Suche:sole

Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.

All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.

At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.

There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.

The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.

The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?

This Project is really a two in one offering. Combining the three tracks from Ringer’s 2021 release, the “Meta Music EP” and his darker more aggressive moniker, Black Sued’s offering the “Rogue EP”. The EP is sort of a yin and yang. Monotone is a deep chordal track with uplifting vocals and a pulsing almost distorted bassline. This track is complimented with minimal drums and a simple yet beautiful synth riffs that bring it all together. New Plan is a fast paced cut that insights the listener to move. The drums and chords wrestle in a rhythmic dance while Ringer’s voice projects the essence of this side of the 12”. Positivity and persistence, the energy is alive in this track. YIA, an acronym that stands for Yes I Am, is meditative and filled with affirmations for the listener. Deep solemn chords, and the sounds of a thunder storm take the listener into a inner place of self reflection. The affirmations are for the listener to embody, a solid thought provoking end to this side of the 12”.

Rogue, the title track of this side of the record, is an intelligent, dark and jazz filled groove, that takes the listener on a journey. The groove is easy to catch, and wraps the listener into an almost mysterious landscape of rhythm and melody. Keeping the tone of this side of the 12” is Maze. The chords and rhythm walk in tandem to a beat that almost favors a marching band. A higher energy feel arrives as the 16th high hats meet a long defining chord that take this track to the next level. Deep Dirt reminds me of a drum machine tweaking or malfunctioning. The ominous chords paired with the distorted synth and bass lines that carry the listener through the filth that is this track.

The strength of Fan Club Orchestra's (FCO) trajectory lies in their nebulous, collaborative, and experimental nature, always with Laurent Baudoux at the centre. With its roots in the DIY impulses of the Brussels art and music scene of the late nineties, Baudoux rallied together a revolving cast of players with an unconventional ensemble of instruments to explore melancholic psychedelia that touched on drone and minimalism as readily as it carved minor pop hits from cracked electronics. Performances were often highly improvisational, aided by the barely controlled chaos that guest collaborators—such as American artist Mike Kelley—would inject into an appearance.

FCO self-released two albums in the early 2000s before finding a home with Sonig, where they released several more records up until their last with the label in 2013. This was a fitting frame as Sonig, like FCO, channelled the fervour and formalism of the experimental music history of the Rhineland, which includes Kraftwerk, krautrock, and key early electronic music studios.

Following an eleven year hiatus, Laurent Baudoux reassembled the group in 2024 and presented a new album with the esteemed Glaswegian label 12th Isle late in that same year. Building on the strength of the new iteration, and with the aim of reappraising some of the rich yet oblique history of the group through this new lens, FCO have remastered and reissued their 2013 album, 'An Insane Portrait'.

The recordings were originally commissioned in 2009 for Fabrizio Terranova's film 'Josée Andrei, An Insane Portrait' about the truly remarkable figure Josée Andrei. Shot in San Francisco, the film is an intimate portrait of Andre. Blind from birth, she is a witch, painter, photographer, tarot reader, and psychology and modern literature graduate.

'An Insane Portrait' captures a stripped-back FCO, with Baudoux working solely with original FCO member Ann Appermans. The configuration of Baudoux's electronics and Appermans' bass guitar yield a tender and preciously melodic suite of instrumentals.

Originally released on vinyl by Sonig in 2013, the remaster will again be presented by the label in a limited cassette edition and in digital formats, each featuring a bonus track that was not included in its original release.

The strength of Fan Club Orchestra's (FCO) trajectory lies in their nebulous, collaborative, and experimental nature, always with Laurent Baudoux at the centre. With its roots in the DIY impulses of the Brussels art and music scene of the late nineties, Baudoux rallied together a revolving cast of players with an unconventional ensemble of instruments to explore melancholic psychedelia that touched on drone and minimalism as readily as it carved minor pop hits from cracked electronics. Performances were often highly improvisational, aided by the barely controlled chaos that guest collaborators—such as American artist Mike Kelley—would inject into an appearance.

FCO self-released two albums in the early 2000s before finding a home with Sonig, where they released several more records up until their last with the label in 2013. This was a fitting frame as Sonig, like FCO, channelled the fervour and formalism of the experimental music history of the Rhineland, which includes Kraftwerk, krautrock, and key early electronic music studios.

Following an eleven year hiatus, Laurent Baudoux reassembled the group in 2024 and presented a new album with the esteemed Glaswegian label 12th Isle late in that same year. Building on the strength of the new iteration, and with the aim of reappraising some of the rich yet oblique history of the group through this new lens, FCO have remastered and reissued their 2013 album, 'An Insane Portrait'.

The recordings were originally commissioned in 2009 for Fabrizio Terranova's film 'Josée Andrei, An Insane Portrait' about the truly remarkable figure Josée Andrei. Shot in San Francisco, the film is an intimate portrait of Andre. Blind from birth, she is a witch, painter, photographer, tarot reader, and psychology and modern literature graduate.

'An Insane Portrait' captures a stripped-back FCO, with Baudoux working solely with original FCO member Ann Appermans. The configuration of Baudoux's electronics and Appermans' bass guitar yield a tender and preciously melodic suite of instrumentals.

Originally released on vinyl by Sonig in 2013, the remaster will again be presented by the label in a limited cassette edition and in digital formats, each featuring a bonus track that was not included in its original release.

Once again, Riba left everyone bewildered with a work that, on its own, gave early substance to what would eventually be known as roc català, of which Riba may well have been its most authentic representative. The album was recorded in the winter of 1975 with the help of the same group of musicians who had accompanied him a few months earlier at a concert at Zeleste to debut new songs: a mix of Valencian musicians from bands like Paranoia Dea and guitarist Eduardo Bort's group. "Electròccid àccid alquimístic xoc" marks a shift in Pau Riba's sound-now electrified and fully embracing rock with nods to Lou Reed, Ray Davies, and Kevin Ayers, but the core of "Electròccid_" is defined by Riba's own authorship. With lyrics that veer from poetic to absurdly ironic, Riba explores themes like the moon, the stars, death, love, women, the devil, and the bourgeoisie-fueling the originality that made him such a unique artist. It's striking how naturally and effortlessly Riba incorporated the Catalan language into the rock idiom-and vice versa. First vinyl reissue in over four decades!

