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The Path is the latest album from Belbury Poly (aka Ghost Box records founder Jim Jupp). This time round Jupp has recruited a full band roster to expand his own unique electronica. He is joined by occasional Belbury Poly collaborator Christopher Budd on Bass and Guitar, Jesse Chandler (of Midlake, Mercury Rev & Pneumatic Tubes) on flute, clarinet and keyboards, Max Saidi on drums plus narration from author and poet, Justin Hopper.

Musically it takes as its starting point a particular moment of early 1970s British film soundtracks by the likes of Roy Budd and Roger Webb; a soundworld of easy-going jazz and funky rhythms gently coloured with pastoral strings and flutes. The Path, however, is unmoored from time or place thanks to Hopper’s narrative style, Chandler’s rustic flutes and keys, Budd’s soulful psychedelic guitars and Jupp’s production and electronics. The co-writers were all chosen for their unique abilities and an
intuitive understanding of the ongoing Belbury Poly project. The spoken word elements form a loose, open-ended narrative; very much an album with spoken word rather than a spoken word album.

The Band and Album Recording:
Christopher Budd: Electric Bass, Double Bass, Guitars, Electric Sitar
Jesse Chandler: Piano, Synths, Mellotron, Flute, Clarinet
Justin Hopper: Narration
Jim Jupp: Electric Piano, Synths, Mellotron, Percussion, Sound Effects
Max Saidi: Drums, Percussion

The project came together over two years, beginning with a conversation between Hopper and Jupp during a walk on the Sussex South Downs. Originally, it was to tell the tale of an American academic unravelling while adrift in an alienating English landscape. From the beginning, the pair wanted on a narration integrated lyrically into the piece, rather than dropped on top. The words gradually became more film-noir and open to interpretation; occasionally a little tongue-in-cheek. The final
texts explore a folklore of alienation; the way we impact the landscape and it impacts us.

Belbury Poly:
Jim Jupp has released EPs, singles and seven albums on Ghost Box as Belbury Poly. It’s generally a solo project, but he calls on a floating roster of like-minded musicians to extend the sound beyond studio based electronica. He is also one half of The Belbury Circle along with Cate Brooks (of The Advisory Circle) - occasional collaborators with John Foxx. He has recorded library tracks for KPM, BMG and Lo-Editions. He’s remixed tracks for several artists including Beautify Junkyards,
John Foxx and Bill Ryder-Jones (The Coral) and co-written a song with Paul Weller for his 2020 album On Sunset.

In 2012 we at Soul Junction were able to release two previously unissued songs on the Internationally renowned recording artist, Oliver Cheatham. The songs recorded in Detroit circa 1974/75 were cut under the supervision of Olivers cousin William R. Miller. “Don’t Pop The Question (If You Can’t Take The Answer)” went on to become Soul Junction’s biggest seller, selling in excess of over a thousand copies, but such is the enduring quality of the song that there hasn’t been a week gone by where we haven’t received a sales enquiry for a copy. So, after much deliberation we have decide to re-release the 45 again with a nifty 300 limited press run to hopefully satisfy this continuing demand. During the ensuing years the soulful sweet soul ballad b-side “Good Guys Don’t Make Good Lovers” has also grown in stature with collectors of this genre with many of the sales enquiries received coming from the direction of the West Coast’s lowrider scene.



Oliver Cheatham will forever be remembered for his timeless 1983 R & B hit “Get Down Saturday Night” on MCA records, which he co-wrote with fellow Detroit musician and ‘One Way’ group member Kevin McCord. Oliver’s own career began way back in the mid 1960’s when his future brother-in- law Allen Cocker invited Oliver to join his group the ‘Young Sirs’ to recorded the mellifluous “There’s Something The Matter (With Your Heart)” for Ernest and Barbara Burt’s Magic City label with Oliver now being the groups lead singer.

Into the 70’s the Young Sirs, briefly became ‘Butch & The Newports’ who under the auspices of George McGregor recorded “I’m Only A Man/Out Of My Mind” on the Black Rock label, with Butch being Oliver’s nickname. “I’m Only A man” was released for a second time on Marvin Higgin’s Grand Junction label, this time credited to ‘The Gaslight’ along with a further two releases. A subsequent Gaslight release “Just Because Of You/It’s Just Like Magic” reputedly came out on the local T.E.A.I label before being picked up for national distribution by Polydor Records. Under the guidance of influential Detroit radio DJ and record producer Al Perkins, Oliver firstly became the lead singer of the group Sins Of Satin later re-named Roundtrip and then following a further re-naming just becoming known as Oliver.



Following on from “Get Down Saturday Night” Oliver continued to score chart success with “SOS”, “Celebrate Our Love” followed by two duets with Jocelyn Brown “Turn Out The Lights” and “Mind Buster”. Further chart success came in 2003 when Oliver featured as a guest vocalist on Room 5’s UK No1 hit “Make Luv” which incidentally sampled Oliver’s “Get Down Saturday Night”. Oliver at this juncture was residing in England and had previously recorded a garage version of the old standard “Our Day Will Come” with the London based band, Native Soul. Sadly, Oliver passed away in November 2013.

2023 sees the return of multi-talented Norwegian producer Espen Horne to Wah Wah 45s, after a 24 year hiatus. The man behind the label's very first release, the now seminal Magnetica, never lost his connection with the imprint and has remained very much part of the Wah Wah family, making a comeback this year with his first solo material under his own name since that club classic from 1999.

Back in the spring, the first single from the project, the gorgeous soul-jazz beauty Bakeren, featuring the stunning vocals of Resonators' Faye Houston, quickly found a home on Gilles Peterson's internationally renowned BBC Radio 6 show as well as that of Jazz FM legend Robbie Vincent, Bandcamp Weekly and the Fresh Finds Jazz Spotify playlist.

Following that, Bergen Sunrays, became a weekly fixture on the Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show on BBC 6 Music, with the limited 7-inch of both singles selling out within hours of release.

Next up was the wistful Den Franske Gitaren, a lugubrious soul-jazz piece with drum & bass leanings featuring Bergen based MC and vocalist Aich, which found favour with legends Laurent Garnier and Jazzanova as well as hot Japanese production outfit Dazzle Drums.

This was closely followed by the final single to be taken from the album, the stunning and outspoken vocal jazz waltzer Nada Pode Me Calar (which roughly translates to Nothing Can Shut Me Up!) featuring the sublime talent of Olav Wöllo on vocals and Juno - anotherr big one with Gilles Peterson on Worldwide FM and Deb Grant on BBC 6 Music.

And now the full album, entitled The Anatomy Of Serene Eloquence is available for your aural delectation. Recorded largely during lockdown, the LP is a sophisticated and composed piece of work that sees the Norwegian producer make connections with musicians from across Europe, and some closer to home, to collaborate on this sedate and peaceful collection of songs.

The aforementioned Faye Houston also appears on the soulful, dub flavoured Don't Fall Asleep, a piece of music that explores the feeling of being isolated whilst sharing a mutual love and drive to explore new sonic possibilities.

Elsewhere, Olav Wöllo pops up again too, this time on O Mar E A Lua and once again singing in Portuguese to give this track a certain Tropicalia feel, as Espen explains:

"Olav Wöllo is a close friend, an excellent musician and vocalist, and a capoeira professor here in Bergen. He has spent much of his life living in Brazil and speaks Portuguese fluently. He wrote the lyrics for this tune years ago and had just been waiting for the right collaboration to come along.

We went to his lovely studio out on this remote island, made a massive gyoza meal, had some serious good wine and stayed the whole night to record his vocal harmonies and outspoken lyrics."

The single Bergen Sunrays also appears on the album in instrumental form with featured keys courtesy of London based player Rory More - here entitled Rory's Sunrays. His Lowrey organ adds a more melancholic feel to the track, as it does on the stunning Belle Époque, alongside the ivory work of Eirik Blåsternes - an emotional, contemplative and atmospheric track that was tested and shaped in the eclipse of Covid.

As with Belle Époque, La Psychosomnie is a playful yet explorative cut that examines insomnia, paralysis and hypnosis courtesy of some enigmatic French spoken word spinning around a framework of drums, bass and swirling keys.

And finally, the album offers up an alternative version of the single Den Franske Gitaren, this time featuring Martin Halla, a vocalist out of the Bergen Grieg Jazz Academy and winner of the Norwegian version of The Voice back in 2012! The perfect flip to Aich's more mournful interpretation of this bass and drum future classic.

