Search:tell me

Second release from Reboot on Pleasure Zone comes right in time for the open air season.
"Bombons" is a melodic beauty, not to be mssed!
Highly recommended!

On his fourth solo album, much as in Oh! (2020), the French composer, pianist and vocalist follows his ongoing exploration of the crossroads between poetry and songs, piano and synth, old-time verses and contemporary sounds. Inspired by the rhythms, effects and speech patterns of urban music, he also delivers, with a warm and moving voice, the texts of three poetesses from the past.
Since 2013, Ezéchiel Pailhès has been crafting a unique French synth pop. On his first three albums, he switched between songs inspired by poetry, instrumental ballads and electronica with hummed
choruses. This latest record is a collection of eleven new songs, two of which he wrote: "Opaline" and "Ni toi, ni moi" (neither you nor me). The others are adaptations of poems written in the 16th, 18th and
19th centuries by French poetesses Louise Labé (1524-1566), Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786- 1859) and Renée Vivien (1877-1909).
Poetesses from the past...
From classical music to songs, poetry adaptation is an old French tradition. "My universe has always embraced the musicality of this literary genre," the artist recalls. He actually started this project in 2017 with poems and sonnets by William Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, Victor Hugo and above all Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, who can be heard again on songs such as "Dors-tu?" (Are you sleeping?),
"Élégie" or "L'attente" (The wait). A figure of romanticism, the author left her mark on the early 19th century through the quality of her texts and her formal inventions, particularly praised by Balzac, and
apparently a decisive influence on Verlaine and Baudelaire. "Marceline's poetry is very musical," says Ezéchiel admiringly. "Her use of rhythm and repetition sounds great and takes on a new perspective when set to music. In fact, she wrote some of her texts with singing in mind.”
“Ces longs secrets dont l'amour nous accuse, Viens-tu les rompre en songe à mes genoux ? Dors-tu, ma vie ! ou rêves-tu de moi ?”
“These long secrets for which love accuses us, Do you come to my knees to break them in a dream?
Are you sleeping, my life! or do you dream of me” (“Dors-tu ?”, after “Les pleurs” (the tears), 1833)
Besides her, we find the more famous, and rebellious, Renée Vivien, whose texts inspired three songs, "Regard en arrière" (Looking backwards), "Mélopée" (Melopoeia) and "La fille de la nuit" (The
night girl). Sometimes nicknamed "Sapho 1900", this figure of lesbian culture and, more broadly, of female genius, combined in her work the themes of desire, dreams, melancholy and the relationship with nature.
“Ta forme est un éclair
Ton sourire est l’instant Tu fuis, lorsque l’appel
T’implore, ô mon Désir !”
"Your shape is a spark of lightning
Your smile, the very moment
You flee, when the calling
Begs you, O my Desire!"
(After “Parle-moi, de ta voix pareille à l’eau courante” (Speak to me, with a voice like flowing waters) and “Ta forme est un éclair” (Your shape is a spark of lightning), Renée Vivien, 1901)
Lastly, with "Tant que mes yeux" (As long as my eyes), Ezéchiel was inspired by a 1555 poem by Renaissance poet Louise Labé, whose main topic explored female love, physical and spiritual desire,
and the torments and pains they generate.
" At the start of the project ", Ezéchiel continues, " I was interested in many poets, men and women, past and present, before my selection was narrowed down to these three female authors. Their works,
often written in difficult or secret conditions, express a raging romanticism, a passionate soul, fuelled by desperate and tormented love. I found it interesting, as a man coming from another world and time, to face this otherness, to trade viewpoints. Obviously, I could loudly claim that the album was the result of a concept, that it reflects today's world, and that it allows me to explore the notion of gender,
giving visibility to the work of a few women, while at the same time pairing these ancient texts with a more modern and rhythmic music, and obviously, there is some truth in that. But more than anything, I
wanted to serve the text itself, to express the emotion and connection I felt with these works.”
Today's rhythms and prosody...
Ezéchiel Pailhès combines texts from French literature with electronic music, its effects and rhythms, as well as a form of scansion that echoes rap, R&B or the current fusion between hip hop and pop,
which is part of our musical background and that of younger generations. "I wanted to cross-reference texts from the beginning of the century with this type of music. I wanted to use today’s techniques to tell the tale of different daily lives and experiences.
The album is thus marked by contemporary electronic orchestrations, in which he drops his favourite instrument, the piano, and his digital collage technique to use more extensive synth melodies, enhanced by drum machines, bringing a gentle and bright vibe to the romantic texts. Lastly, we can hear slight digital tones of Auto-Tune, which Ezéchiel uses sparingly and inventively.