Enjoy The Ride Records, in partnership with New Cannibal Society, proudly presents the 2xLP Expanded Deluxe Vinyl release to the Cult-Classic Horror/Comedy Cannibal! The Musical, directed by Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park and The Book of Mormon. Cannibal! The Musical is the true story of the only person convicted of cannibalism in America - Alferd Packer. The sole survivor of an ill-fated trip to the Colorado Territory, he tells his side of the harrowing tale to news reporter Polly Prye as he awaits his execution.

While searching for gold and love in the Colorado Territory, he and his companions lost their way and resorted to unthinkable horrors, including toe-tapping songs! Packer and his five wacky mining buddies sing and dance their way into your heart... and then take a bite out of it! Cannibal! The Musical is Oklahoma meets Friday The 13th Part 2. The film stars Trey Parker (South Park), Matt Stone (South Park), Dian Bachar (Baseketball, Orgazmo), Jason McHugh (Orgazmo) and Toddy Walters (Orgazmo).

For this newly expanded release, the stereo, music, and effects tracks were pulled from the digibeta tapes (thought to be lost) and have been remixed from scratch. This soundtrack also features complete dialogue scenes that lead into songs. What you'll hear is the best quality this soundtrack has ever heard! Cannibal! The Musical is housed in a gatefold jacket with brand-new art by Garreth Gibson. It is pressed on 2xLP vinyl for the first time and features 22 additional tracks available on the format for the first time, including instrumentals, dialogue, and score music. Pressed across four colorful variants, Side B also features a pop-up center label. What a Shpadoinkle day!

Named after a (US) West Coast grocery store chain, The Whitefronts started out in 1982 as a quartet of art and theater students attending UCSB. The band quickly mutated into a sextet. In 1984, they moved north to establish themselves as part of the SF DIY culture. Live shows usually consisted of open jams drawing from what the band was obsessing about at the time—free jazz, The Velvet Underground, Caribbean music, improv noise—as well as their own unheralded genres that popped in and out of existence like subatomic particles. Shows with local bands like Slovenly, Camper Van Beethoven, Caroliner Rainbow, Vomit Launch, Barnacle Choir and Barbara Manning provide some context as to their eccentric position within the indie scene of the era.

In 1985, the band released their sole LP, Roast Belief, on their own Bogden label. This was an ambitious attempt to document the various ideas that were happening live. Though practically unknown today, it’s an extraordinary record—a mid-80s classic serving up eclectic derangement on a par with contemporaries like the Butthole Surfers, Meat Puppets, Sun City Girls, Tuxedomoon and Eugene Chadbourne.
The Mamo Waves LP was compiled from recordings made between 1982-1987. As with Roast Belief LP, it’s a mind-melting jumble of the genres explored by Whitefronts throughout their existence. It was originally supposed to be released by Camper Van’s Pitch-A-Tent imprint, as a couple of WF members were touring with CBV in 1987, but the release fell through the cracks when CBV was airlifted to Virgin Records in 1988. Today, it’s clear that Mamo Waves belongs to the same 1980s Californian sub-underground aesthetic that nurtured mythical 80s bands like Departmentstore Santas and Prominent Disturbance. It’s a real WTF m.o. that still sounds like the future.

Green vinyl, limited to 500 copies. Helheim, one of the founding pioneers of the Norwegian viking metal genre, are ready to release their 12th studio album "HrabnaR / Ad vesa". On this record, Helheim has made a split album with themselves. For the first time, the main songwriters V'gandr and H'grimnir have divided the album in two, where they solely take care of the vocals on the part they represent musically. This has resulted in two very different expressions - not uncommon for this band, but never as clearly as here. The first half, "Hrabnar", contains four stand-alone songs written by H'grimnir. The second part, "Ad vesa", is about the four components in Norse mythology that we know collectively as the human soul. In pre-Christian Norway, the concept of the soul was not a singular, unified entity, but a composite of many elements, of which the four key components were Fylgja, Hamr, Hugr, and Hamingja. Founded in 1992, Helheim are known and renowned all over the world for their authenticity and integrity when it comes to portraying their Norse heritage. Constantly growing and evolving, and staying clear of musical trends and fads, they've carved their own way for more than 30 years. This split album is no exception. Recorded in Duper and Solslottet Studio in 2024/2025, the album was engineered, produced, mixed and mastered by Iver Sandoy.

Few lovers stay together for life-and beyond. Just as rare are the artists who manage to keep alive the burning flame of their creative desire. Areski Belkacem is one of those who nurtures in his heart a fire that never dies out, a passion that burns just as intensely for music as it does for his beloved. As long as the message eventually reaches its intended recipient, he cares little for how long the journey takes. His new album, Long courrier, is proof of this: twelve unreleased songs that flow like a love letter set to music. In nearly 60 years of career, Areski Belkacem has released only three solo albums-intimate and deeply personal works that feel like whispered confidences to a loved one. In an era where commercial demands shape much of music production, these records exist solely to fulfill his need for expression. The late music lover and producer Jean-Philippe Allard once said, "Areski goes against the tide-he always seems to enjoy taking forbidden paths!" In Long courrier, Areski tenderly expresses love for his homeland and his beloved. He believes in the power of sensuality, the sacredness of pleasure, and the hidden beauty in every person despite life's hardships. He shows a fraternal gaze toward outsiders and sings of inner journeys, doubt, vows, eternal bonds-with a voice as warm and bright as a loving smile. He honors the mystery of the union between music and the French language. Blending his familiar chaabi rhythms and guitar with piano, accordion, bass, and electric guitar, he plays alongside the same musicians who have accompanied him for over two decades on stage-supporting the woman he shares both stage and life with: the incomparable Brigitte Fontaine.

Khadim is a stunning reconfiguration of the Ndagga Rhythm Force sound. The instrumentation is radically pared down. The guitar is gone; the concatenation of sabars; the drum-kit. Each of the four tracks hones in on just one or two drummers; otherwise the sole recorded element is the singing; everything else is programmed. Synths are dialogically locked into the drumming. Tellingly, Ernestus has reached for his beloved Prophet-5, a signature go-to since Basic Channel days, thirty years ago. Texturally, the sound is more dubwise; prickling with effects. There is a new spaciousness, announced at the start by the ambient sounds of Dakar street-life. At the microphone, Mbene Diatta Seck revels in this new openness: mbalax diva, she feelingly turns each of the four songs into a discrete dramatic episode, using different sets of rhetorical techniques. The music throughout is taut, grooving, complex, like before; but more volatile, intuitive and reaching, with turbulent emotional and spiritual expressivity.