Mecca And The Soul Brother by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth is considered by fans and critics as one of the finest hip hop albums of the early Nineties. Songs like "Lots of Lovin", "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)","Anger In The Nation" and "If It Ain't Rough, It Ain't Right" have everything; funky basslines, solid production, convincing lyrics and lots of soul. Producer Pete Rock built his beats from obscure R&B, funk and jazz records and CL Smooth added his sometimes-philosophical raps. Guest rappers on the album include Grand Puba (of Brand Nubian), Heavy D, Rob-O, Grap & Dida, and it reached #7 in the US R&B/Hip-hop charts and #43 in the US album charts. Mecca And The Soul Brother is available as a limited of 1500 individually numbered copies on silver coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

Mecca & The Soul Brother by pete & Cl Smooth Rock, released 19 April 2024, includes the following tracks: "Ghettos Of The Mind", "Act Like You Know", "Soul Brother #1", "Anger In The Nation" and more.

This version of Mecca & The Soul Brother comes as a 2xLP. This release comes with (a) Insert(s).

The vinyl is pressed as a translucent, yellow disc. Another vinyl is pressed as a translucent, yellow disc.

"Handful of Soul", Mario Biondi's three-time platinum debut album - originally released in 2006, when you had to sell 80.000 copies of an album to get a platinu m certification - and his most sold record to date, is now reissued by Schema Records in a new special edition, consisting of a 180gr. 2-LP set enclosed in a gatefold cover, plus the same album on CD including the bonus track "I'm Her Daddy". An incredible album, ranging from Jazz and Soul, that hit the Italian popular music scene like a bolt from the blue when it was released.

We Release JAZZ is very happy to announce an exciting new body of work by Joseph Deenmamode aka Mo Kolours. The singular musical spirit’s new 21-track album Original Flow is available as a double LP housed in a heavy 350gsm sleeve with original artwork by Mo Kolours himself and the classic WRJ obi strip, as well as in digipack CD and digital formats.

A catalog of critically acclaimed records, including his self-titled debut (2014), ‘Texture Like Like Sun’ (2015), 2018 album ‘Inner Symbols’ and three companion EPs, established Deenmamode as a prodigious musician and vocalist. Pitchfork extolled his “hypnotic, tribal-infused dance grooves”, DJ Mag appreciated the “colourful celebration of soundsystem culture”, and Resident Advisor advocated that “no one sounds quite like Mo Kolours”. Musical analogies were drawn by The Guardian as “The best album Curtis Mayfield never made with A Tribe Called Quest and Lee Perry” and Mojo as “like Marvin Gaye produced by J Dilla”.

Five years ago, Deenmamode moved to the Japanese countryside. Far away from familiarity, he contemplated his place and further questioned his identity. “I had none of my ‘own’ people around. I had time to really find what makes me tick musically. Japan has helped me go back to those subconscious leanings, really go deep, and reflect the aspects that make up my story”.

The tracks on ‘Original Flow’ have been constructed from sessions, improvisations and soundbites captured around the world during this time; collecting contributions from musicians including Deenamode’s brothers Reginald Omas Mamode and Jeen Bassa plus Andrew Ashong, Charles Bullen, Dwaye Kilvington, Eddie Hick, Stefan Asanovic, Myele Manzanza, Ross Hughes, and Tom Dreissler. Deenamode says “I’m proud of this album’s creative process. Coming from a tradition of scouring through hours of records, I wanted to create my own samples, to find that perfect loop that no other producer could put their hands on. I decided to invite a group of friends and acquaintances, who also happen to be incredible musicians, to a studio in Crystal Palace to improvise based on some loose ideas I had. We spent all day, and recorded everything”.

‘Original Flow’ is an album of UK street-soul nouveau, future indigenous jazz fusion, Rasta Segga, Nyahbinghi jazz, Malagasy Hebrew hip hop. While retaining a spirit of exploration and improvisation, it sees Deenmamode grow and flex beyond beat tape brevity, expanding composition and stretching his musical muscle to play live with other musicians. Themes of empowerment, overcoming adversity, and mental liberation coexist with notes from ancient history, futurism, and science, as well as musings on family and togetherness.

‘Magik Momentum’ springs from a discussion that features at the start of the song, an inspiring mentor answering a question from Deenmamode about improvisation and what role it plays in life when planning and manifesting the future. ‘Rockets to Mars’ questions the lack of care for the billions of people with nothing, while governments plan to explore space. “This sparked a comparison in my mind to a Sonny Okuson song that I would reference when performing. Okuson’s song talked of the lack of resources in many communities in the world, while governments go to the moon”.

He says the music behind ‘The News These Days’ is “possibly my favourite on the album”. Looped like he would a late sixty jazz-fusion sample, there was nothing added and the track was complete within a matter of minutes. “It was the first and best moment from the entire Crystal Palace session”, he adds. The album’s contrasting title track with minimal instrumentation played solo by Deenamode. While frustratingly searching for gems in past recordings, he thought in a burst of ego, “I don’t need no-one else to make a dope beat!” picked up his ravanne, (the traditional frame drum of his fathers home-land of Mauritius), pressed record, and started to play. He says, “In my thoughts were the rhythms of the Nubians in Upper-Egypt and Sudan, the swing of the huge drums played by Mauritanian women, of-course the Sega beat of Mauritius, and the ever inspiring beat of James Yancey”.

Driven by UK broken beat, Cuban congas, Nigerian and Mauritian inflections, ‘Love Vibration’ follows the concept that all emotions carry a vibratory frequency and pays homage to the frequency of creation and the power of love. The two part ‘Tatamaka’ tells of the history of Deenmamode’s ancestors, the maroons of Mauritius. “We are people who managed to run from our oppressors and find refuge in a corner of the island called ‘Le Morne’ where they could not reach us. One bloody day they came in numbers to re-capture, to revenge. Many of us chose to jump to our deaths, rather than be taken back into subjugation. The poem by Creole Richard Sedley Assonne says; “there were hundreds of them, but my people, the maroons chose the kiss of death over the chains of slavery”. Tatamaka was the name of a famed maroon leader who was murdered for claiming his, and our people’s freedom. The song is the imagined journey of escape and freedom by an ancestor of the maroons of Le Morne”.

Born in the west midlands and raised on the traditional sega music of his father’s Indian Ocean homeland of Mauritius alongside records by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Michael Jackson; his influences expanded with late 90s jungle and drum and bass nights in Bristol, experiments at art college in Camberwell, and the rich culture of Peckham, “at the time we called it the Afro Quarters of London” says Deenmamode, adding hip hop, dub, soul and soundsystem styles to his individual sound.

He explains, “I love drum music, from hand-drums to 808s. I love music from the ancient past, heritage music, indigenous music, traditional music passed down from the beginning of time. Music from the body, hand claps, grunts and foot stomps. Music with audible depth, busy, bustling, highly charged. Music from the soul, the music from beyond. I love music from the islands and the mountains. The music of the streets, hustle music, alleyway beats. Club music”.

He describes the creative process as thinking in images. “The visual world and the world of sound seem to intermingle in my thought process. When I play the drum with my eyes closed, a world of imagery dances and moves with beat. Improvised drumming feels like I am listening to what I want to hear, rather than trying to play what I want to hear. Following the rhythm and finding new pathways to walk within the patterns is what I experience. In this way I often feel I am just a listener, instead of the player”.
Original Flow is pressed on biovinyl, a sustainable alternative to traditional vinyl. Biovinyl replaces petroleum in S-PVC by recycling used cooking oil or industrial waste gases, resulting in 100% CO2 savings in bio-based S-PVC production. Furthermore, it is 100% recyclable and reusable, embracing the circular economy ideology.

A new Toy Tonics EP. It’s the second by Venezuelan house DJ and producer Gee Lane. Including amazing remixes by NYC mainstay musclecars!

Gee Lane’s debut EP Metamorphosis (with remixes by Demi Riquísimo and Divorce From New York Remix & PIEK ) came out last October.
But as Virginie (her real name) is a steady name of tue Toy Tonics crew now and plays almost every weekend at one of the worldwide Toy Tonics Jams it makes sense to put out a follow up fast.

Gee Lane originally from Caracas now in Barcelona is a passionate DJ and vinyl digger with an extraordinary positive energy and attitude. A DJ diva in a positive way. A unique personality with a very strong style (in music but also as a person) and very elaborated ability to read and play with the dancers. Like the first EP also this one was recorded in Barcelona and Berlin with a little help by Robin Braum from Athlete Whippet. The music reflects well her roots and passion for everything what came out from New York’s dance culture. You can hear influences from the 80‘ promo disco scenes as well as the 1990 Body & Soul/ Francois Kervorkian / Joe Claussell universe. In fact Gee Lane after being raised in Caracas and musically educated by her father from a very early age, (a composer and musician) she moved to New York at a very young age in the late 90's where she fell in love with the HOUSE scene. And especially everything that happened at the famous and influential ’Body & Soul’ club.