Beyond its sophistication, the term "melopoeia" means a "sung declamation", a "recitative song", sometimes interpreted in a monotonous way. On this album, it could also refer to a sense of phrasing, which does not come from rap, but rather from jazz, Ezéchiel's first love. " In the past, I tried to hide my jazz culture, but it naturally came back on this new album, as can be heard, for instance, in Regard en arrière.” With its verses anchored in our literary memory, the following track "Mélopée", perfectly illustrates the album's vision. It manages to transcend eras, mixing past romanticism with a modern
prosody, fuelled by the nonchalance of hip hop and the warm chords of jazz.
“Qu’un hasard guide enfin mon désespoir tranquille
Vers l’eau d’une oasis ou les berges d’une île,
Où je puisse dormir, mon voyage accompli,
Dans la sécurité profonde de l’oubli”
"May chance guide my quiet sorrow, at last
To the water of an oasis, the shores of an island,
Where I may sleep, having traveled my way,
In the safe depths of oblivion".
(After “Sillages” (Trails), René Vivien, 1908)

LP + 7". Indigo Sparke's majestic second full-length album Hysteria is a sweeping work, one that possesses a rare, reflective power. On it, she examines love, loss, her history, and the emotional upheaval surrounding those sensations: her words tell the stories, and the sounds act them out. It's a diary built for big stages. Hysteria arrives just a year after her striking, minimalist debut, Echo. Here, though, Sparke offers an expansive body of work_it's a complex collection that expands her sound and outlook. Work on Hysteria began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Sparke was stranded in quarantine in her native Australia. After moving back to New York in the spring of 2021, Sparke finished writing the album's 14 songs and decamped upstate with producer Aaron Dessner (The National, Taylor Swift). "Originally we were going to co-write, but after he heard my demos he said, `There's so much in here already,'" Sparke recalls on how Dessner, who also contributes instrumentation along with guitarist Shahzad Izmaily and drummer Matt Barrick (The Walkmen, Muzz), got involved in bringing Hysteria to life. Centering Sparke's powerful vocals throughout, Hysteria is packed with big guitars and layered instrumentation that practically acts as the album's lungs, giving every note breath. From the pulsing immediacy of "Infinite Honey" to the soaring "God Is a Woman's Name" and "Hold On"'s towering chorus, this is music that sounds huge even as it zooms in on the trials and turmoils of one's inner life. You can hear Sparke reflecting on reconciliation, grief, hope, and the passage of time on the perpetually building "Pressure in My Chest" and the airy, Joni Mitchell-esque title track, which finds her embracing a gorgeous upper register over gently strummed guitar. "Set Your Fire on Me" builds and bursts not unlike Angel Olsen's own raw folk-rock expressionism_and then there's the stark opener and first single "Blue," which acts as a cosmic road map for Sparke's own journey in life. Sparke observes while reflecting on Hysteria's thematic bent "these songs are about being at the axis point of love - right at the edge of hysteria - and how that transformed me."

LP + 7". Indigo Sparke's majestic second full-length album Hysteria is a sweeping work, one that possesses a rare, reflective power. On it, she examines love, loss, her history, and the emotional upheaval surrounding those sensations: her words tell the stories, and the sounds act them out. It's a diary built for big stages. Hysteria arrives just a year after her striking, minimalist debut, Echo. Here, though, Sparke offers an expansive body of work_it's a complex collection that expands her sound and outlook. Work on Hysteria began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Sparke was stranded in quarantine in her native Australia. After moving back to New York in the spring of 2021, Sparke finished writing the album's 14 songs and decamped upstate with producer Aaron Dessner (The National, Taylor Swift). "Originally we were going to co-write, but after he heard my demos he said, `There's so much in here already,'" Sparke recalls on how Dessner, who also contributes instrumentation along with guitarist Shahzad Izmaily and drummer Matt Barrick (The Walkmen, Muzz), got involved in bringing Hysteria to life. Centering Sparke's powerful vocals throughout, Hysteria is packed with big guitars and layered instrumentation that practically acts as the album's lungs, giving every note breath. From the pulsing immediacy of "Infinite Honey" to the soaring "God Is a Woman's Name" and "Hold On"'s towering chorus, this is music that sounds huge even as it zooms in on the trials and turmoils of one's inner life. You can hear Sparke reflecting on reconciliation, grief, hope, and the passage of time on the perpetually building "Pressure in My Chest" and the airy, Joni Mitchell-esque title track, which finds her embracing a gorgeous upper register over gently strummed guitar. "Set Your Fire on Me" builds and bursts not unlike Angel Olsen's own raw folk-rock expressionism_and then there's the stark opener and first single "Blue," which acts as a cosmic road map for Sparke's own journey in life. Sparke observes while reflecting on Hysteria's thematic bent "these songs are about being at the axis point of love - right at the edge of hysteria - and how that transformed me."

Kids Return is first and foremost a great story of friendship since childhood between Adrien Rozé and Clément Savoye . It is between their small Parisian studio and a house suspended between the mountains of the Pyrenees that their pieces are born, then orchestrated by a string quartet in the countryside. From this trip was born a dreamlike and sensory music, a call to dream. Music that takes root out of time.

Forever Melodies is Kids Return's first album, it follows their first four singles, released between 2021 and today (Melody, Our Love, Orange Mountains, Forever). This album is ten skilfully refined pop tracks (“Some bands tell you 'We made 35 songs to keep 8', we made 10 songs to keep 10”) imbued with nostalgia, with an astonishing sincerity (breakups, stories of friendships, love, physical anguish, the transition to adulthood), a boundless love for dressing melodies. This album was orchestrated as a wonderful intimate journey, in space and time: the film of their lives.