Not that Khadim represents any kind of break. Its transformativeness is rooted in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours the Rhythm Force has played together. Nearly a decade has passed since Yermande, the unit's previous album. Every year throughout that period — barring lockdowns — the group has toured extensively, in Europe, the US, and Japan. With improvisation at the core of its music-making, each performance has been evolutionary, as it turns out heading towards Khadim. “I didn’t want to simply continue with the same formula," says Ernestus. “I preferred to wait for a new approach. Playing live so many times, I wanted to capture some of the energy and freedom of those performances.” Though several members of the touring ensemble sit out this recording — sabar drummers, kit-drummer, synth-player — their presence abides in the structure and swing of the music here.

Lamp Fall is a homage to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of the Baye Fall spiritual community. The mosque in the city of Touba is known as Lamp Fall, because the main tower resembles a lantern. Soy duggu Touba, moom guey séen / When you enter Touba, he is the one who greets you. After a swift, incantatory start Mbene sings with reflective seriousness. Her voice swirls with reverb, over a tight, funky, propulsive interplay between synth and drums, threaded with one-two jabs of bass. Cheikh Ibra Fall mi may way, mo diayndiou ré, la mu jëndé ko taalibe... Cheikh Ibra Fall amo morome, aboridial / Cheikh Ibra Fall shows the way forward, he gives us strength, he gathers his disciples... Overflowing with grace, Cheikh Ibra Fall has no equal.

Interwoven with Wolof proverbs, Dieuw Bakhul is a recriminatory song about treachery, lies, and back-biting. Over moody, roiling synths and ominous, lean bass, Mbene throws out fluttering scraps of vocal, as if re-running old conversations in her head. The music shadows her despair to the verge of breakdown, at one moment seemingly so lost in thought and memories, that it threatens to disintegrate. Bayilene di wor seen xarit ak seen an da ndo... Dieuw bakhul, dieuw ñaw na / Stop judging your friends and companions... A lie is no good, a lie is ugly.

Khadim is a show-stopper; currently the centrepiece of Ndagga Rhythm Force live performances. The song is dedicated to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, aka Khadim, founder of the Mouride Sufi order. Serigne Bamba mi may wayeu / Serigne Bamba is the one who makes me sing. The verses name-check revered members of his family and brotherhood, like Sokhna Diarra, Mame Thierno, and Serigne Bara. Though Islam has been practised in Senegal for a millennium, it wasn’t until the start of the twentieth century that it began to thoroughly permeate ordinary Senegalese society, hand-in-hand with anti-colonialism. The verses here recall Bamba’s banishment by the French to Gabon, and later to Mauritania, in those foundational times. During exile, his captors once introduced a lion to his cell: gaïnde gua waf, dieba lu ci Cheikhoul Khadim / the lion doesn’t budge, it gives itself over to Cheikh Khadim. Deep, surging bass, steady kick-drum, and simple, reverbed chords on the off-beat lend the feel and impetus of steppers reggae. A reed plays snatches of a traditional Baye Fall melody; the dazzling polyrhythmic drumming is by Serigne Mamoune Seck. Mbene compellingly blends percussive vocalese, narrative suspense, exultant praise, introspection, and grievance.

Nimzat is a devotional tribute to Cheikh Sadbou, a contemporary of Bamba, buried in a mausoleum in Nizmat, in southern Mauritania. Way nala, kagne nala... souma danana fata dale / I call upon you and wonder about you... If I am overwhelmed, come to my aid. The town holds special significance for Khadr Sufism. An annual pilgrimage there is conducted to this day. The rhythm is buoyantly funky; the mood is sombre, reined-in, foreboding. Punctuated by peals of thunder, Mbene sings with restrained, intense reverence; huskily confidential, steadfast. Nanu dem ba Nimzat, dé ba sali khina / Let us go to Nimzat, to seal our devotion.

Mbene Diatta Seck: vocals.
Bada Seck: bougarabou, thiol, mbeung mbeung bal, tungune.
Serigne Mamoune Seck: bougarabou, khine, mbeung mbeung, tungune.
Text by Mark Ainley (Honest Jons).
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Everything else by Mark Ernestus.

Wh0 arrives on Rekids with ‘Girls & Boys’. The Grammy-nominated producer’s next single comes with a remix from Catz ‘n Dogz.

Wh0 lands on Radio Slave’s Rekids with new single, 'Girls & Boys', out 13th June 2025. A full-throttle piano jam, the track distils a range of House styles into one expressive, infectious, modern-day classic. Powered by a raw, rolling bassline and loopy chords, it brings unrelenting energy built to raise hands in the air all summer long.

Polish duo Catz ‘n Dogz step up on remix duties with a chunky dub mix. Stripping things back, they reimagine the original into a thudding Techno cut, complete with eerie vocal chops and a deliciously deep, driving groove.

Formerly a member of legendary House duo The Rhythm Masters, Wh0 has since made his mark as a solo act with sold-out shows at places like Printworks, XOYO and Fabric. The Wh0 Plays and Wh0 Worx label boss boasts production credits for artists like Ten City, Royksopp and Idris Elba and collaborations with the likes of David Penn, David Morales and Nile Rodgers, with his work often topping digital charts and his Spotify clocking up more than a million streams a month.
Radio Slave’s Rekids was founded in 2006 and has since spawned successful off shoots with the Techno-focused Rekids Special Projects in 2017 and its newest sublabel, REK’D, in 2024. With Matt Edwards as the sole A&R, Rekids has been crucial in developing early artist careers and has become a haven for established acts operating in House and adjacent genres, having recently featured the likes of Harry Romero, Tal Fussman, Spencer Parker, The Hacker, and many more.

Bergen-born Bare Folk's songs belong to the ballad genre, with clear elements of jazz and folk music. With harmonious, original melodies, the mood ranges from the melancholic to the life-affirming. Inspired by the greats of Norwegian ballad music, Bare Folk vitalizes the connection between poetry and music. Bergen's very own folk jazz song band Bare Folk has already been critically acclaimed and established as something unique on the music scene in the city between the mountains. Nevertheless, Bare Folk plays songs that songs should sound well-known but fresh, wistful but hopeful, humorous but serious. Their debut album is called "Noe Tror Jeg & Noe Vet Jeg" (Some things I think & some things I know). No surefire title, but it is sure that it contains something for every taste. Here you will find everything from socially critical satire to traditional harp songs to love songs - and everything in-between in beautiful harmony.

Brand new studio album from BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winning singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Sam Kelly - His second album for Navigator, the first, the hugely acclaimed 'Pretty Peggy' (with The Lost Boys) in 2017 - available on CD & Ltd Edition Vinyl.

