevolent sax and guitar grinds behind him. No surprise the darkness within the music given the parent bands and the backdrop of a crepuscular early 80s Berlin, though there remains a complex compositional element to these songs that suggests a broader spectrum of emotion - desire, romance, and ultimately, infinite possibility.

Recut and mastered, Two Wishes is now presented with the original front cover artwork alongside additional imagery, including a 16 page booklet, all culled from Asquith's own archive. A brief bolt of energy at a crucial juncture in music history, Mutabor!'s story is emblematic of the mutli-verse of post-punk and the creativity its ideology necessitated.

Claptrap label boss returns with a four-track release ‘Big Pharma’.
Following on from this years releases by Longhair and Dr Valentines Claptrap are back with Vanity Project’s new release ‘Big Pharma’. Vanity Project has been managing Claptrap with his partner in crime Dr Valentines since their first 12" release in 2017 and dropped his first full release, a self titled EP in 2018. Since then he’s been DJing & performing live shows around the UK and has most recently dropped the City Elastic EP on London’s Midnight People.
Big Pharma features four spaced out original house cuts ready for the dance floor. A1, 'Letters and Numbers’ opens the EP with a driving groove, tight drums and rubbery synths. A2 the title track ‘Big Pharma’ brings a hint of acid alongside a deeper thumping house groove. B1 Grow Slow, kicks off the second side with a mellow down tempo sizzler, prime for those outdoor coastal parties. The final track Index brings the EP to a close with swirling euphoric synth lines and a dance floor moving stomp.

Geistform, also known as Raffael Espinosa, is the producer behind Pi Electronics record number 10.

After almost three decades of music making, he delivers a 5 track-EP fusing influences from techno, electro and '90s IDM. Four of the tracks can be found in the vinyl edition, while the 5th is a Bandcamp digital exclusive. Listen now to Geistform's multifaceted characteristic production style: from breakbeat informed dark percussion and his unique 'radioactive' riffs, to his very own Detroit techno drive, dressed in rhythmic noise aesthetics. PI10.5 is a slower burner with emphasis in the chaos brought by its distorted baseline themes - to be found only on the Pi Electronics Bandcamp page.

Between Christmas 2000 and New Year 2001 producers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu recorded an album of warm, soft, delicately crackling electronic music in the space of that week. It was christened with the ambivalent title "Heroin" and was released on CD via the label Brombron in 2001 and later in 2003 re-issued on Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork on double-LP with remixes the pair had commissioned as expansions.

17 years later Heroin sees its first vinyl release to include all 13 tracks from the original CD track-list on this LP + 12“ set. The centerpiece "Herz" finally receives its long deserved vinyl treatment (side C, at 45rpm) and on the flip side Thomas Brinkmann contributes a mirror in a magnificent remix of that very piece on side D.

Ehlers and Mathieu were both highly prolific solo artists during the period 2000-2004, and in just two years after the initial release of "Heroin" each had produced over half a dozen new solo recordings: among them the serial masterpiece Ehlers' "Plays" (Cornelius Cardew, Hurbert Fichte, John Cassavetes, Albert Ayler, Robert Johnson) released as 5 stunning LPs in a series on Staubgold, while Mathieu's 'Full Swing Edits' spread over five 10" records plus his album 'FrequencyLib' on Mille Plateaux, 'Die Entdeckung des Wetters' on Lucky Kitchen and ‘The Sad Mac’ on Atsushi Sasaki’s Headz label were greeted to critical acclaim.

Both artists were expanding their conceptual sonic approaches in the glow of developing laptop technologies which would to these times in 2020 seem quite primitive, but these two in that period used the state-of-the-art to aid and abet their conceptual visions, while at times the duo used unorthodox experimentation - yet always had a distinctively melodic and musical form at its heart and soul.

Ehlers can be seen as a conceptualist, as a meta-musician who interrogates the mediums and methods of sound production - reflecting on the conditions and possibilities of improvisation (e.g. "Plays Albert Ayler") and exploits ideas of mutation and distortion of popular aesthetics played out within a ghostly form of divine pop beauty in his project März.

Mathieu, originally a drummer and co-founder of what has come to be known as the Berlin 'Echtzeitmusik' scene. His approach could be similarly described as working a critical analyst and researcher: Subtly and precisely working in the realm of processing as a method of intervening in melodious/harmonic analog sound sources.

Ehlers and Mathieu may not think too much about their singular productions and publications outcomes, but instead concentrate on the process and musical personality that characterizes their gesture- style itself stays in the background - and they usher a music from small minimal sound sources coaching a patient music of slow intervention - much like a refraction of light than a concrete painting or a blurred photograph - beatus accident.