The first album of Web Web is very uncut, raw, live and direct. Oracle is the first output of a German Supergroup. Check the musician credits below and you'll get the score. The initial idea was to record a spiritual-jazz type of album, with all its imperfection as far as intonation, sound, influences of tunes... just like from their big jazz-heroes in the 70ies (e.g. Strata East, Black Jazz).

Web Web's idea was to record a jazz jam session while to found and proclaim being a fictive band, a formation, which did not exist, while telling people, it would be a secret jam session recording of the Seventies. The prompt problem they were facing: Oh, we never would be able to play concerts, doing interviews, or placing photos on sleeves or post likeness images online. So they decided to reveal their real identities:

Web Web are: Roberto Di Gioia (Piano, Synth, Percussion), Tony Lakatos (Tenor- and Sopranosaxophone), Christian von Kaphengst (Upright Bass) and Peter Gall (Drums).

Roberto Di Gioia (Mastermind of Web Web): - The four of us set up very close in a big room, so we could hear and feel each other the best way. The music became more intensive, improvisations became more dynamic and it was impulsive .

The album Oracle' was recorded on one day, only first takes were used!

We want to keep the burning spirit and the loose vibe we had during the recording session. And we play concerts the wild and free way we recorded this album. Web Web will be on tour 2018, but playing a few concerts in 2017.
Furthermore, one main decision to blab their real identities was: The second Web Web album is recorded in June (with guests like the famous and unique Gembri-player and multiinstrumentalist and singer Majid Bekkas from Morocco).
Both albums were engineered, recorded and mixed by Jan Krause (Beanfield, Poets Of Rhythm).

Roberto Di Gioia: - Tony was tuning his Soprano too high, and his (overdubbed) tenor way too flat!
My synthesizers were somewhere in between...HA! We exactly had the sound we had in our minds, we had it exactly there were we wanted it: a bit of Sun Ra here, a bit of Horace Tapscott there. On some tunes Tony's soprano just sounds like a trumpet, since due to his weird tuning the soprano develops different frequencies in relation to other instruments.

Oracle' is the first live jazz release on Compost. Produced by Roberto Di Gioia and Michael Reinboth.

Roberto Di Gioia has been working with numerous jazz-legends, such as Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, James Moody, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Clark Terry, Roy Ayers, Gregory Porter and many more.

From 1990 to 2008: member Klaus Doldingers Passport. As a pianist he made recordings with Udo Lindenberg (MTV-Unplugged, 2011), Charlie Watts ( Music Of The Rolling Stones , 2005), Console ( Reset The Preset , 2003), The Notwist ( Shrink 1998, Neon Golden , 2002). Since 2007 he is working together with Samon Kawamura and Max Herre as KAHEDI: Max Herre ( Hallo Welt , 2012), Joy Denalane ( Gleisdreieck , 2017), u.v.m...His own group MARSMOBIL (produced by Peter Kruder) will release his fourth studioalbum in winter 2017.

Tony Lakatos originates from the world famous Lakatos-familiy from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a famous violinist, as well as his younger brother Roby. He started playing saxophone when he was 15 years old. Tony studied at the Bela-Bartok-Conservatory in Budapest, and made his degree in 1979. Since then he played on over 350 jazz albums (!!), to name a few: Al Foster, Kirk Lightsey, Randy Brecker, George Mraz, David Witham, Terri Lyne Carrington, Anthony Jackson. Tony was a member of Jasper Van´t Hofs PILI PILI. Since 1993 he is working with the HR Radio-Bigband as a soloist.

Christian von Kaphengst learned the piano at the Peter-Cornelius-Conservatory in Mainz when he was 6 years old. From 1988 to 1995 he studied upright-bass at the - Musikhochschule in Cologne. He was touring with his own Jazzquartett - Cafe du Sport to Pakistan, India, Turkey and West-Africa. Since 1999 he regularly plays with Patti Austin and The New York Voices in Europe. Von Kaphengst played with the greatest musicians, such as Randy Brecker, Nat Adderley, Roy Hargrove, Joe Sample, Charlie Mariano, Katja Ebstein, Xavier Naidoo, Roachford, Yvonne Catterfeld.

Peter Gall won some important German awards already when he was a youngster, like - Jugend Jazzt . He was touring with the famous - Bundesjazzorchester conducted by German jazz legend Peter Herbholzheimer. He studied at the Berlin University Of Fine Arts and at the Jazz Institute Berlin with John Hollenbeck. Gall made a masterclass at the Manhattan School Of Music with John Riley. He has been working with Seamus Blake, Ben Street, Gabriel Rios, Jasmin Tabatabai, Thomas Quasthoff, Peter Fessler.