'Dreamers Dawn' features Sam's signature eclectic arrangements of traditional folk songs, seamlessly interspersed with stunning original music from the pen of Sam and his Lost Boys band collaborator and banjo virtuoso, Jamie Francis. The album takes the listener on an eclectic journey, all the way from fantastical moonlit adventures of privateering and poaching, to introspective reflection & solemnity, as centuries old folk songs sit alongside modern themes of mental health and exploration of the inner self.

Sam and Jamie have gained a reputation as one of the most innovative and important partnerships to come out of the UK folk scene in recent years, and 'Dreamers Dawn' is a suitably groundbreaking addition to their impressive portfolio.

Crafted entirely on an analog monophonic synthesizer with no overdubs, Pièces Monophoniques is a tribute to simplicity in an era of limitless digital possibilities. Since his debut album, Music For Prophet (Les Disques du Festival Permanent, 2017), Majorca-born composer Marc Melià, now a long-time resident of Brussels, has been redefining the contours of electronic music through a minimalist, reductionist approach. Much like a solitary hike through the vastness of mountains, where one carries only the essentials, Melià’s work invites listeners on a journey stripped of excess, focusing instead on the purity of sound and intention.
While some have dismissed monophonic music as overly simplistic, others have embraced its distinct charm. Historical records, such as those by Johannes Quasten, reveal that early Church leaders were drawn to monophonic music because it resonated with the era's cosmological beliefs, highlighting the harmony and unity of all creation. In an age of digital abundance, Marc Melià deliberately embraces constraint, crafting an album that thrives within a limited palette of choices. Yet, from these self-imposed boundaries emerges a stunning universe, brimming with rich textures and elegant harmonies. For his debut album, Melià worked exclusively with a Sequential Prophet. With Pièces Monophoniques, his third LP, he returns armed solely with an analog monophonic synthesizer and handcrafted MIDI sequences etched directly onto a single stereo track. These recordings seek to uncover beauty within the boundaries of limitations and simplicity, rejecting any embellishments that are not essential. Melià presents the bare skeleton of music, highlighting the power of absence and silence as creative forces. Like the hidden mass of an iceberg, what is not heard becomes as significant as what is heard.
The album navigates the boundary where the quest for an uninhibited emotional response intersects with the mechanical sounds generated by synthesizer circuitry. Despite being a collection of beatless tracks, a pulse occasionally surfaces, like in the closing piece, "224 Steps. A sharp sequence blended with multiple delays and reverbs creates the vaporous celestial specter of multiple voices in "Illusions of Polyphony", while "Échoes et Fantasies" conjures the illusion of dual harmony. The expansive reverbs and silences between the euphoric synth phrases in "Overture" transport us to an imaginary magestic landscape shaped out of an electric field. "Resonances," a one-note drone-like sequence, embodies the album's aims as a series of resonances created with the synth filter emerge from the fundamental note.
"Pièces Monophoniques," aims to contribute to a tradition that dates back to the dawn of humanity. After all, there is no denying that the earliest music crafted by humanity was monophonic, from the soothing lullabies sung to newborns to Gregorian chants, traditional labor songs, and the repertoire of solo compositions by countless composers.

A cult album by Belgian songwriter and producer Benjamin Schoos, aka Miam Monster Miam, Soleil Noir (2005) celebrates its 20th anniversary with an exclusive vinyl reissue.A haunting album at the crossroads of British folk, cinematic blues, and introspective French chanson. Evoking Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Léo Ferré, and Ry Cooder, it unfolds a melancholic poetry elevated by the words of filmmaker Olivier Smolders and lush orchestrations, featuring the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra and the intricate fingerpicking guitar work of Jacques Stotzem.A nocturnal and spellbinding record, where narrative tension and raw emotion intertwine.

65 years ago, on October 17th, 1959, Cliff Richard and The Shadows hit the No. 1 spot in the UK with ‘Travellin’ Light’. This was the first single credited to Cliff Richard and The Shadows – re-named from their original title - The Drifters.
This notable anniversary will be marked with a brand-new collection which focuses, for the first time, solely on Cliff’s output with The Shadows (or The Drifters for pre-October ’59 releases). All their classic hits are included going right the way up to their 2009 reunion; making it the most comprehensive Cliff Richard & Shadows collection to date.

The Ottawa composer/performer and head of Black Bough Records plays every instrument on his CST debut: an accessibly avant-garde work of dark/ambient modern chamber music. Mark Molnar has been a linchpin of the Ottawa experimental music scene for over two decades, spanning contemporary classical, electroacoustic, industrial/noise, and improv. As a string player in a wide range of projects, an organizer and curator of innumerable shows, and via his own avantgarde label Black Bough Records, Molnar's unflagging contributions to independent music culture in Canada's capital city have been significant. EXO is his Constellation debut: a remarkable and bracing suite of post-classical composition on which Molnar plays every instrument. Meticulously self-recorded, primarily with strings, harp, and piano, EXO balances thematic melodicism, polytonality, and dissonance across three elegiac pieces of exquisitely expressive dynamism. This is exacting modern chamber music that blends formal and harmonic complexity with a solemn emotive sensibility accessible to a broad audience. Listeners that yearn for some edge and disquietude in a landscape of often all-too-approachable post-classical music should find EXO eminently worth their time and attention. While Molnar is a highly trained string player, and studied music under Aubrey Wolfe, microtonality with James Tenney, and composition with R. Murray Schafer, his trajectory has been entirely and intentionally outside the academy, signalling a socio-artistic commitment to DIY culture, forged from an early passion for the sonic worlds of post-hardcore, post-punk, no-wave, free improv, power electronics, and other independent/underground musics. His classically-informed works have been described as "tense currents of musical modernism invigorated with punk's raw vitality." EXO carries an undercurrent influenced by dark industrial and ambient metal in particular, with microphones purposely placed to pick up the low-end frequencies of the piano body, and of a bass drum positioned as a resonant skin in the acoustic space; an electroacoustic strategy organically meshed to the crisply defined and pristinely recorded pointillisms and polychords of strings, harp, and piano, which feed into this noisefloor of crepuscular sub-bass disquietude and decay. It's a production aesthetic that lends EXO a distinct undertow of tension and feeling, a sort of roiling maximalism where the chamber instrumentation traces arcs and waves of form and flow as if drawn from a dark, impervious ocean below. It also reinforces the profound hermeticism of Molnar's process, as a forbiddingly solitary creative act of immersion and navigation. The album artwork, featuring semiabstract stills of the sea by British photographer Ed Allen, further reifies this metaphor. The album's opening piece 'Sub Luna' (and its shortest at 8 minutes) showcases Molnar's adeptness at naturalistic and flowing complexity: tight cascades of climbing and descending chordal clusters hold their polytonal densities for various durations, yielding to more clarified harmonic suspensions and motifs, as melodic themes led primarily by violins in the higher registers provide a fractured lyricism. Molnar says: "the opening and closing figures of this piece act as opposing shorelines; the shorelines provide a reliable expression of range and key signature, and the tides come in and swallow them up, the motion of a body that addresses the relationship between states of lucidity and melodic figures." On 'Terre Sacer' everything happens in soupier waters, as a slow and doleful theme, anchored by grinding bass notes, circles in a gyre of dark resonances, until glistening strings gradually ascend to enrobe a plaintive and gently harrowing single-voiced ostinato over the composition's final third. Molnar's drone, ambient, minimalist, and goth-industrial influences are on display here. Side Two of EXO features the 18-minute multi-movement 'pallida Mors' (pale death): a waterfall of heterophony introduces dense chordal movements where strings are recorded and mixed to evoke pipe organ, in the album's most overtly dissonant and (anti)liturgical sequence. This gives way to ever more open and fragile spaces, before a resurgence of dark clusters and noise treatments introduces a final repeating piano coda, shrouded in devastated bass resonance, settling into what Molnar calls "a meditative hollow." Constellation is honoured to release this work by Mark Molnar, a longtime fellow-traveler whose selfless and boundlessly generous activities as an independent arts enabler sometimes obscure his own accomplished and uncompromising artistry. We trust EXO can help shed some much deserved light on this fine composer. Thanks for listening.