This culture increased her curiosity to become a DJ (and vinyl digger herself) who is not just interested in house music but wants to explore other genres such as funk, Hip-Hop, jazz and Latin sounds and include these vibes into her DJ sets. A vinyl collector (and long time record shop employee) since then, she is known for her musical eclecticism that leads her to mix everything what she wants ...

Gee Lane now is a steady member of the Toy Tonics Krew and is already playing the Toy Tonics Jams all around Europe.

Hunting for rhythm, as if our lives depended on it, as if, without rhythm, we’d starve to death. Can body and soul live without rhythm? Seizing its different forms, dissecting it, ingesting it, digesting it, could very well be akin to the Rhythm Hunters’ creative process. What are the rhythmic principles that lead us to develop its polyphonic, groovy and trance-like aspects (Africa), or mathematically complex ones (India), or irregular pulsations that transcend asperities (Balkans), among others? To go on a rhythm hunt, why not explore all these places, appreciate the infinite diversity of rhythms and, back home, try to understand and experiment with enriching your own rhythmic vocabulary with the basic principles underlying each musical tradition. What can these principles contribute if you transcend borders and begin to adapt your musical knowledge and experience to the new ramifications of the rhythm you’ve just discovered? The music of The Rhythm Hunters is one of the answers.

A few years ago, the musicians in this band and I began a specific practice on unusual mixes of rhythmic ideas, inspired by traditions from various parts of the world, with the intention of integrating them until they became a personal vocabulary and means of expression. The result is on this album.

Stéphane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters by Stephane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters, released 26 April 2024, includes the following tracks: "Positivv ", "Artemis" and more.

This version of Stéphane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters comes as a 1xCD in a(n) O-Card packaging.

Full of Hell Coagulated Bliss bio Full of Hell burst forth with incredible force from the small, dagger-shaped city of Ocean City, Maryland, 15 years ago. Over five full-lengths, five collaborative full-lengths, and countless splits, EPs, singles, and noise compilations, they’ve evolved at extraordinary speed, their music becoming more complicated and technical without ever slowing down or losing its soul. Everything on a Full of Hell album feels like a blur: smears of guitar, harsh noise shaken like gravel in a bag, singer Dylan Walker’s snarl and bite carrying him into outer space or into the core of the earth. They’re coiled, interlocking, impossible to penetrate, and they move with alarming speed. They have now reached terminal velocity. Having created their own context, they’re now able to walk around within it, to survey its terrain, to visit far corners and see who’s nearby. Coagulated Bliss sounds like Full of Hell, but it’s nothing like any Full of Hell record that’s come before it. These songs are trimmer, less freighted with anxiety, more interested in opening up than speeding away. Its bile is sometimes funneled into traditional song structures. It never shies away from the extreme harsh noise, unrelenting spirit, and pitch-black sadness of previous Full of Hell records; if anything, the leanness of these songs makes them feel even heavier. Nevertheless, there are tracks here you might find yourself whistling hours after listening. It’s an extraordinary and unexpected evolution in sound for a band who made their name on rapid metamorphosis, and it’s the logical endpoint of everything Full of Hell has covered so far..

Ever since their auspicious beginnings, more than a decade ago, Laughing Bastards have giddily delighted in impurity. Initially a reeds-guitar-bass trio modeled after the classic Jimmy Giuffre 3, the band has remained truthful to its original spirit. Saxophone player Michel Mast and guitarist Jan-Sebastiaan Degeyter have remained its core, but the band went through several permutations, first welcoming Eline Duerinck (cello) and Marcos Della Rocha (for Unanimal in 2019) and solidifying its present-day line-up with bassist Cyrille Obermüller.

Bastards. It's kind of a rude word to throw around carelessly, but there has always been that element of being irregular, being too stubborn to comply with what is expected, that has set them apart. This is nowhere more evident than in the material contributed by Degeyter, who wrote more than half of the album's compositions. A talented illustrator and designer (he created a few of their striking album covers) as well as a versatile guitarist, Degeyter always manages to add a strong visual component to his material. In combination with his knack for pulling exotic influences into the band's overall sound, it leads to a playful, cinematic eccentricity.

"Tigraman" and "Black Spoon" are examples of this. Both are infused with an Ethiopian-tinged sound, but while the first one develops the catchy throbbing of a trance-like soul/rock tune, the second exudes the lush cadence of Golden Age Ethio jazz, the kind that gets under your skin with those sensual, irrepressible rhythms. They are a nice match with the increasing drama of the Slavic-tinged "Red Lemon", the slow, dreamy flow of the Jamaican dance hall-inspired "Sand", a strong feature for Duerinck, and "Dosi", that shows Obermüller's knack for propulsive melody.

The synesthete in Degeyter gets free reign in "Calliope", chamber jazz in which sweeping sax and cello are kept grounded by guitar, bass and drums. Mast's odd meter-song "Fetish" is another showcase for the band's effortless dancing and some gorgeous tenor schmooze. Della Rocha's "Turquoise" starts off in brooding, contemplative way and keeps simmering on a low, glowing fire. To top it off, there are a few covers that remind you of the band's origins. A new take on Giuffre's rootsy "The Train and the River" stresses their loose flexibility with an Americana style somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Haden, while Carla Bley's evergreen "Vashkar" gets a carefully constructed makeover to close out the album with grace.

On their latest album, Laughing Bastards prove they are a quintessential Belgian band - soaking up sounds and influences from all over the place while maintaining a tight unity - with an international appeal. Combining jazz and chamber music with ideas from pop music and multi-colored strains does not only give their music an iridescent edge, but also keeps the interplay fresh and inspired, something to return to while waiting to see them live on stage.

An obscure late 80s double sided killer brought to light! Originally released as a 12 inch, this was dug out of a white label box by Planets head honcho on a North London digging mission. 1989 fusion of Lovers, Street Soul & Soundsystem music from T-Dynamix & Lisa Ellis. Originally based up North near Manchester!

repressed !

● Essential 14 track collection of "WaJazz" music selected and compiled by renowned Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa, owner of the Universounds record store in Tokyo.

● Gatefold 180g heavy double vinyl LP. Comes with extensive track-by-track liner notes by Yusuke Ogawa.

● All tracks licensed by Nippon Columbia, Tokyo, Japan.

● Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland.

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Universounds, HMV Record Shop and 180g team up for an exceptional release: from blazing hard bop to free jazz, to introspective saxophone solos and massive big band sounds, renowned Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa presents an essential 14 track collection of "WaJazz" music taken from the Nippon Columbia vaults. Featuring Jiro Inagaki, Minoru Muraoka, Hiroshi Suzuki, Hozan Yamamoto, Count Buffalo, Takeshi Inomata, and much more!

"Japanese jazz has been recognized and celebrated by music lovers worldwide for decades. The origins of this trend may be traced back to the rare groove movement that flourished in the 1990s, but its current deep and wide popularity seems to be connected to the fact that Japanese people have been reevaluating their own jazz since the mid-2000s, locally referred to as WaJazz ("Wa" meaning Japan but also theShōwa emperor period, from 1926 to 1989). Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a growing trend to move away from the DJ-focused perspective and to appreciate jazz with a deeper understanding. Nowadays, there is more and more interest in the background and roots in which jazz has developed in Japan, with Japanese jazz as a whole now considered as its own distinctive genre.

Of course, even if we speak about "WaJazz" as one genre, there is a truly wide variety of styles within it. However, when Japanese musicians play, there is something uniquely Japanese flowing through that creates a kind of synergy. It may be the melody, the rhythm, or even something deeper, like an inexpressible flicker. I would be happy if some of its charms and secrets emerge from the fourteen tracks included in this collection." (Yusuke Ogawa)

Yusuke Ogawa has been running the Universounds store in Tokyo since 2001, specializing in jazz and second-hand, rare, and collector records. He is also a reissue supervisor, label manager, DJ, and music writer. Known for his vast musical knowledge, eye for detail, and archival skills, Ogawa has worked on more than 250 reissues and compilations – including the highly praised Deep Jazz Reality and Project Re:Vinyl series. He is the co-author of the Wa-Jazz Disc Guide and the Independent Black Jazz of America books.

Don't judge a book by its cover. Judge a record by its cover.

And, perhaps, its title.

Cedar Walton's Mobius is as outrageously, disorientatingly brilliant as the stunning jacket design, featuring the legendary jazz pianist morphing into a mobius strip, set against a beautiful sky filled with cumulus clouds. A proper jazz-funk fusion slapfest, Mobius is a stellar electric set from - essentially - one *hell* of a SUPERBAND.