Stólar label boss Philipp Priebe delivers his new album ‘Apparent Calm Palms’ this October, joining
the roster of Mainz/Hamburg, Germany’s Feuilleton.
Berlin-based artist Philipp Priebe has been steadily making his mark on the contemporary deep hazy
house and leftfield electronica scene over the past few years with a series of releases on his own
Stólar imprint. Here though we see him deliver his second album following his debut LP ‘The Being Of
The Beautiful’ released on Japan’s IL Y A Records back in 2014. Feuilleton is the brainchild of Chris
Gruber (Fossar) and Tim Eder and since 2018 has unveiled material from the duo themselves, RR
(René Raabe), Snad, Gari Romalis, Melina, Jakob Seidensticker and more.
Throughout the ‘Apparent Calm Palms’ LP Priebe delivers a concoction of styles and sounds cohesively fused together to form the bigger concept which is he tells us is ‘’an album about small towns and
villages and the needs and desires that brings one night out in clubs. The transport/travel, the preparty, all the things that you had to do, when you are not directly living in the big party places, but still
want to have a decent night out, away from your usual suspects.’’.
Throughout the ten-track LP Philipp delivers ethereal deep house with opening track ‘Desires’, the
succeeding ‘Interborough’ and ‘Chimera’, murky dub house leaning cuts like ‘Quiet Decay’, ‘Slalom’, ‘
Unfold’ and ‘Conclusions’ while ‘Transfiguration’ showcases a more classic Chicago House influence.
Title-track ‘Apparent Calm Palms’ and the interlude ‘Behind Their House’ then see Priebe offer a foray
into textural ambient sounds, once again showcasing his unique ability to craft raw, understated and
emotion fuelled material across a variety of genres.
Mastering by Sven Weisemann and Lacquer Cut by Stefan Betk

Blood Money is etched. It"s scratched out in bold, dark lines, with marimba, trumpet, and bass clarinet and contains some songs of Tom Waits" most memorable melodies. The songs are declarative, sardonic, unforgiving, musical dispatches, from the bottom of the heap. "Blood Money is flesh and bone, earthbound," said Waits. "The songs are rooted in reality: jealousy, rage, the human meat wheel...They are more car?nal. I like a beautiful song that tells you terrible things. We all like bad news out of a pretty mouth. I like songs to sound as though they"ve been aging in a barrel and distressed."

For Fans Of: Aasha Puthli / Grace Jones / Minnie Ripperton/ The Supremes/ Love Apple / Kendra Morris. Previous debut 45 garnered much acclaim from KCRW, the BBC, Albumism, and countless more. The band consists of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair, former 79.5 and backing singer for Chicano Batman), Nya Parker Brown (former 79.5), and Sabrina Cunningham. Housed in a spot-glossed LP with exclusive lyric / photo insert. The highly anticipated debut LP from Say She She, the all female discodelic soul band that will transport you with their dreamy harmonies, catchy hooks and up tempo grooves! The band's sound is a hat tip to late 70’s girl groups with the three strong female lead voices of Piya Malik (featured in El Michels Affair, and backing singer for Chicano Batman), Nya Gazelle Brown, and Sabrina Cunningham - whose vocals soar through a set doused heavily with funky bass lines, rhythmic wah guitar, melodic synths and lilting bansuri flute lines, bursting into a seamless blend of dreamy harmonies and catchy hooks. A multicultural, multi-instrumental, collaborative melting pot, pulling sounds and styles from all corners of their record collections. The largely self-produced debut album ‘Prism’ features contributions from Dap Kings Joey Crispiano & Victor Axelrod, Max Shrager (The Shacks) Bardo Martinez (Chicano Batman) Nikhil Yearwadekar (former Antibalas) Andy Bauer (Twin Shadow) and Matty McDermot (NYPMH). “The funkiest sh*t we’ve heard in a while” (KCRW) // “A glorious overload of joyful elation and spiritual elevation”

New studio album from CMA, due out October 7th, 2022. Produced by Sam Evian. Following Old Flowers' 2020 Grammy nomination, and due to Covid restrictions, Courtney, for the first time in her young nomadic life, was forced off the road and to remain at home. What resulted was the publishing of her first book of poetry, the first gallery showings of her paintings, and a period of self-discovery leading to the new album, Loose Future. Whereas Old Flowers was a beautiful and emotional break-up record, CMA's return with Loose Future is a bright, dynamic, falling-in-love record. Courtney's got a new story to tell, backed by a strong new musical direction, and a show-stopping collection of songs. Loose Future was recorded at Sam Owen's upstate New York Flying Cloud Studios, with musicians Josh Kaufman (Bonny Lighthorseman), Chris Bear (Grizzly Bear), and Sam Owens (Sam Evian). On the honey shores of Cape Cod in a beach shack, Courtney Marie Andrews found self-love and her voice. Every morning, she’d walk 6-8 miles around the back trails of an island and meditate on her life, perusing old memories and patterns like browsing a used bookshop. After more than a decade on the road, the Phoenix-born songwriter, poet, and painter finally had the space to process all the highs and lows of a life of constants. She was finally ready to make a record of triumph, while not completely forgetting the years that made her. That record is the Sam Evian produced Loose Future.