Pierre Bastien and Michel Banabila return with Nuits Sans Nuit, their second collaboration following their Baba Soirée debut from 2023. Recorded as an intuitive exchange between Rotterdam and Valencia, the album emerged from a simple ping-pong process: Banabila sculpted sounds and atmospheres, to which Bastien responded with his distinctive instrumental palette: flute-augmented cornet, mechanised log drum, and more. Mixed by Banabila, the result is a raw yet immersive work that resonates with a somnambulant, wide-awake presence. Nuits Sans Nuit unfolds through shifting shades of melancholy. "I don"t know how to describe the feeling of these crazy times we live in," says Banabila. "Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus beaux," Bastien quotes De Musset. Wordless yet deeply expressive, the album invites listeners into a space of contemplation, where meaning emerges through immersion - like ritual music carrying an unspoken message. Echoes of saudade, blues, fado, and soleá surface in the duo"s playful noise, reimagined through their singular vocabulary.

Corrosiv, the sophomore album from Orchestroll, reveals the duo at their most mature and vulnerable. Originally conceived as a reflection on hybridity and bastardization, the album deploys New Age and ambient compositional tropes as a launchpad, exposing their trite sanctity to the realities of corrosion. Having come of age in the 1970s and 1980s, the New Age movement perdures today as a domain of contradictions; its promise of transcendence riddled with the very commercialized dogma from which its adherents claim to flee. Healing modalities such as reiki, crystal therapy, and sound baths are simultaneously pathways to solace and sites of exploitation; their sonic counterparts—ethereal synth pads, shimmering textures, celestial drones—claim to facilitate meditation and enlightenment while devolving into empty signifiers of vitality. With Corrosiv, Orchestroll displays neither reverence nor disdain toward New Age: they exhume it instead, revealing the saccharine effervescence and commodified murk undergirding its aesthetics. The result is intoxicating—disquieting.

Born from a two-week residency at EMS Studios and expanded through a performance at MUTEK Montreal’s 25th anniversary, Corrosiv has since outgrown its original conceptual nucleus, taking on a broader scope. Its inquiry into New Age ideology’s voided rhetoric and aesthetic mysticism now informs a broader interrogation of cultural mediocrity, anti-authoritarianism, gatekeeping, music industry toxicity, and the crumbling edifice of late capitalism and techno-feudalism—all the mechanisms by which meaning is stripped from ceremony, and once-potent forms of knowledge are subsumed into the machinery of economic extraction, severed from their original essence, and transformed into hollow simulacra. Corrosiv distills these themes through a loose narrative: a soul, fixated on wellness as dictated by cosmetic economism, becomes ensnared in an endless afterlife, unable to transcend and shed its dilapidated consciousness.

Framed as an act of audio dissolution, the album thus engages in an alchemical process, whereby complex waveshaping, morphing synthesis, and distortion enact a ritual of fragmentation. There is also friction: between the rigid, mechanical imposition of systematized order and the untamed, chaotic force of organic metamorphosis. Here corrosion and confinement are not solely conceptual motifs; they are enacted in real time, sculpting the album’s terrain. Scraping, tarnishing, degradation—the languid wear of form and substance—become instruments in their own right: buffing as abrasion, entrapment as transformation, corrosion as a means of reconfiguration. The ‘protagonist,’ if there must be one, is the listener, caught within the throes of structural determinism and the potential for emancipation, unable to pass into something greater as the specters of collapsed futures accumulate in the margins.

Corrosiv extends its reach through collaborations with familiar voices: Heith (PAN), VISIO (Haunter), Femminielli (Drowned by Locals), Habib Bardi (Interzone), and Jiyoung Wi (Enmossed, Psychic Liberation, Doyenne) each leave their imprint on its sprawling landscape. At 1h16m, it is a procession, dense with earworms that burrow into the listener’s unconscious.

Misshapen, broken-down metals leach copper into blood, acid reflux burning through the core. Psyche disaggregates into cosmic turmoil, drifting between planes—tongue on rustline, gullet laced with solvent hymns, molars unlatching, bitcrushed to marrowspill. A spasm of brine, ferrous scripture, venomtext blooming in leaden rivulets, cartilage smoldering in phosphor decomposition, synapses drowning in a quicksilver choir. Crest of bile, churning ore, breath clotting into arsenic mist, vein-thread cinched, a corrosive gospel, limb by limb, oxidized to silence.

Ultimately, as the music exhales its final breath, its residue refuses to dissipate—and stillness alone remains. There are no conclusions here—no resolution, no collapse—only the slow drift outward of a vessel unmoored, lost in the sea of symbolic souring. Corrosiv sings the song of a world barren of prophecy, littered with aesthetic detritus. Whether this magic has been transfigured or simply worn away is unclear: the last breath dissipates, but the oxidation does not stop. The silence, too, will decay.