And indeed, "Heroin" is an album that embraces the happy accident being made up of reduced, often very catchy and very direct micro hooks which seem laser-guided into a space accepting obvious melodic beauty in what feels like an observation of musics unfolding and revealing it's DNA, embed with for a kind of yearning for innocence and naiveté - as if Satie were on the jukebox in "The Crying of Lot 49". Not to say the music is "reduced", but rather: 'restricted' and born from acceptance of limitations, and the artists allowing the sounds to just "be.." with some incremental degrees of coercion.

The album not only sounds like that of 2 producers who are both dreamers and scientists, but that Ehlers and Mathieu chose to work with these means in a dialogue together to reduce pop music to its musical/tonal core, it is not Pop music anymore, rather a ghostly pointilistic itteration of song. "Heroin" is located at this transition, around that point at which tracks, that were or could have become pop compositions, irrevocably slip into a static harmonic nirvana. We are invited to follow the arch of Heroin in a slow-motion morphine musical haze.

Heroin sounded timeless when originally released and proof is that it remains so, one wishes that Ehlers and Mathieu would convene again for a week, a month or an entire year to continue this process of slow rumination, picking affectionately over the sounds they both love - and then maybe when everything is condensed, evaporated they would write more songs with those sonic refractive elements that remain.

Following up on their debut LP Kick Drunk Love for Marcel Vogel’s Intimate Friends imprint a few years back, we are proud to present the next installment in the sporadic KAMM legacy: Cookie Policies.

Far more sonically rich and musically adventurous than its predecessor, Cookie Policies sees the band make bold strides into new territories where classically hardwired categories such as jazz, indie rock, and electronica melt into one another with immaculate, timeless ease.

The band members’ positions are more clear cut as well this round, with Marc David Barrite (aka Dave Aju, who also did one of his coveted mix engineering jobs on the LP) on prominent lead vocals in many of the pieces, Alland Byallo on trumpet, Kenneth Scott on synth bass, and Marc Smith adding guitar sections while the others shared the arranging and programming duties. This makes for a deeper continuation of the otherworldly combination of their known individual production styles, as well as a musical whole truly greater than the sum of its parts.

The set starts off with “Bird Call”, whose opening ode to Morricone ok corral-meets-samurai showdown riffs flow into a loose and drifting psychedelic boom bap blip, building until a glorious change-up of key and energy brings the track to its peak and deconstructed back down. “Rachel, the Largest Bullfrog” then takes things in a sweeter, slightly more traditionally-structured direction where dusty indie-folk ballad vibes intersect with an array of twisted cosmic tones, bits of computer keyboard percussion, and deep rolling sub bass. “Buckle Down” then moves things back away from acoustic restraints into a beautiful synth-laden musing on potential regret, with an ultra-potent horn section from Byallo vs a nasty stacked Roland SH-101 finish.

“CCBPGC” cools things off for a few minutes with an ambient field recording slice-and-dice motif, which slowly but surely evolves into a slinking jazz noir groove from another dimension. The more traditional song structures return on the lovely “La Luna”, where Barrite’s pen and soulful voice take to nautical longing themes over apropos waves of sonic textures. The ebb and flow of the verse/chorus sections eventually rise and give way to an absolutely gorgeous denouement. “Shleem” then takes us into pure unadulterated soaring sci-fi soundtrack ambient blast-off bliss, while the epic closing track “The Soft Glow of Electric Sex” gives a hearty nod to early masters of sprawling psychedelic jam sessions, from Pink Floyd and Can to In A Silent Way-era Miles and Liquid Liquid, while bringing it clearly into futurist millennia. The gradual evolution of the piece into its grand finale is the stuff we true music-lovers live and die for. We hope you enjoy the ride as much as we do.

Gorillaz started the year with Episode 1 - ‘Momentary Bliss ft. slowthai and Slaves’ - of Song Machine, a whole new concept from one of the most innovative bands around. Now, six episodes in, Noodle, 2D, Murdoc and Russel have visited Morocco and Paris, London and Lake Como, as well as travelling all the way to the moon, and Gorillaz is ready to bring you the full collection titled Song Machine: Season One - Strange Timez, out on 23rd October 2020.

Song Machine is the ongoing and ever-evolving process which has seen Gorillaz joined by an expanding roster of collaborators captured live in Kong Studios and beyond. The result is an expansive collection of tracks embracing a myriad of sounds, styles, genres and attitudes from a breath-taking line-up of guest artists including Beck, Elton John, Fatoumata Diawara, Georgia, Kano, Leee John, Octavian, Peter Hook, Robert Smith, Roxani Arias, ScHoolboy Q, Slaves, Slowthai, St Vincent and 6LACK.
To date the project has seen over 100million streams on all tracks already and the band’s biggest period of sustained growth across both listenership and fanbase growth. All this before the album has even been announced!