Quality over quantity. That’s what characterises Shamek Farrah and Norman Person’s recorded output. They may have a small discography between them but it’s a stable of recordings that centrally locate them in the development of the black jazz of America. BBE Music is delighted to present a new edition of a rare, relatively unknown, and unheard gem. Recorded between 1988 and 1991 across a series of concerts, ‘Live’ was released in 1991 and was only available for sale at their gigs. Issued on audio cassette on Farrah’s private Heritage Industries label, ‘Live’ is a raw, uncompromising selection of deep, conscious jazz featuring three original compositions and two covers: ‘Aisha’, written by Person, was inspired by Person’s daughter and is a majestic joyous groove that extends out into a percussive jam; ‘Negative Forces’ is a fiercely paced hard bopper worthy of the Jazz Messengers. Written by Person, he tells how “it had to be like a torpedo, man. It had to come out strong and fight against those negative forces”. The one Farrah/Person co-write on the album is ‘Timeless Beings’, a short freeform improvisation that creates a distinct moment of space and light in an otherwise intensely focussed, yet highly accessible album. The two covers on the album reflect the instruments of the co-leaders: sax and trumpet. ‘Footprints’, the classic written by the Newark Flash himself, Wayne Shorter, and first heard on ‘Miles Smiles’ in 1967 is delivered deftly by Farrah and co. Here, the band pays a respectful yet adventurous rendition, with some superbly colourful piano from Sonelius Smith. The second cover is a tribute to the great trumpeter Clifford Brown, who died in a car accident in 1956, aged just 25. ‘I Remember Clifford’ written by Benny Golson, is handled with suitably delicate reverence. “I still listen to Clifford Brown today,” says Person. “He’s still my teacher.” On ‘Live’, saxophonist Farrah and trumpeter Person - friends for decades - capture an energy and vibration that is infused with the spirit of their youth – whether drawing on the hard bop of the late 50s and early 60s or the Afrocentric spiritual jazz of the early 70s, of which Farrah is intimately linked via his albums on Strata East, ‘Live’ is a document of two masters at work. ‘Live’ has flown under the radar to many a fan of prime black conscious and spiritual jazz but now BBE brings back this astonishing set by two giant talents accompanied by a group of musicians who shine with brilliance and verve. Available for the first time on CD, digital, and double vinyl set cut at 45rpm by the Grammy-nominated The Carvery mastering studio, ‘Live’ also comes with an extended interview with Shamek Farrah and Norman Person by Tony Higgins.

For Fans Of: Aasha Puthli / Grace Jones / Minnie Ripperton/ The Supremes/ Love Apple / Kendra Morris. Previous debut 45 garnered much acclaim from KCRW, the BBC, Albumism, and countless more. The band consists of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair, former 79.5 and backing singer for Chicano Batman), Nya Parker Brown (former 79.5), and Sabrina Cunningham. Housed in a spot-glossed LP with exclusive lyric / photo insert. The highly anticipated debut LP from Say She She, the all female discodelic soul band that will transport you with their dreamy harmonies, catchy hooks and up tempo grooves! The band's sound is a hat tip to late 70’s girl groups with the three strong female lead voices of Piya Malik (featured in El Michels Affair, and backing singer for Chicano Batman), Nya Gazelle Brown, and Sabrina Cunningham - whose vocals soar through a set doused heavily with funky bass lines, rhythmic wah guitar, melodic synths and lilting bansuri flute lines, bursting into a seamless blend of dreamy harmonies and catchy hooks. A multicultural, multi-instrumental, collaborative melting pot, pulling sounds and styles from all corners of their record collections. The largely self-produced debut album ‘Prism’ features contributions from Dap Kings Joey Crispiano & Victor Axelrod, Max Shrager (The Shacks) Bardo Martinez (Chicano Batman) Nikhil Yearwadekar (former Antibalas) Andy Bauer (Twin Shadow) and Matty McDermot (NYPMH). “The funkiest sh*t we’ve heard in a while” (KCRW) // “A glorious overload of joyful elation and spiritual elevation”

Nach dem Erfolg der ersten TechnoBase.FM-Vinyl schickt ZYX Music die zweite Ausgabe ins Rennen, um die Herzen der Musikliebhaber des HandsUp-Genres zu erobern. Auch dieses Mal begeistert die Doppel-Vinyl mit vielen Hits und Ohrwürmern, so zum Beispiel „God Save The Rave“ von Scooter und Harris & Ford, „Total Eclipse Of The Heart“ von Jan Wayne sowie „Tell Me Why“ von Prezioso feat. Marvin. Zur idealen HandsUp-Party animieren Songs wie „The Biggest Party” von Claude Lambert und Cloud Seven, „Tricky Disco” von Discotronic sowie „Richtung Sonne” von Timster & Ninth und den Seaside Clubbers. Mit insgesamt 14 HandsUp-Songs eine starke Vinyl-Edition des Webradiosenders TechnoBase.FM!

transparent green vinyl LP

Remastered 2022

Rare and a real cult, the first homonym album by obscure italo-disco
group Rainbow Team sees the light once again since its first release in 1981. This time around this nice gem is remastered and repressed on limited edition green vinyl , released by FullTime Production. One of the first seminal italo-disco projects, the first Rainbow Team album was written and arranged by Michele Violante and Franco Bernardi and produced by Claudio and Franco Donato and it includes 7 tracks among which "Dreaming" and "Tell Me". This is definitely an LP not to be missed. Out on October 7th.