Conceptualized, composed, performed, recorded, mixed, engineered and produced by Jesse Osborne-Lanthier, and Asaël Richard-Robitaille in 2023 and 2024 at Elektron Musik Studion (EMS) - Stockholm, Sweden and Landsc8pe Studio - Montréal, QC, Canada.
Artwork by Jesse Osborne-Lanthier.
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu @ Schwebung Mastering.

Presented here on solid white vinyl, Small Faces is the second studio album by Small Faces, released through Immediate Records on 23 June 1967. The Immediate album shares its name with their 1966 Decca debut album, which has led to some confusion regarding the titles and as a result, this album has been unofficially dubbed The First Immediate Album by fans.

Considered to be the artistic breakthrough for the group in terms of songwriting and composition, and marks their transition from a mod-influenced blue-eyed soul/R&B band to a psychedelic studio group. It was the band’s first LP to contain solely original compositions and includes ‘Green Circles’, ‘Talk To You’ and ‘(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me’.

The album reached number 12 on the UK charts, becoming their only original studio album to chart outside the top-10, but is considered by many fans to be the groups best album.

Yesterday's Children emerged from the vibrant mid-60s Connecticut music scene, evolving from a garage-based instrumental outfit into one of the era's most compelling proto-heavy rock acts. As they evolved, they embraced the psychedelic and hard rock influences of the late 60s, crafting a heavier, more dynamic style. Under the determined management of brothers Dennis (vocals) & Richard (guitar) Croce's father, Dominic, the band gained regional popularity. Their 1970 self-titled album, recorded in New York with producer Warren Schatz, showcased a mix of ferocious originals like "Hunter's Moon" and "Sad Born Loser" alongside inspired covers. Though the album failed to achieve commercial success at the time, it has since been rediscovered as a cult favorite, celebrated for its raw energy and ahead-of-its-time heaviness. Known for their immersive live shows-complete with custom-built light and sound systems-the band toured the East Coast in vintage hearses, leaving a lasting impression on audiences. Despite their eventual breakup in 1972, Yesterday's Children's legacy endures, with their sole LP standing as a landmark in the transition from garage rock to the heavier sounds of the 70s. A true hidden gem, their music continues to resonate with fans of psychedelic, hard rock, and proto-metal.

In an ever-expanding musical universe, Azymuth have long existed as a celestial giant, drawing countless artists, musicians and followers into their orbit. Marking fifty years since their 1975 debut album Azimuth, their new album Marca Passo proves that the band’s alchemic brew of Brazilian jazz-funk and cosmic samba soul remains as vital as ever, as the group honours the profound legacy of their departed founders.

Recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Marca Passo is the first full-length release since the passing of founding drummer Ivan "Mamão" Conti in 2023, following the earlier loss of keyboardist José Roberto Bertrami in 2012. Alex Malheiros, the sole remaining original member, sees his stewardship of the band’s musical legacy as his spiritual duty. He is joined by the equally devoted Kiko Continentino (Milton Nascimento, Djavan) on keyboards, who has been with the group since 2016, and new recruit Renato Massa (Marcos Valle, Ed Motta) on drums.

Yet since their earliest recorded music, Azymuth have always been far greater than the sum of their parts. The "three-man orchestra’s" unmistakable sound is rooted in Brazil's MPB studio scene of the 1970s and early 1980s—a time when artists blended traditional Brazilian rhythms with global jazz, rock, and emerging psychedelic and progressive elements. Marca Passo continues this legacy, seamlessly fusing Brazilian musical traditions with global influences while showcasing the exceptional musicianship that powers Azymuth's distinctive, multi-dimensional sound.

The album is produced by studio mastermind Daniel Maunick, responsible for Azymuth’s two previous studio albums, Fênix in 2016 and Aurora in 2011. Daniel’s credits also include albums by Marcos Valle, Sabrina Malheiros and Terry Callier. Azymuth also invited Daniel’s father, British jazz-funk royalty Jean Paul “Bluey” Maunick, of Incognito, to play guitar on a new version of Azymuth’s eighties classic “Last Summer In Rio”, in tribute to the song’s composer, José Roberto Bertrami. Equally, “Samba Pro Mamao” is a new composition dedicated to Azymuth’s beloved original drummer, Ivan “Mamão” Conti.

Credits:

Alex Malheiros - Bass, Acoustic Guitar & Vocals: 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Kiko Continentino - Keyboards, Organ, Vocoder & Vocals: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Renato Massa - Drums & Vocals: : 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Ian Moreira - Percussion: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Sidinho Moreira - Percussion: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10
Dudu Viana - Keyboards & Vocals: 1
Victor Bertrami - Drums: 1
Mangueirinha - Repinique: 3
Jean Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick - Electric Guitar: 5
Jose Carlos Bigorna - Soprano Sax: 9
Daniel Maunick: Additional Percussion, Synths & EFX: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Produced, Engineered, Mixed & Arranged by Daniel Maunick
Co-Produced & Arranged by Alex Malheiros
Executive Producer: Joe Davis


Recorded by:
Daniel Maunick & Leonardo Vieira @ Estúdio Nos Trilhos, Santa Teresa, Rio, Brazil
Daniel Maunick & Amadeu Signorelli @ Sigstudio, Niterói, Rio, Brazil
Daniel Maunick & Alex Malheiros @ Estúdio Basslab, Piratininga, Rio, Brazil
Mixed by Daniel Maunick @ The Sugar Shack, Carluke, Scotland


Artwork & Design: Tyler Askew

Girls At Our Best! were one of the greatest and most influential bands to emerge in the early 1980s as part of a new wave of independent acts. DJ John Peel championed them, playing their singles repeatedly and inviting them to record a session for his programme. Wry vocalist Judy Evans and brutal yet melodic guitarist James Alan who’d met at art college in Leeds fronted Girls At Our Best!, the proto-Indie band that formed from the ashes of Alan’s 1977 punk band SOS! Pleasure, the sole album, reached number two in the Indie Chart. It was an album so different from the rest of the post-punk indie pack that you can still play it now and completely baffle new listeners. As John Peel said about Roxy Music, it just doesn’t seem to relate to anything else.

Monaco (originally released in 2000) is the self-titled second and final studio album
by Monaco, following their debut album Music for Pleasure (1997).

Now 25 years after its original release, the album is finally available, for the first time ever, on vinyl.

Monaco was a side project (1995–2000) of Joy Division and New Order bass player Peter Hook, alongside David Potts,
the sole remaining member of Revenge. The album reflects Hook and Potts’ shared passion for blending rock with electronic and dance music. The album features the single I’ve Got A Feeling.