Yes, in addition to Walton's Fender Rhodes wizardry, Mobius is elevated by Ryo Kawasaki's stinging electric guitar, pristinely clear vocals by Adrienne Albert and Lani Groves, rootsy percussion by Ray Mantilla and Omar Clay, alto and baritone from Charles Davis, trumpet from Roy Burrowes, Gordon Edwards on bass and Frank Foster's tenor sax. Oh and did we mention STEVE GADD ON DRUMS?!?!

Gem after gem of looping, bliss-inducing gold, it's an incredibly revelatory album. It presents a thrilling synthesis of R&B, funk, blues and hard bop (with a hint of rock), all driven by an idiosyncratic electronic keyboard. Walton, a giant in the jazz world, got quite the workout every time he played, from piano to arp synthesizer to clarinet to electric piano to mini-moog and back again.

Mobius was Cedar Walton's debut for RCA in 1975. The versatile artist confirmed his abilities as a player, composer, interpreter and arranger with this stunning record, and his own bright compositions offered a springboard for the improvisations of the different soloists. Coltrane's "Blue Trane" is the first classic to be given the funkafied Mobius treatment, Ryo Kawasaki let loose all over neck-snapping Gadd-drum gold before the horns take a fiery turn and subsequently give way to Cedar's virtuosity. A sparkling b-boy break version of Thelonious Monk's "Off Minor" (featuring an absolutely *fire* solo from Walton) really sets proceedings alight. Of the three original pieces, the shuffling, percussive power of "Soho" is just absolutely mind bending Latin-influenced jazzy soul whilst the mellow vibes of "The Maestro" bring elegant, sumptuous soul. And then there's the effortlessly funky "Road Island Red". Just too, too good.

Cedar Walton was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 17, 1934 and began his professional career in 1959 when he began touring for several years with the J.J. Johnson Quintet. He later joined the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet and then Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Pretty solid credentials, right? While based in New York City, Cedar played with such luminaries as Donald Byrd, Eddie Harris, Blue Mitchell, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Heath and Milt Jackson. Without question, he was one of the most complete and gifted musicians of his time and Mobius provides proof of that. The fresh, danceable tracks, all firmly rooted in the living tradition of blues and gospel, are skilfully presented by a master who enjoyed keeping abreast of contemporary tastes and was always keen to renew his language.

As the album notes state: “Mobius, which is the theoretical shape of the infinite universe, makes use of the most modern recording techniques and synthesizers. We mastered and mixed so that it’s hotter than the competition, which should help radio play and in-store demonstration.” Indeed. Mobius is really gorgeous mid-70s fusion, ranging from the funky to the ecstatic. It's an absolute MONSTER that will completely blow you away; and, yes, it's as wild and hypnotic as the cover. The audio for Mobius has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The original, iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

Meaning ‘Hi’ in Uruguayan slang, Opa are a South American jazz-funk phenomenon. Fusing Uruguay’s native Candombe rhythms with North American jazz and pop music, Opa’s space-age synthesizers, boisterous grooves and compositional magic expressed a distinctive Afro-Uruguayan voice within the global jazz vernacular: a voice which remains as vital and unique today as when it was recorded, almost half a century ago.

Having migrated to New York from Montevideo in the early seventies, Opa were heard playing in a nightclub by renowned producer and label owner Larry Rosen. At Holly Place Studios between July and August 1975, Rosen oversaw Opa’s first recordings using a four track TEAC 3340. The album would become home to some of Opa’s hardest hitting funk jams, with moments of songwriting wonderment and soulful pop and rock progressions combining with the jazz-funk fusion Opa would become known for.

Mysteriously (for reasons unknown to the band), Opa’s debut was shelved and remained so until the mid-1990s. But the Back Home recordings were used as demos, gaining Opa a record deal with Milestone Records and the subsequent release of two cult-favourite albums: Goldenwings (1976) and Magic Time (1977).

Opa would also collaborate with North American titans including bassist Ron Carter, producer Creed Taylor and Brazilian icons Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Hermeto Pascoal and Milton Nascimento. In more recent years Opa’s music has found new audiences after being sampled by Captain Murphy (aka Flying Lotus) and Madlib.

For fans of Azymuth, Weather Report, Cortex and The Headhunters, Opa’s Back Home will be released on Vinyl LP and CD on the 8th March 2024 via Far Out Recordings

Soul Jazz of the First Order from Robert Dubwise Browne with two epic takes on tunes that should be in every DJ's grab bag of goodies. Sun Goddess originally by Ramsey Lewis and written by Earth, Wind and Fire's Maurice White together with a Ruff and Tuff version of the Grover Washington Jazz Funk classic "Mister Magic" featuring Jamaican Sax Man Dean Fraser. Guitarist Browne's appearance credits include the likes of his father Dennis Brown, as well as Gregory Isaacs, Beres Hammond and Toots Hibbert.. Produced by Japanese Reggae Legend Hayassen for his label Vortex and signed up on first hearing by Jazz Room Supremo Paul Murphy. If you've got a dancefloor you need these tunes!

You Only Live 2wice is the third studio album from Freddie Gibbs. Following a tumultuous time in Gibbs’ personal life, the album focuses on Freddie overcoming his obstacles and rising from the ashes anew, as reflected in the album art depicting the resurrection of Jesus. At 8 tracks, the album has no features, instead using the space to let Gibbs bear his soul. The album includes the chilling violin-laced single, “Crushed Glass,” as well as standout hits, “20 Karat Jesus,” &”Amnesia.” Executive produced by Ben “Lambo” Lambert & Gibbs himself, the album sees production from BADBADNOTGOOD, Kaytranada, Speakerbomb, Dupri, Jay Nari, Teddy Walton, Blair Norf & more. Back in print for the first time since its initial release and pressed on Opaque Red vinyl.

Warehouse Find!

Time to welcome Soul 223 to the label with his debut Delusions EP entitled Fear Of Stopping. Something of a complete legend in our eyes and ears, Steve Pickton has been releasing top drawer tuneage for over two decades both as Stasis on influential labels such as B12 and Peacefrog and more recently as Soul 223 on equally well regarded imprints like Delsin, Soul Jazz and Neroli. Always one to shy away from any limelight or self promotion it's true to say that this underrated British producer remains something of an anomaly, staying true to his underground roots where faceless, shadowy and obscure reigns supreme over the latest over-exposed cover star. This ethos naturally carries through into his music where you will always find both expansive beauty and unrefined rawness in equal measures ensuring his tracks always sound fresh rather than over produced or contrived.

Fear Of Stopping opens the EP with a low-slung disco groove providing the backbone for intermittent pad washes and reversing stabs. The focus here is firmly on the drums and simple conga riff with thankfully very little else to deter you from this sublime slice of abstract dance music.

Next up we have a remix from another ridiculously talented producer who chooses quality over quantity, having only ever had one release under his own name, albeit for one of the most respected labels in the world; Rush Hour. Maxi Mill came to our attention having released one of the tracks of 2011 namely To The Next. On this, his first ever solo remix he brings a brilliant bump to the EP with a raw, warehousey and bass-heavy workout. Just the right amount of strings and pads keep the deep vibe intact but the filtering bass and jacking drums definitely take this one to the floor.

Flipping over we have Walberswick in it's Hoist Covert Mix incarnation. Almost thirteen minutes of spaced out, deep Detroit house music awaits you, ready to lure you in and cocoon you with it's warm and hypnotizing machine funk. Lovely to hear the old Stasis influence working it's way into this one sounding both decidedly old-school and completely futuristic and otherworldly as only the best tracks ever do.

Closing the EP we have Birdbrook Rain dropping the BPM's for a beautifully sparse track that brings with it an almost desolate and disconnected feeling, echoing synths providing a naive melody while a dusty pad shifts simply beneath. A little slice of magic concluding a fresh and interesting EP, we hope you agree.

Holy Grail alert! Two stunning sweet soul cuts from New York based quintet, The Village Choir. Blending latin, soul & jazz, two dancefloor swayers of serious class. This super soulful 70’s 7 inch has regularly been changing hands for over £500 on the second hand market & for the first time ever, it has been officially licenced and lovingly reissued on heavyweight 7 inch vinyl for this RSD exclusive release. For the dancers and the romancers!