** SISTER FUNK, SOUL-JAZZ and BLUE-EYED-SOUL - OBSCURE RARE GROOVES ALL THE WAY THRU! **

- the double vinyl LP comes with a full album download code
- deluxe double-gatefold LP with detailed liner notes & unseen photographs
- ALL songs appear on LP & digital for the very first-time
- sales notes by Joel Ricci (aka Lucky Brown)

When Tramp Records was founded, there really were very few ways in which the music lover could discover new music besides the traditional methods of digging, good luck, and inheritance. First there were torrent sites such as Napster and Limewire where generous collectors might digitize and upload portions of their accessions, and sometimes you could find entire radio show broadcasts of live vinyl curation made by real Disc Jockeys out there, a lot of the Deep Funk I heard for the first time in around 1999 I found this way via Disc Jockeys on radio shows from the UK, tunes were faded and mixed together and of course veiled with that unmistakable Mp3 'whoosh'. And unless you have been living as an off-grid hermit for the past 20 years, you know the rest of the story.

But though our world has changed, and even though everyone from our grandparents to our 5-year old nieces are curating their own internet playlists, I submit that the role of DJ has become even more vital, not less. We as a culture have always relied on our Disc Jockeys to introduce us to sounds that speak to their souls, to control the vibe and most importantly put forth the narrative that speaks to society as a whole. DJs are our tribal storytellers, and the music they bring us are the stories. And when a DJ like Tobias Kirmayer is telling us that story clearly and with conviction, it speaks to our souls as well.

"Countdown to...SOUL" is a compilation series that, much like Tramp Records' other critically-acclaimed comps such as Movements, Feeling Nice, and the Praise Poems Series' examines a unique facet of the Golden Era of Soul, Funk, Jazz and R&B. Perhaps, in this case the dawning of the Soul era, "proto-soul", "primitive soul", or even "pre-soul" if you will. When they were recorded, many of these tunes were still firmly ensconced in the Black Radical Jazz tradition, but there was a change in the air, something happening in the coming years that would revolutionize popular music forever. In fact, Soul had already taken over the world by the time many of these tunes were released on 45, but for various reasons, the artists and their music occupied the fringes of the idiom and therefore remained obscure. Countdown to...SOUL chronicles that beginning, that buildup, those heady moments before the lid blew off and American Black music would explode across the planet, while scouring the outskirts and tide pools for specimens that were emanating in their own respective neighborhoods and communities, so often overlooked by the American pop music machine.

Side A features barrier-breaking pioneer Frankie Staton and her message of "Love One Another" to the world that is as fresh and vital today as it was when it first came out in the late seventies. In that spirit, Tenison Stevens' appeal "Don't Rip Me Off" reminds us to treat each other as brothers and sisters.

Side B meets us at the altar of the formidable Hammond Organ with an Unknown and uncredited Organist found languishing on a one-of-a-kind unreleased acetate and moving on to explore the nexus of Soul, Bebop, and R&B with Don Patterson's "Paddy Wagon".

Side C satisfies our hunger for the blaring horn sections, big beat drums, wailing Hammonds, pleading vocals and gritty guitars of authentic Soul music (both brown and blue-eyed) with Marva Josie, Shirley Wahls and The Echomen, among others, but then takes a hard left turn into undoubtedly uncharted territory with the hybrid folk/country/soul story of Sherrif Black and poor Sally who, though she is tragically met with a terrible fate, thanks to the careful and conscientious mastering of our German engineers, the song itself remains alive and is a genuine addition to the canon.

For the remaining side, I'm gonna just let you discover this music on its own terms, as you won't find these tunes anywhere else, not on Napster, not even on Limewire, or anywhere else. I want to personally thank you for putting your trust in the DJ and for continuing to listen, study, appreciate, and share the work and mission of Tramp Records.

-Joel Ricci (May 2022)

-Long-awaited fourth solo effort by one of today's most talented Brazilian artists and the follow up to the now classic Early Bird album.
-Entirely written and recorded at the Ilha Do Corvo studio in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
-180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board print, comes with lyrics and their English translation.

"I imagine this record to be just like a flea market, an ensemble of nostalgia, a collage of memories, of dreams, ideas, sounds, words, feelings, places, eras and styles. A unique sonic sound space that I've been trying to create for my own music. This is also a record about getting old, about the uneasiness of life, but also about how to embrace it and enjoy the ride. About taking a trip to a place and a time that we have never been to, but that we long for. " - Leonardo Marques

A multi-talented musician, singer songwriter and record producer full of tales to tell, Leonardo Marques has released three solo records – Dia e Noite no Mesmo Céu in 2012, Curvas, Lados, Linhas Tortas, Sujas e Discretas in 2015, and Early Bird in 2018. All of Leonardo's solo albums have been released in Japan by Disk Union and the latest one, Early Bird, has also been released worldwide on vinyl format by 180g x Disk Union.

Leonardo was the guitar player of Diesel (later called Udora), one of the main alternative rock bands in Brazil in the early 2000's. The band was on the main line up of the Rock in Rio III Festival, playing for over 250,000 people as an opening act for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Silverchair, and Deftones. Leonardo then moved to Los Angeles with the band and signed a record deal with Clive Davis (J Records / RCA) and worked with Matt Wallace (Maroon 5, Faith No More), Gavin Macklop (Goo Goo Dolls, Toad the Wet Sprocket), Camus (David Byrne, Arto Lindsay), Bob Marlette (Black Sabbath, Tracy Chapman, Alice Cooper), and 16-time Grammy Award winner Thom Russo (Michael Jackson, Audioslave, Johnny Cash, Maná).