For vinyl enthusiasts, this 25th-anniversary expanded edition comes as a deluxe gatefold 2LP set, pressed on Crystal Clear vinyl
This version includes a 4-page booklet and five bonus tracks and is limited to 500 individually numbered copies.

Monaco (originally released in 2000) is the self-titled second and final studio album
by Monaco, following their debut album Music for Pleasure (1997).

Now 25 years after its original release, the album is finally available, for the first time ever, on vinyl.

Monaco was a side project (1995–2000) of Joy Division and New Order bass player Peter Hook, alongside David Potts,
the sole remaining member of Revenge. The album reflects Hook and Potts’ shared passion for blending rock with electronic and dance music. The album features the single I’ve Got A Feeling.

For vinyl enthusiasts, this 25th-anniversary expanded edition comes as a deluxe gatefold 2LP set, pressed on Crystal Clear vinyl
This version includes a 4-page booklet and five bonus tracks and is limited to 500 individually numbered copies.

Girls At Our Best! were one of the greatest and most influential bands to emerge in the early 1980s as part of a new wave of independent acts. DJ John Peel championed them, playing their singles repeatedly and inviting them to record a session for his programme. Wry vocalist Judy Evans and brutal yet melodic guitarist James Alan who’d met at art college in Leeds fronted Girls At Our Best!, the proto-Indie band that formed from the ashes of Alan’s 1977 punk band SOS! Pleasure, the sole album, reached number two in the Indie Chart. It was an album so different from the rest of the post-punk indie pack that you can still play it now and completely baffle new listeners. As John Peel said about Roxy Music, it just doesn’t seem to relate to anything else.

"Maintenant" (meaning: Now) defines it all: A snapshot in time, 13 piano pieces, completely improvised by Rico Friebe in one take! Three years after recording "The Silva Sessions", this new album serves as some kind of sequel to the improvisational and aesthetic characteristics - presenting a vast and meditative soundscape solely on the piano with some subtle electronic manoeuvring within. A truly unique moment that got captured here and a special album, you won't come along too often these days...

Something different from Causa Sui. While Causa Sui have always had one foot in heavy psychedelic rock, they've had the other one deep in a wide variety of esoteric styles. On this new double LP set, that other dimension of the band is being explored full-scale. "Szabodelico" paints with a colourful palette, both compositionally and sonically - digging deep into an assortment of cultures, eras and sounds with a true crate-digger mindset. Throughout their 15 year life-span Causa Sui has always been about seeking out new directions, exploring the past and the present in a way that's unique at each step of their subtle progression - forging new paths into an existing map. "Szabodelico" feels like discovering a small room under the stairs of your own house: familiar, yet new and exciting. Their latest vision is an elegantly zoned-out version of itself: a turn inward. Anti-bombastic, yet rich with ecstatic harmonics and dynamics. The band stringed together a long series of sessions in 2019 and early 2020 in their studio in Odense, often prioritizing playful first takes and good vibes rather than clinical perfection.Sparsely dubbed and mixed with a natural, full bodied flavour by Jonas Munk during the summer of 2020, each track has its own aesthetic. There's no simple equation to sum up the 13 individual parts of the album, but as a whole it creates an entity that's as complete as each of its parts. From the windblown opener "Echoes of Light", to the closing slow-motion epic "Merging Waters" you'll find yourself asking where did the time go? The answer of course is: Szabodelico.

The visionary Walter Maioli (Futuro Antico, Aktuala) and the eccentric electronic musician John Zandijik first met in 1984 when they both gravitated toward the experimental Sound Reporters collective, participating in the release of Ethnoelectronics (1986). Shortly afterward, the two met at Zandijik's studio in Rotterdam, where they completed their journey of exploration to the edge of the Universe in just three nights. The recordings were made only after 3 a.m., when psychic energy is at its peak, and inspiration belongs solely to the realm of dreams. It was a ritual of long galactic fluctuation, where the mystical sound of the flute was filtered and expanded by the Aureal system, a device capable of breaking it down into cascades of aureal harmonies. Through its extemporaneous approach, the music transforms perceptions of ancient pyramids or tropical forests into phosphorescent nebulae, luminous fountain openings, and unprecedented planetary interstices—interstellar portals leading to new archetypal-ancestral visions. It feels like sailing through colored orbits in the red gases of Jupiter and Mars, lost and dissolved forever in the engines and gears of the most secret cosmos. Between Pink Floyd-esque psychedelic flashes and Tangerine Dream-inspired sidereal architectures, Maioli and Zandijik reveal the most phantasmagoric and unknown side of Sound Reporters.

“In May 2024, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, where I was born and have lived all my life, faced the worst climate catastrophe in its history. After weeks of relentless, torrential rain, its rivers overflowed, flooding much of the region. Entire cities were submerged. More than 170 people lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands of animals perished. Amid this dystopian and desperate situation, flux was composed and recorded in about a week. Initially, the album was created solely as an exercise to maintain my mental health. But when I finished it, I realized that it had become a kind of “sound portrait” of this dark moment—days filled with pain and suffering. Yet it was also a meditation on the ephemerality and fragility of life, and the struggle to survive.”

Gatefold Ȓșȑg Black Vinyl
Die Kölner Sängerin vermischt auf dem neuen Album Jazz, Folk und Pop
9 Songs, die Hoffnung geben in einer Welt voller Unsicherheiten

Julie in Memphis. Während Erics Trip auf Eis lag, flog die Herzogin des kanadischen Flanells im Dezember 1996 in den Süden, um ein Album mit Balladen über postpartale Depression aufzunehmen. Zusammen mit Howe Gelb von Giant Sand und David Shouse von The Grifters, fängt Loneliest In The Morning Julies blaue Phase mit zitternder Genauigkeit ein.

Depressive black metallers GHOST BATH have emerged from beyond the veil with their new album, Rose Thorn Necklace, through long-time partner Nuclear Blast. Free from the Moonlover-Starmourner-Self Loather conceptual trilogy, sole proprietor Nameless (aka Dennis Mikula) explores the most intense and introspective GHOST BATH’s oeuvre, advancing with blackened blasts and melancholic movements while moving his only child forward into the unknown. Hoisted into the firmament by the shimmering ‘Vodka Butterfly’ and the dissonant bliss of ‘Well, I Tried Drowning’ on one end and lowered into Mikula’s personal abyss with ‘Dandelion Tea’ and the riveting title track on the other, Rose Thorn Necklace is absolute danger and
haunting beauty.