2024 RSD Release

The ascending soul sensation Fat Generous embarks on a heavenly collaboration Wai Wan. This record is an invitation to their soulful world of jazz influenced funk and R&B, Fat Generous have been making waves in their hometown playing alongside the likes of Fatboy Slim and Sister Sledge, and their raw onstage energy has gained the stamp of approval from the godfather funk himself, George Clinton. Recorded at the height of a record breaking heatwave, Fat Generous have captured the blissful respite of a 'NightTime Cool Breeze' in a silky laid back groover that formed their debut single back in September. Amassing over 30,000 streams in the first month, alongside radio play and feedback from the likes of Craig Charles & Giles Peterson. Channeling carefree vibes reminiscent of Roy Ayers’ 'Everybody Loves The Sunshine'. On the second side a Record Store Day exclusive track 'Shake Your Body Down' 'Shake Your Body Down' is an unparalleled journey through the funk filled cosmos, a collector's dream that pays homage to the pioneers of funk while paving the way for a new era of groove. This release is the precursor to a bigger release schedule for the band a good vibes only DIY recording project that has been produced by legendary nujazz producer, Wai Wan, whose fingerprints can be found all over releases on Chrysalis Records and Virgin Records. This record is a scene setter that introduces you to the groovy rhythms that Fat Generous deliver in excess at each of their live shows unique performances that lean on the group’s tight knit ability to improvise and reimagine their own music. Limited edition heavyweight 7 inch vinyl in a picture sleeve. Get the debut release and you're ahead of the curve.

2024 RSD Release

Montreal's finest, Dave Allison, returns with a 2xLP packed with disco-funk party flips, deep atmospheric soundscapes, lounging pool vibes, and captivating deep house journeys for the club. His tracks and EPs have consistently dominated the hype charts, earning acclaim from luminaries and trendsetters worldwide, including Dimitri From Paris, Greg Wilson, Jimpster, Soul Clap, Tensnake, Lovebirds, The Revenge & more. Limited edition 2 x LP Purple Vinyl pressing with exclusive vinyl-only tracks.

2024 RSD Release

What we gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time…and one of the most sampled refrains in dance music history. A 7 inch double header of two of the biggest records from the Jimmy Castor Bunch, the 1 million plus selling ‘Troglodyte’, flipped with ‘It’s Just Begun’. This funk masterpiece lit up the Bronx in the ‘70’s and was the spark from where Hip Hop caught fire. Get in early and go in hard. Funk, Soul, Hip Hop and dance fans all need this beaut. Original RCA labels and sleeve, all remastered for 2024.

The sophomore album from acclaimed US musician Vanderwolf and follow-up to 2022 debut '12 Little Killers' ("Soul, gospel, theatrical rock and more" Mojo), 'The Great Bewilderment' is a major rock record full of big emotions and adventurous songs. Whereas '12 Little Killers' was written and recorded during Vanderwolf's final years in London following the break-up of his semi-legendary band Last Man Standing, 'The Great Bewilderment' was mostly written during the pandemic, during which he relocated from New York to Los Angeles. For the recording, Vanderwolf reached out to an old friend, drummer Angie Scarpa, while a recommendation from John Cale's guitarist, Dusty Meadows, led to bassist H Chris Roy joining the band. Tim Sonnefeld contributes a variety of guitars, including beautiful crying feedback throughout album centrepiece "Gaza", which also features a guitar solo from Portishead's Adrian Utley. The album title itself is drawn from the mood of writing music during the pandemic. "I think we're still in that great bewilderment," insists Vanderwolf. "With threats to democracy, the division of opinion, plus this latest war on top of the war in Ukraine, and the climate crisis becoming acute, there's a looming sense that there's nothing we can do. 14 years of Tory corruption in an alleged democracy...that is bewildering. That a twice impeached President with 91 indictments against him can be the frontrunner in a presidential election...that is bewildering." As a music programmer and concert producer, Max Vanderwolf has worked for some of the worlds' most celebrated clubs and concert venues. These include New York's legendary Knitting Factory and London's internationally renowned Royal Festival Hall, where for 9 years he produced the Meltdown Festival working closely with artists including David Bowie, Patti Smith, Jarvis Cocker, Massive Attack and Ornette Coleman.

Mecca And The Soul Brother from Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth is considered by fans and critics as one of the finest hip hop albums of the early 90s. Songs like “Lots of Lovin”, “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”,”Anger In The Nation” and “It It Ain’t Rough, It Ain’t Right” have everything; funky basslines, solid production, convincing lyrics and lots of soul. Producer Pete Rock built his beats from obscure R&B, funk and jazz records and CL Smooth added his sometimes philosophical raps. Guest rappers on the album include Grand Puba (of Brand Nubian), Heavy D, Rob-O, Grap & Dida, and it reached #7 in the US R&B/Hip-hop charts and #43 in the US album charts.

Mecca And The Soul Brother by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth is considered by fans and critics as one of the finest hip hop albums of the early Nineties. Songs like "Lots of Lovin", "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)","Anger In The Nation" and "If It Ain't Rough, It Ain't Right" have everything; funky basslines, solid production, convincing lyrics and lots of soul. Producer Pete Rock built his beats from obscure R&B, funk and jazz records and CL Smooth added his sometimes-philosophical raps. Guest rappers on the album include Grand Puba (of Brand Nubian), Heavy D, Rob-O, Grap & Dida, and it reached #7 in the US R&B/Hip-hop charts and #43 in the US album charts.

Advitam Aeternamour, Cléa Vincent's third album, will be released on 29 March 2024 by Midnight Special.

If the 90s gave us “French touch,” then the 2010s ushered in “French pop,” and it was in the midst of this revival that Cléa began her artistic journey. As early as the music video for

“Achète-le-moi” from her debut LP Retiens mon désir (2016), we witness the singer striking selfie-like poses with her French pop comrades (La Femme, Bertrand Burgalat), appearing pell-mell on screen in the form of their vinyl records. Since then, whether singing with Philippe Katerine or co-producing (and composing) Jeanne Balibar's D'ici là tout l'été (2023), Cléa Vincent has effortlessly carved out a niche for herself in the French pop scene. The advantage of being a “jack-of-all-trades” — Cléa is a writer, composer, and producer — is that her music casts a wide net. Both highly acclaimed in the indie circuit and “as seen on TV” (on Quotidien, among others), she has also enjoyed a stint as the host for web-TV show Sooo Pop, for which she regularly interviewed a plethora of French artists. Beyond France, the singer tours extensively. After a run of concerts in Europe, Asia, North and South America, it was her visit to Latin and Central America that inspired Tropi-cléa (2017-2020-2022). The three EPs bathed in a tropicalist glow do more than just dip their toes in the water; they mark a deep desire to escape in a post-lockdown world.

In between these projects emerged Cléa’s LP Nuits sans sommeil (2019). The album quickly became an instant classic and lives up to its name, since Clea never seems to stop — writing, composing, singing, or dancing. Mixed by Stephane ALF Briat, who has lent his magic touch to records by Phoenix, Bonnie Banane, Air, and Flavien Berger, Cléa Vincent's third LP Advitam Aeternamour proves once again that her music is in perpetual renewal. The artist takes risks both in her pursuit for innovative sounds and in the themes she tackles: coming out, incest, grief...and of course, she will always be a true romantic at heart; there’s no need to be ashamed of loving love. Cléa’s songs are full of “explicit lyrics,” but not in the typical sense: rather than ringing harsh and raw, her words are tinged with sweetness and melancholy, at the risk of shocking less sentimental listeners.

Written hand-in-hand with Raphaël Léger, her creative soulmate for the last ten years who also recorded and produced the album, Advitam Aeternamour features lyrics charged with Epinal and equinox imagery. On the poignantly sober title track, sudden flashes of light are padded by tinkling synthesizers swathed in the voices of an angelic choir, as also heard on “Nuit de Yalda.” Cléa offers a modern take on 90s house music (“C'est Ok”) and 2-step garage (“Free Demain”). Particularly influenced by The Beloved, she is not above dipping pop songs into the electronic melting pot to get them through the club door (“État Second,” where we “turn up the BPM”). And whether on “Shut down ma tête,” or “Douce Chavirée,” Cléa pushes the champagne cork down even further so that the party never stops. The bass gets louder, the rhythm intensifies — the melodies of these eternal hits are an invitation onto the dance floor, lit up by her smile.

As depicted in the soothing embrace that appears on the album artwork, the bright psychedelic hues are the perfect complement to her therapeutically inclined synthetic pop. Even if they tackle themes such as breakups, Cléa's songs, which are vitamin-packed and deep on the surface, are intended to heal and repair. “Se laisser partir,” with its light vocoder echoes, emulating the vocal shadow of a loved one, is an optimistic breakup song. Advitam Æternamour gives us life, from birth to grief — and in the middle, wild, beating passion. If her songs resonate with us, it's because Cléa speaks to us in her songs, as heard on the girl power anthem “Free demain,” where she addresses the listener as a friend (“put the pedal to the metal and you’ll take off for the stars”). When she shares the microphone with Jacques on “État Second,” enveloped by the sounds of unidentified musical objects, the complementary nature of the two artists is evident. The album is as much a tribute to the healing virtues of music as it is a self-portrait of Cléa inhabited by her art. Ad vitam æternam and with love.