Back to Brazil a few years later, Leonardo launched his Ilha do Corvo recording studio in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The studio is equipped with vintage instruments and gear from various decades which creates a unique sonic landscape and sound signature in each record it produces.

With Flea Market Music, Leonardo Marques presents his long-awaited fourth solo effort and the follow up to the now classic Early Bird album, with a majestic and unique musical trip into nostalgia, dreamy textures and lo-fi flavors, entirely written and recorded at his Ilha Do Corvo studio. This is essential Brazilian contemporary music at its best!

A beautiful continuity in the exploration of the composer "Grand David" known for his sound illustrations but here accompanied on the entire project by the female singer Emma Lamadji. A talented project and an immersion into TAMLA MOWTON sound, by Grand David, the "touche à tout" wizard!

Polly Paulusma follows up her critically acclaimed 2021 album 'Invisible
Music' with 'The Pivot On Which The World Turns' out via One Little
Independent folk subsidiary Wild Sound.Affectionately shortened to
'Pivot', the album marks a return to her singular brand of insightful songs
that, in their subject matter, roam around the badlands of love, sex and
parenthood, death and grief, failure and success, violence and healing
Most poignantly the album focuses on the roles of women, in our lives and
across history, from a variety of perspectives.'Pivot' swings from the warm, bluesinspired Americana of 'Back Of Your Hand' and 'Dirty Circus', to the more
traditional folk of 'Brambles and Briars' and 'Robin', as well as poetic, pop
curiosities such as 'Snakeskin' and the effervescent 'Luminary', all of which
combine to make up Polly's most sonically adventurous album to date. As always,
she delights in the telling of stories, with littered spoken word aiding her as she
utilizes infectious melodies and a light delivery to explore her characters.
The product of a decade of writing, she tells us that "the album's title 'The Pivot
On Which The World Turns' is a corruption of a moment in the Russian novel Anna
Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, in which Stepan Arkadyitch knowingly confesses,
"women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon". In context, Stepan and
Levin are discussing romantic relationships, but I saw wider interpretations of this
epithet".
Each track on the LP examines a different aspect of life that women play, and
"charts a development for me through all the roles I pivot on in a day, a week, a
year, a decade". 'Snakeskin' represents the daughter, 'Back Of Your Hand' is the
love interest, 'Dirty Circus' the mother and so on. "I truly believe, having travelled
the last few years, having endured grief and horror and having discovered and
pivoted on all these people that I am capable of being, that by learning how to
love, and re- learning, and learning again, so many of the wartier and knobblier
parts of me can be forgiven, and translated into something better".

Polly Paulusma follows up her critically acclaimed 2021 album 'Invisible
Music' with 'The Pivot On Which The World Turns' out via One Little
Independent folk subsidiary Wild Sound.Affectionately shortened to
'Pivot', the album marks a return to her singular brand of insightful songs
that, in their subject matter, roam around the badlands of love, sex and
parenthood, death and grief, failure and success, violence and healing
Most poignantly the album focuses on the roles of women, in our lives and
across history, from a variety of perspectives.'Pivot' swings from the warm, bluesinspired Americana of 'Back Of Your Hand' and 'Dirty Circus', to the more
traditional folk of 'Brambles and Briars' and 'Robin', as well as poetic, pop
curiosities such as 'Snakeskin' and the effervescent 'Luminary', all of which
combine to make up Polly's most sonically adventurous album to date. As always,
she delights in the telling of stories, with littered spoken word aiding her as she
utilizes infectious melodies and a light delivery to explore her characters.
The product of a decade of writing, she tells us that "the album's title 'The Pivot
On Which The World Turns' is a corruption of a moment in the Russian novel Anna
Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, in which Stepan Arkadyitch knowingly confesses,
"women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon". In context, Stepan and
Levin are discussing romantic relationships, but I saw wider interpretations of this
epithet".
Each track on the LP examines a different aspect of life that women play, and
"charts a development for me through all the roles I pivot on in a day, a week, a
year, a decade". 'Snakeskin' represents the daughter, 'Back Of Your Hand' is the
love interest, 'Dirty Circus' the mother and so on. "I truly believe, having travelled
the last few years, having endured grief and horror and having discovered and
pivoted on all these people that I am capable of being, that by learning how to
love, and re- learning, and learning again, so many of the wartier and knobblier
parts of me can be forgiven, and translated into something better".

-Long-awaited fourth solo effort by one of today's most talented Brazilian artists and the follow up to the now classic Early Bird album.
-Entirely written and recorded at the Ilha Do Corvo studio in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
-180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board print, comes with lyrics and their English translation.