Virtual band Gorillaz is singer 2D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, guitarist Noodle and drummer Russel Hobbs. Created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, their acclaimed eponymous debut album was released in 2001. The BRIT and Grammy Award winning band’s subsequent albums are Demon Days (2005), Plastic Beach (2010), The Fall (2011), Humanz (2017) and The Now Now (2018). A truly global phenomenon, Gorillaz have achieved success in entirely ground-breaking ways, touring the world from San Diego to Syria, winning numerous awards including the coveted Jim Henson Creativity Honor.

The band are recognised by The Guinness Book Of World Records as the planet’s Most Successful Virtual Act.

2 x 180g Black 12” vinyl
20 page hardcover 12” art book
Song Machine Season One Deluxe CD
Download card for the full deluxe album
3 x 12” art prints
1 x 12” label copy sheet











j 10. Désolé (feat. Fatoumata Diawara) Extended Version










j 10. Désolé (feat. Fatoumata Diawara) Extended Version

Five years after his critically acclaimed debut album Throwback, Glenn Astro returns with his deeply personal album Homespun.

Marking a change in course from his first release on Tartelet Records, Glenn Astro is set to showcase his sophomore album Homespun, a testament to a visionary artist who has come into his own. Made up of ten tracks spanning 45 minutes, the record twists and turns between electronic meditations, soulful vocals by Ajnascnet, and futuristic electro, carving out a world of spacey eclecticism that is as nostalgic as it is experimental.

“This album is in all facets different from the first one, which was a deliberate decision. No vintage sounds and references, no sampling, combined with futuristic sound design and song structures.I tried to keep it as current and intuitive as possible,” he says.

Known for his chunky beats and fuzzy textures, Glenn Astro has released on labels such as Ninja Tune and Apollo, leaving a distinctive signature on everything he touches.

But Glenn Astro has quietly been crafting a new sound for himself. Sometimes taking detours – morphing into his dark alter ego and experimenting with artist collaborations.

The sound of Homespun is a culmination of several years of reflection and artistic development – however, the album itself was produced in less than three months. “I set myself an ultimatum to finish the album within three months. If I didn’t make it, I’d
have to rethink my career path and keep music as a hobby, he says.

On the introspective first single and album title track “Homespun,” Ajnascent’s vocals lend a sincerity to the melancholic production. “It’s about the regret of not taking chances and giving in too much, but also about taking responsibility and being honest with yourself. Homespun is a nod to nostalgia and a desire for simplicity and prudence, being equally the culprit and the cure,” elaborates Ajnascent.

On “The Yancey,” an homage to J Dilla, Glenn Astro paints his vision of contemporary dance music with shimmering melodies, deep ambient soundscapes, and advanced drum programming. “Moreira” and “Look at You” feel like spaced-out electronic funk hybrids, while “Taking Care of Business” goes back to the future with Glenn Astro’s take on jungle. Other tracks such as “Mezzanine,” “Slow Poke Flange,” and “Viktor’s Meditation” provide the finest dubby electronics.

Daniel Bortz, a staple among electronic music producers, returns with his new album "Stay". After "Patchwork Memories" on Suol from 2013, it's the second album for Berlin-born and Augsburg-rooted Daniel. From his early days of James Blake editing and riding the slow house wave, Daniel has perfected and diversived his production skills over the seven year course between the albums. His range spans euphoric techno, cinematic breakbeats, heart warming electronica and classic deep house, you can witness on his eps for Innervisions, Pastamusik (the infamous Bella Avgvsta trilogy) or even on the legendary DJ Kicks mix series from grandmaster Moodymann, who selected one of Bortz's tracks on his volume. After his three eps (one with his friend and long time collaborator Sascha Sibler and one under his DJ Hotel alias) on Permanent Vacation, Daniel takes the consequential step and releases his second full-length album with the Munich based label. With the 11 tracks on "Stay", Daniel Bortz evokes his teenage years and dreamwalks through his upbringing during the 90's. Musically he brings together what never should have been separated: House, Acid, Downbeat and Breakbeat all rooted in the sample aesthetic of Hip Hop, thereby capturing the full emotional spectrum of life and love. Music that came to stay.

Tumultuous beats immersed with obscure ritualistic soundscapes. ‘Descending Void’ is a 5-track EP on Voidance Records (Berlin), marking the versatile character of Llimbs’ project. The opening tracks, ‘Oblivion’ and ‘Mass’, boldly pronounce Llimbs’ more abrasive aspect, carved through rhythmic broken beats, ominous chanting and sharp industrial textures. The following three tracks have a more experimental approach, with Side B composed of noisy ambiences and slow heavy rhythms. Voidance Records will be releasing a set of marbled vinyls and an exclusive bonus track for the first 100 limited edition copies of this release.