Have you played Atari today ?

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration takes players on an interactive journey through 50 years of video games, including a specially curated list of more than 100 playable classics and six entirely new titles from the award-winning team at Digital Eclipse.

For this unique project, Atari teamed up with composer Bob Baffy, who worked on many classic video game soundtracks, to compose rearranged classic themes and new tracks.

Microids Records is proud to bring you this unique soundtrack that captures the heart and soul of ATARI and a whole generation of gamers!

sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album"s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life"s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. rousay"s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. "I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes," says rousay. The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with a documentarian heart, rousay capturing moments of her life while living alone in houses across the country, learning to play guitar, and reconnecting with pop music. Her innate ability to conjure pure feeling from sound derives from her delightful embrace of pop forms, the vulnerability found in field recordings, minimalistic arrangements and innovative sound choices. sentiment is blissfully, achingly melancholic, and an undeniably sensual listening experience.

Swedish synth-pop phenomenon Kite's second 7 inch since signing with Dais in 2023 finds the duo of Nicklas Stenemo and Christian Hutchinson Berg swinging for new heights of romantic desolation and baroque grandeur. They describe the A Side, "Losing," as a "six-minute empty call for emotional response." Stately piano and anguished voice reverberate in a vaulted hall, before gradually building into a widescreen anthem of synths, drums, and soaring vocals decrying the steady deadening of life and love: "It's deadly quiet in your old heart / Are you there? / I see dark skies on the rise / And daylight shows no remorse / And I realize it is my life / But It's losing all meaning." Swedish dark music icons Anna von Hausswolff and Henric de la Cour join the chorus as the song cascades towards an ominous horizon. The B Side, "Glassy Eyes," showcases Kite's mastery of somber, sweeping balladry. Hushed church organ elevates and anchors Stenemo's devastated confessional, swaying between resilience and defeat. The band describes the song as a reckoning with "the privileged and existential anxiety of drifting through life dispassionately," contrasted with "the yearning to connect profoundly with others and a desire for experiences that stir the soul before facing one's final moments." Like a hymn, the emotion thickens as it deepens, approaching both darkness and divinity: "Deep as I go, nothing to find / Oh catatonia, I won't cry / Nothing can grow, everything dies / Behind my glassy eyes."

Swedish synth-pop phenomenon Kite's second 7 inch since signing with Dais in 2023 finds the duo of Nicklas Stenemo and Christian Hutchinson Berg swinging for new heights of romantic desolation and baroque grandeur. They describe the A Side, "Losing," as a "six-minute empty call for emotional response." Stately piano and anguished voice reverberate in a vaulted hall, before gradually building into a widescreen anthem of synths, drums, and soaring vocals decrying the steady deadening of life and love: "It's deadly quiet in your old heart / Are you there? / I see dark skies on the rise / And daylight shows no remorse / And I realize it is my life / But It's losing all meaning." Swedish dark music icons Anna von Hausswolff and Henric de la Cour join the chorus as the song cascades towards an ominous horizon. The B Side, "Glassy Eyes," showcases Kite's mastery of somber, sweeping balladry. Hushed church organ elevates and anchors Stenemo's devastated confessional, swaying between resilience and defeat. The band describes the song as a reckoning with "the privileged and existential anxiety of drifting through life dispassionately," contrasted with "the yearning to connect profoundly with others and a desire for experiences that stir the soul before facing one's final moments." Like a hymn, the emotion thickens as it deepens, approaching both darkness and divinity: "Deep as I go, nothing to find / Oh catatonia, I won't cry / Nothing can grow, everything dies / Behind my glassy eyes."

Recorded at British Grove and Abbey Road studios, Daphne Guinness’s fourth
album, Sleep, is unlike anything Guinness has produced before. Contemplative, self-
reflective, and personal, it represents her most beguiling body of work to-date; a
sleek sophisticated experience enhanced by an array of esoteric creative touches,
complementing its dancefloor rush.

Mixed by Ricky Damian, known for his work with Lady Gaga, Adele, Georgia Smith,
Dua Lipa, her creative connections include long standing collaborator Malcolm
Doherty and Tony Visconti (who scored the album’s strings).

The album’s scale is further amplified by collaborators, including Guy Pratt (Madonna, Michael Jackson) and Rob Shirakbari (Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick), plus a 34-piece string section.

The scope of her associations extends far beyond the core album. Daphne collaborated with Nick Knight of SHOWStudio for the video to early single ‘Hip Neck Spine’, and with the iconic filmmaker and photographer, David LaChapelle for the current single ‘Volcano’.

New Jackson marks his long awaited follow-up to 2017’s From Night To Night with its successor OOPS!... POP for long-time collaborators Permanent Vacation. A concise triumph in techno pop, its 9 tracks elevate his signature electronic sounds into anthemic new heights.
David Kitt is a prolific sonic polymath who’s enjoyed a colourful career making whatever he likes.
While releasing music under a vast array of aliases and collaborations for close to two and a half decades, New Jackson has remained his irregular home since 2011 for when ‘at one with the machines’. It offers a kaleidoscopic window into his love of dance music, and on his debut album under the alias From Night To Night (released in 2017 on Dublin’s All City label) he unfurled his singular vision; a dilated suite of nocturnal soul coaxed from his beloved electronic equipment with songwriter’s nous, sonically etched as blunted whispers coalesced from the dusky billows of Dublin bay. Further EPs and singles followed, alongside a beloved live show he toured globally, plus detours with his critically-lauded Garies duo (with Lumigraph) and a David Kitt solo album.
In the time since his New Jackson debut, he’s slowly distilled his studio methodology to help mine the true core of his musical self. Within this experimentation, he has stumbled upon the bounty that is OOPS!... POP, his most direct and euphoric body of work to date. Recorded across the span of five years and three different countries, Kitt has managed to transform his beloved alias into a leaner beast, tightening the screws around arrangements and songwriting to inspire an album sonically effortless in demeanour and spontaneously playful in structure and form. Aided by a stacked cast of collaborators including Rita Lynn, Donnacha Costello, Riche “Jape” Egan, Yenkee, Kean Kavanagh, Margie Jean Lewis, Meg Cronin and Fehdah, it bears the hallmarks of the studio albums of yesteryear in its dynamism and gratification while drawing on his rich bouquet of influences across a century of recorded music.
Opener SI SI SI lulls you in with its smothered vocoder’d croons and patient groove, BURNT DEEP next yields a surprising deep house turn, lit gently with casual hedonism. LIKE rewires the playbook entirely, shuffling along its minimal 80’s boogie groove with a cheeky grin, before lead single OUT OF REACH further mines the golden pastures with its glorious stuttering techno power-pop fit with that anthemic chorus. DAY IN SHOCK digi-dubs around the wonderful vocal turn of Fehdah in purest heads-down manner, then THE OK HOLE and STROBE both descend the psychedelic wormhole of anaesthetised breaks and electro with its entranced dancefloor gaze. I WANNA BE ADORED, the Madchester anthem from The Stone Roses, is then surprisingly reimagined as a lost kraut-pop robo sung classic while WITH THE NIGHT AT OUR FEET is our climactic conclusion, a mechanised symphony of dual proportions; a humane core of angelic harmonies chugging along in electro rhythm before soaring strings take us on our way.
New Jackson’s oeuvre, indeed David Kitt’s musical world, is vast; OOPS!... POP then might just be his opus across it all, a towering achievement of soaring catharsis in melody and song that soundtracks the most direct transmissions from his heart to yours

For The Bacon Brothers, music is all about exploration. The siblings have spent the better part of three decades creating their own mix of folk, rock, soul, and country music. They call that diverse sound "forosoco," and it's taken them around the world, from headlining gigs in Japan to American performances at iconic venues like Carnegie Hall, the Grand Ole Opry and Gruene Hall.

The exploration continues with the band's twelfth release,'The Ballad Of The Brothers'. It's a record that highlights not only the similarities between Kevin Bacon (known worldwide as an A-list Hollywood actor) and Michael Bacon (celebrated as an Emmy-winning composer), but the differences, too. The two siblings may be bound together by blood and a mutual love of American roots music, but they've grown into sharp songwriters and cinematic storytellers with their own distinct approaches.