Carlos Santana ist der große musikalische Kollaborateur, der seinen einzigartigen Gitarrenstil und seine weitreichende musikalische Vision mit einer großen Vielfalt von Künstlern verbindet, um etwas Neues, Einzigartiges und Transzendentes zu schaffen. Santanas Vision für Sentient war es, seine jüngsten Kollaborationen aus einer neuen Perspektive zu betrachten und sie zu einer klanglichen Pilgerreise durch Jazz, Hip-Hop, Soul, Rock und lateinamerikanische Rhythmen zu verweben. Er hat die Songs nicht nur so arrangiert, dass sie seiner Vision entsprechen, sondern viele von ihnen auch neu interpretiert und einige Aspekte der Tracks verbessert, um ein kohärentes Hörerlebnis zu schaffen. Die Songs auf Sentient reichen von aktuellen Hits und Kollaborationen mit Superstars bis hin zu seltenen, unveröffentlichten und übersehenen Tracks, die Carlos in einem neuen Kontext präsentieren wollte. Das Ergebnis ist eine spirituelle Reise durch die unendlichen Möglichkeiten der Musik, geführt von Santanas kompromissloser Muse.

Calling Mattheis a pillar of Nous'klaer Audio would be an understatement. Founded in 2013, the label was at the time solely created to put out Mattheis' Isms EP. Now, twelve years on, we present his latest album: Waiting for the Silhouette. The forty minute LP full of dreamy techno bliss explorations starts out, and is glued throughout, with ethereal modulating synths. Dreamscapes fuse into scattered drums and shifting patterns briefly usher in changing phases. It's in these moments when the unworldly contours take form and are built upon by other emerging elements. Waiting for the silhouette is a record about things coming to life, outlines that start to appear and shapes evoking memories that could as well be premonitions. Minimalism and maximalism become indistinguishable on this album, through the trip in between. Artwork by Frederic Dumoulin. The record is cut inside-out and comes with a downloadcard.

A Chaos Of Flowers is an album that builds on their ferocious 2023 album nature morte. BIG|BRAVE"s music has been described as massive minimalism. Their fusillades of textural distortion and feedback emphasize their music"s frayed edges as much as its all-encompassing weight. The potency of the trio"s work is their singular artistry combining elements of traditional folk techniques and a modern deconstruction of guitar music. Gain, feedback, and amplitude are essential. For A Chaos Of Flowers guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie drew heavily on the poems of artists whom Wattie found kinship in, their words resonant with experiences of those often sidelined by cultural norms. "I discovered that most poems from folk traditions or in the public domain seem to be by men - to which I could not quite relate. In my search, I rediscovered some of my favorite works and poets," says Wattie. Guitarist Mathieu Ball and drummer Tasy Hudson help Wattie shape poetry into pieces as dense and impenetrable as they are vulnerable. BIG|BRAVE achieve their colossal sound through minimalist approaches, a deft understanding of dynamics and an inventive employment of percussion and distortion. The trio reconceptualize what it is to be heavy or minimal, challenging perceptions with their illumination of painfully overlooked perspectives. Guest guitarist Marisa Anderson lends earthen, blues-inflected atmospheres to the album, where guitarist Tashi Dorji and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi amplify the squall. Working closely with frequent collaborator and producer/engineer Seth Manchester, the internal tumult of Wattie"s voice rings out in warbles, haunting echoes, and unearthly harmonies across bold immense walls of distortion. BIG|BRAVE have collaborated with metal monsters The Body on a previous Thrill Jockey release, Leaving None But Small Birds, and have toured internationally with bands like SUMAC, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, SUNN O))), and Lingua Ignota. As they continue to ascend in their journey as pioneers in the contemporary metal scene, it"s safe to say that BIG|BRAVE are here to stay.

We are delighted to present the new 12" maxi on Dubatriation records, two extended tracks for complete immersion! This opus defines the encounter of Panda Dub and Adi Shankara, two artists already signed to the label.

Like buried treasures, these tracks from a joint studio session have been unearthed and reworked for this release.

Infused with the orientalist flavours of French dub, these two tracks elevate the genre with their neat sound design. Panda Dub's ethnic samples and catchy melodies blend with Adi Shankara's rough and hypnotic textures.

Following the label's signature style, this record offers a deep and solemn musical experience. Embark on an introspective journey without further ado!

Ziúr lines up with The Tapeworm for an exclusive cassette-only release featuring Kenichi Iwasa, exploring the electroacoustic realms.

Invited to perform solo at Tarek Atoui's performance series at Kunsthaus Bregenz in October 2024, Ziúr decided to write a new piece for the occasion. This composition, 'Turn Liquid Into Dust', was then performed within the framework of Tarek Atoui's 'Waters' Witness' exhibition as an 8-channel spacial audio piece, transmitting sounds through the installation's structure – metal bars, stones, compost piles… Composed in London in autumn 2024, its principal source of sonic material is recordings of Atoui's instruments which Ziúr had recorded in his studio in Paris during the summer of 2024. In addition, she invited the Japanese woodwind player and virtuoso Kenichi Iwasa to join on all pieces, his contribution providing a binding element, tying the pieces together.

Opener 'A Cold Drip' consists solely of Iwasa's spectral squalls. The tense noir drone of 'Long Call' features a string instrument built by Atoui. For the airy yet dense title track, Ziúr recorded an organ named The Reed Box, with Iwasa floating atop its smoggy soundbed. Closer 'Chips 'n' Crumbles' echos and reverberates with the rattles of household items Ziúr found around her home.

Driven by a relentless appetite for boundless experimentation, Ziúr has been subverting expectations since she was a teenager, corkscrewing through hardcore, metal and punk before veering towards electronic music's turbulent fringes. She produces just like she DJs, gathering a wide variety of ingredients and figuring out the most intriguing, unexpected ways to simmer them into a coherent narrative that helps listeners synchronize the conflicting messages that surround them. Genre isn't a fixed point for Ziúr, but a colour in a vast palette that stretches across history and borders, helping illustrate music that's powerfully subversive. Her The Tapeworm edition follows acclaimed recordings for Planet Mu, PAN, Objects Limited and Hakuna Kulala.

Kenichi Iwasa is a London-based improviser and multidisciplinary artist from Japan, also known for his legendary Krautrock Karaoke night as well as collaborations with visual artists and musicians such as Beatrice Dillon, Maxwell Sterling and Linder Sterling. He currently performs with Naima Karlsson under the name Exotic Sin.