Ballad of the Brothers by The Bacon Brothers, released 19 April 2024, includes the following tracks: "Put Your Hand Up", "Old Bronco", "We Belong", "Ballad Of The Brothers (The Willie Door)" and more.

This version of Ballad of the Brothers comes as a 1xLP.

There’s a profound tenderness that imbues The Butterfly Myth, the debut album from Toronto artist Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien. Each of the nine songs, unreserved in their beauty, contain strength and softness in equal measure; a delicate balance that invites the listener to feel themselves held and reflected. Steeped in the lowkey balladry of 90s alt-rock soul searching, propelled by timeless r&b undercurrents and tinged with a few country flourishes, The Butterfly Myth manages to speak of grief in a way that feels warm and nourishing.

"The Butterfly Myth" by Blunt Chunks includes the following tracks: "High Hopes", "Every Day", "Breathe", "Can't Be The End" and more.

sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album"s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life"s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. rousay"s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. "I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes," says rousay. The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with a documentarian heart, rousay capturing moments of her life while living alone in houses across the country, learning to play guitar, and reconnecting with pop music. Her innate ability to conjure pure feeling from sound derives from her delightful embrace of pop forms, the vulnerability found in field recordings, minimalistic arrangements and innovative sound choices. sentiment is blissfully, achingly melancholic, and an undeniably sensual listening experience.

EIGHTEEN AND I LIKE IT… (MISC. COLOURED VINYL))if you survived trips 1-17 with one tiny speck of psychedelic sunshine intact, Brown Acid The 18th Trip will be your coming of age nightmare. Vintage underground '70s hard rock, coming at you from bizarre angles, local scene wasteland America when everybody was out for themselves and the drugs went bleak. The guitars kill, the attitude is twisted, even the sex is headed down the wrong road. Real people, no compromise, pure and potent. Get stoked, take the 18th Trip and know that the artists will get paid for pulverizing your soul! "People… are you ready?, 'cause the music now is getting so heavy"… Back Jack out of St. Louis, Missouri in 1974 launch our trip with "Bridge Waters Dynamite". It's an invocation to rock flashing on Mark Farner whooping up a Grand Funk crowd, then getting to the point quickly with berserk guitar assaults. Heavy riff with power chord stalks beneath as you take their advice… get loose and blow up the past. Smokin' Buku Band dropped my jaw with the audacious track "Hot Love" coming on like some fractured fever dream burlesque of Led Zep moves out of Hollywood in 1980. Swooping elongated vocals above, a total Zep chord move at the end of each verse. Writer/producer Steve Shauger aka Shag Stevens gets a brilliantly messed up sound quality here, the ideal polar opposite of slick. The extended guitar break is an epitome of serendipitously crude virtuosity, simply outrageous! Coming at you from way outta left field is "Moby Shark" by Atlantis, a hilarious and strange Baltimore pre-punk vibed dose of D.I.Y. meets hard rock. Lon Talbot is the mastermind, the flip side of this impossibly rare Mekon Records label single was featured in an obscure 1978 B-movie titled "The Alien Factor". Follow the lyrics closely, when the ominous jaws jaws jaws start coming after you you you… the song's big hook is so preposterously catchy the shark attack feels like good news. Inquiring minds should know that the band formerly known as Atlantis can now be found by searching for the Lon Talbot Group! Tommy Stuart and the Rubberband's "Peeking Through Your Window" from 1970 opens with a spooky organ riff, slips into a gushy fuzz/organ groove akin to "Mustache In Your Face” by Pretty. The singer creates downright creepy vibes, a stalker peeking through the girl's mind like a peeping Tom at the window up to no good. The lyrics evoke a disturbing scenario. Tommy Stuart also made a strange LP titled Hound Dog Man in 1977 and some terrific rare garage singles under the names Magnificent Seven and The Omen & Their Love in the mid '60s. Nothing better than an angry two chord guitar attack with cowbell to set the stage for this rant about getting "Ripped Off" by love. Taken from their rare 1977 LP on Dynamite Records, Chicago Triangle was Marvey Esparza, Dave Guereca, Jose 'Tarr' Perez and Robert Aguilera. They unleash such strong brain-scrubbing wah wah frenzy in the guitar break here that it seems to perversely mock it's own intensity! Like I said, Brown Acid the 18th Trip comes at you from all kinds of uncanny angles. Damnation of Adam Blessing out of Cleveland, Ohio unleashed a stone killer psychedelic hard rock classic "Cookbook" in the late '60s, this track "Nightmare" from 1973 has them cooking again at full power. A different singer, name change to Damnation and then Glory, unleashing a deadly dose of dark progressive heavy rock drama peaking when spooky 'oooo-wa-oooo' background vocals emerge during a bizarre spoken bit. It unfolds like a mini-epic and includes some remarkably brutal guitar and turbulent organ, too. "Swing your sword, all aboard… bid farewell to the dreamer" Dalquist exclaims. Cynical view of human nature, idealism is over, war is coming, it always does. Opens with a cold menacing riff and atmosphere reminiscent of "Synthezoid Heartbreak" by Maya. Mournful despondent vocals ride an insistent churning groove, gnarly guitar break moves into free noise territory. This rare track is from a local various artists benefit album titled Kangaroo Jam issued for the Waco Family Abuse Center in Texas circa 1980. The Pawnbrokers "Realize" is prime proto heavy rock emerging out of psychedelic garage roots in 1968 Fargo, North Dakota. Unusual arrangement, terrific sustain guitar tones like on the first Blue Cheer LP, even a rip on Hendrix "Manic Depression" with unison voice and guitar ascent near the end. They made three 45s and were active from '65 to '69. Hats off to Blake English, Kent Richey, Paul Rogne and Steve Harrison, you nailed it in just a hair over two minutes! As pure and creative as the original psychedelic garage hard rock gets. Parchment Farm from Union, Missouri gigged with the likes of ZZ Top and Foghat back in the day and unleashed the amazing "Songs Of The Dead" in 1971. Primitive riff/chord pattern dosed with some funky prog moves, sky turning black, 'is this heaven or hell' type disoriented confusion… may as well grab your guitar and sing songs to the dead. Robert 'Ace' Williams on bass, Paul Cockrum on guitar, Gary Reed on keys and Micky Waterman on drums, replacing Mike Dulany (R.I.P.) Cool that they use the Blue Cheer misspelling from Vincebus Eruptum for the band name! Ominous organ, thick minimalist fuzz riff, funky psychedelic wah wah flashes and freaky sex combine in one twisted dance titled "Rockin' Chair" by Brothers Of The Ghetto. Out of Chicago in 1975 with some Santana atmospherics and a delicious fuzz wah screamin' guitar break, the groove is highlighted by an off the wall vocal which sounds eerily detached in a subtly sleazy way. Rene Maxwell is the writer of this hard-rock boogie-down hybrid straight out of the twilight zone. It was issued on Ghetto, a subsidiary of the peculiar Kiderian label that released the Creme Soda LP. Now that your head is totally skewered, go Back Jack and play side one again! (Words by Paul Major)

EIGHTEEN AND I LIKE IT… (MISC. COLOURED VINYL))if you survived trips 1-17 with one tiny speck of psychedelic sunshine intact, Brown Acid The 18th Trip will be your coming of age nightmare. Vintage underground '70s hard rock, coming at you from bizarre angles, local scene wasteland America when everybody was out for themselves and the drugs went bleak. The guitars kill, the attitude is twisted, even the sex is headed down the wrong road. Real people, no compromise, pure and potent. Get stoked, take the 18th Trip and know that the artists will get paid for pulverizing your soul! "People… are you ready?, 'cause the music now is getting so heavy"… Back Jack out of St. Louis, Missouri in 1974 launch our trip with "Bridge Waters Dynamite". It's an invocation to rock flashing on Mark Farner whooping up a Grand Funk crowd, then getting to the point quickly with berserk guitar assaults. Heavy riff with power chord stalks beneath as you take their advice… get loose and blow up the past. Smokin' Buku Band dropped my jaw with the audacious track "Hot Love" coming on like some fractured fever dream burlesque of Led Zep moves out of Hollywood in 1980. Swooping elongated vocals above, a total Zep chord move at the end of each verse. Writer/producer Steve Shauger aka Shag Stevens gets a brilliantly messed up sound quality here, the ideal polar opposite of slick. The extended guitar break is an epitome of serendipitously crude virtuosity, simply outrageous! Coming at you from way outta left field is "Moby Shark" by Atlantis, a hilarious and strange Baltimore pre-punk vibed dose of D.I.Y. meets hard rock. Lon Talbot is the mastermind, the flip side of this impossibly rare Mekon Records label single was featured in an obscure 1978 B-movie titled "The Alien Factor". Follow the lyrics closely, when the ominous jaws jaws jaws start coming after you you you… the song's big hook is so preposterously catchy the shark attack feels like good news. Inquiring minds should know that the band formerly known as Atlantis can now be found by searching for the Lon Talbot Group! Tommy Stuart and the Rubberband's "Peeking Through Your Window" from 1970 opens with a spooky organ riff, slips into a gushy fuzz/organ groove akin to "Mustache In Your Face” by Pretty. The singer creates downright creepy vibes, a stalker peeking through the girl's mind like a peeping Tom at the window up to no good. The lyrics evoke a disturbing scenario. Tommy Stuart also made a strange LP titled Hound Dog Man in 1977 and some terrific rare garage singles under the names Magnificent Seven and The Omen & Their Love in the mid '60s. Nothing better than an angry two chord guitar attack with cowbell to set the stage for this rant about getting "Ripped Off" by love. Taken from their rare 1977 LP on Dynamite Records, Chicago Triangle was Marvey Esparza, Dave Guereca, Jose 'Tarr' Perez and Robert Aguilera. They unleash such strong brain-scrubbing wah wah frenzy in the guitar break here that it seems to perversely mock it's own intensity! Like I said, Brown Acid the 18th Trip comes at you from all kinds of uncanny angles. Damnation of Adam Blessing out of Cleveland, Ohio unleashed a stone killer psychedelic hard rock classic "Cookbook" in the late '60s, this track "Nightmare" from 1973 has them cooking again at full power. A different singer, name change to Damnation and then Glory, unleashing a deadly dose of dark progressive heavy rock drama peaking when spooky 'oooo-wa-oooo' background vocals emerge during a bizarre spoken bit. It unfolds like a mini-epic and includes some remarkably brutal guitar and turbulent organ, too. "Swing your sword, all aboard… bid farewell to the dreamer" Dalquist exclaims. Cynical view of human nature, idealism is over, war is coming, it always does. Opens with a cold menacing riff and atmosphere reminiscent of "Synthezoid Heartbreak" by Maya. Mournful despondent vocals ride an insistent churning groove, gnarly guitar break moves into free noise territory. This rare track is from a local various artists benefit album titled Kangaroo Jam issued for the Waco Family Abuse Center in Texas circa 1980. The Pawnbrokers "Realize" is prime proto heavy rock emerging out of psychedelic garage roots in 1968 Fargo, North Dakota. Unusual arrangement, terrific sustain guitar tones like on the first Blue Cheer LP, even a rip on Hendrix "Manic Depression" with unison voice and guitar ascent near the end. They made three 45s and were active from '65 to '69. Hats off to Blake English, Kent Richey, Paul Rogne and Steve Harrison, you nailed it in just a hair over two minutes! As pure and creative as the original psychedelic garage hard rock gets. Parchment Farm from Union, Missouri gigged with the likes of ZZ Top and Foghat back in the day and unleashed the amazing "Songs Of The Dead" in 1971. Primitive riff/chord pattern dosed with some funky prog moves, sky turning black, 'is this heaven or hell' type disoriented confusion… may as well grab your guitar and sing songs to the dead. Robert 'Ace' Williams on bass, Paul Cockrum on guitar, Gary Reed on keys and Micky Waterman on drums, replacing Mike Dulany (R.I.P.) Cool that they use the Blue Cheer misspelling from Vincebus Eruptum for the band name! Ominous organ, thick minimalist fuzz riff, funky psychedelic wah wah flashes and freaky sex combine in one twisted dance titled "Rockin' Chair" by Brothers Of The Ghetto. Out of Chicago in 1975 with some Santana atmospherics and a delicious fuzz wah screamin' guitar break, the groove is highlighted by an off the wall vocal which sounds eerily detached in a subtly sleazy way. Rene Maxwell is the writer of this hard-rock boogie-down hybrid straight out of the twilight zone. It was issued on Ghetto, a subsidiary of the peculiar Kiderian label that released the Creme Soda LP. Now that your head is totally skewered, go Back Jack and play side one again! (Words by Paul Major)

SUWI, with its strong live reputation, renowned for skillfully engaging and connecting with its audience, unveils its third studio album. Food for the lovers of Khruangbin, Menahan Street Band and other instrumental soul bands. Including members from Nordmann, Kosmo Sound and Robbing Millions.

Playing for Oscar is the raw power of nature speaking to you, the romance of 'dying is realizing that you are alive.' It manifests itself with the physical experience that is groove and the serenity and simplicity that we already know from their previous albums. The addition of lyrics and singing provides the biggest change in their band sound.

Cyriel Vandenabeele, an avid reader and transcriber of film, series, and game music, provides the compositions. The magic of SUWI is complete when they, as a trio, with Mattias Geernaert on bass and Elias Devoldere on drums, surrender to the moment. On this album as well, this results in the spontaneous and sincere expression that is love. Think Jimi Hendrix, Herman Hesse and Mariokart64.

Polistrumentalist, composer and producer Alex Puddu (Al Dente/Schema Records), also known for his collaborations with Edda Dell'Orso (Maestro Morricone's legendary vocalist,) Joe Bataan, Lonnie Jordan from L.A funk band War, and Gene Robinson Jr of Breakwater, and who boasts a solo discography of 17 albums, including the three original volumes of the red light soundtracks of Danish films" The Golden Age Of Danish xxxography. He debuts for the first time with a new double single sang in Italian language, with two tracks "Pullover Grigio" and Texas Blonde", proposing a new sound that draws us into the Italian funk pop music of the late 70s and early 80s and into the pop/indie melodies of the new Italian scene, up to electronic sounds (as Calcutta, Fulminacci, Fra Quintale, Marco Castello and Nu Genea have done), between soul and disco, which are part of Alex Puddu's unmistakable production style. Don’t Miss It!

Delphine Dora is a prolific composer, improviser and musician who has released on a plethora of labels including Recital, Morc, Sloow Tapes, Feeding Tube, Okraïna and more, and ‘Le Grand Passage’ is her Modern Love debut, a stunning set of songs for piano and voice, recorded in one take without overdubs or edits.

In an act of pure expression, Delphine Dora recorded the 8 songs of ‘The Great Passage’ in a single take, succumbing to a whirlwind of inspiration that transported her beyond the material world. Baroque paradigms bleed into fragile, introspective mantras, expressed through a made up language of existential yearning and channeled through piano and voice. It’s music that caresses the sublime, made without any premeditation.

Delphine was nearing the end of a three-day prepared piano residency when an technician stepped in to tune her grand piano for her final performance. He removed the objects from the strings and fixed the pitch, leaving Dora with a freshly tuned instrument. Mesmerised by its new sound, she proceeded to switch on her recorder and pour out her soul, channeling, in her own words, "something greater than myself".

The result is some of the most unusual but elevated material the prolific composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist has ever recorded, rooted in a deep understanding of European musical history but willing to push at its boundaries, questioning the earthly logic of life and death, asceticism and impiety. Glistening imperfections lash 'The Great Passage' to the physical world, but Dora - seemingly possessed as she quivers in a fictional dialect - lets her fantasies intensify her spirit, lifting the music towards the heavens. It's not sacred music, per se, but it is unashamedly mystical.

On the luxurious, languid opening, Dora dissolves eerily familiar romantic piano motifs into an attentive ceremony, singing with charged emotion. Her words aren't really decipherable, but their resonance vibrates beyond language; it's striking to hear how confident she is in vulnerability. She lets the piano wrap into her voice, connecting us directly to a unique mode of emotional expression by urging us - the listener - to project our own meaning onto her abstracted words.

Dora refers to the act of improvisation itself as a way to indicate "the fragility of being”, and as her words blur in and out of focus, dipping from a hoarse croak to a choking wail, she places herself at the very edge of musical formality, questioning strictures put in place to suffocate self-expression. Her music has often been labeled "outsider", but here she sounds intimate and interconnected, more self-consciously candid than anything traditional might have allowed. She conjures affecting, plainspoken poetry, like a bedside diary written in a hypnagogic, delirious state: a stream-of-unconsciousness, channelling the beyond.

The album title connects to a book dedicated to French philosopher and activist Simone Weil, who famously pored over global religions to ascertain spiritual truths. To Weil, meditation was a passage to access mystical experience, or a bridge between humanity and divinity. In Dora's hands, this idea is a corridor between herself and the listener, a liminal place where she's able to address feelings without making anything explicit. The title, of course, also refers to life, its impermanence, finitude, and fragility, presenting the complex, multi-dimensionality of being through one of the most undiluted, unbridled set of songs imaginable.