"I imagine this record to be just like a flea market, an ensemble of nostalgia, a collage of memories, of dreams, ideas, sounds, words, feelings, places, eras and styles. A unique sonic sound space that I've been trying to create for my own music. This is also a record about getting old, about the uneasiness of life, but also about how to embrace it and enjoy the ride. About taking a trip to a place and a time that we have never been to, but that we long for. " - Leonardo Marques

A multi-talented musician, singer songwriter and record producer full of tales to tell, Leonardo Marques has released three solo records – Dia e Noite no Mesmo Céu in 2012, Curvas, Lados, Linhas Tortas, Sujas e Discretas in 2015, and Early Bird in 2018. All of Leonardo's solo albums have been released in Japan by Disk Union and the latest one, Early Bird, has also been released worldwide on vinyl format by 180g x Disk Union.

Leonardo was the guitar player of Diesel (later called Udora), one of the main alternative rock bands in Brazil in the early 2000's. The band was on the main line up of the Rock in Rio III Festival, playing for over 250,000 people as an opening act for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Silverchair, and Deftones. Leonardo then moved to Los Angeles with the band and signed a record deal with Clive Davis (J Records / RCA) and worked with Matt Wallace (Maroon 5, Faith No More), Gavin Macklop (Goo Goo Dolls, Toad the Wet Sprocket), Camus (David Byrne, Arto Lindsay), Bob Marlette (Black Sabbath, Tracy Chapman, Alice Cooper), and 16-time Grammy Award winner Thom Russo (Michael Jackson, Audioslave, Johnny Cash, Maná).

Back to Brazil a few years later, Leonardo launched his Ilha do Corvo recording studio in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The studio is equipped with vintage instruments and gear from various decades which creates a unique sonic landscape and sound signature in each record it produces.

With Flea Market Music, Leonardo Marques presents his long-awaited fourth solo effort and the follow up to the now classic Early Bird album, with a majestic and unique musical trip into nostalgia, dreamy textures and lo-fi flavors, entirely written and recorded at his Ilha Do Corvo studio. This is essential Brazilian contemporary music at its best!

A violin, a fife, and the endless sky opens up to us. Two voices cross it, a duet of swallows playing their perpetual encounters, joined by percussion that crashes like waves on jagged coasts. This is the opening of the album Déliryom, the beginning of this "watia watia" - meaning joyful mess or tasty mishmash, opened by six "zoreys": in Reunion Island Creole, it means metropolitan people from France. But these zoreys claim their creolity as a family of the heart, a chosen homeland. And they celebrate it. Rosemary Standley (Moriarty) and Marjolaine Karlin met at a concert where Reunionese maloya was resounding in Paris. It was in 2008, and their fascination for the island, its rhythms, its language born for poetry was bound to bring them together. A character too, a majestic poet and celestial wanderer, who for them would be a spiritual father - Alain Peters. Or rather his ghost, since he died in 1995 of a heart attack, leaving behind a daughter and some twenty songs that have shaped a fertile horizon for all the musicians of the Reunion Island... and elsewhere! Six years after giving birth to their first album (Zanz in Lanfèr, 2016), the two singers continue this great journey, exploring other pieces forged over the years, always alongside percussionist and rhythm doctor Salvador Douézy, and new zoreys who have joined them. There is Gérald Chevillon, who plays bass saxophone, Chadi Chouman as a guitarist who has no equal in awakening the colors of his native East, and finally Jennifer Hutt, whose energetic violin evokes the Cajun colors of New Orleans. For even if this new album tells of other facets of the Peters totem, it also ventures towards other Creole lands, other islands where music and song are much more than entertainment: they are a way of being in the world.

CITY OF CATERPILLAR return with their first new album in 20 years, Mystic Sisters! When guitarist/vocalist Brandon Evans, guitarist Jeff Kane, drummer Ryan Parrish and bassist/vocalist Kevin Longendyke unveiled their self-titled debut in 2002, their emotional, frenzied and often cinematic music was at the vanguard of the burgeoning screamo movement. Along with bands like Pg.99 (with whom they shared members), Majority Rule, Planes Mistaken For Stars and others, they helped develop a style of music that took hardcore into convulsive new territory. After years spent living in other parts of the country and playing in other bands—including Darkest Hour, Malady and Ghastly City Sleep, the long awaited CITY OF CATERPILLAR reunion shows snowballed into writing sessions. The result - Mystic Sisters, an album that recaptures the magic of old while taking the band’s music into exciting new territory! The winding and atmospheric title track that embodies CITY OF CATERPILLAR's experimental side features some noise violin from Evans’ former Pg. 99 bandmate Johnny Ward, while tracks like "Decider" and "Paranormaladies" showcases the band's roots with a flurry of viceral, noisey hardcore swagger. Tracked primarily at Montrose Recording in Richmond, Mystic Sisters was self-produced by the band and then mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Bosse-de-Nage). Ultimately, CITY OF CATERPILLAR are more concerned with creating a mood than telling a story. “The band is always focused on mood,” Evans confirms. “To me, that’s the most important thing. I don’t really want people dissecting what we’re trying to say, because it’s not really about us. It never has been. What we cared about 20 years ago was innocent, raw emotion, and that’s what we care about now.”

Sublime unreleased soundtrack by Ron Geesin, to one of the most important and controversial films in British cinema history.
Standard black vinyl (750 Copies) with sleeve art taken from the 1971 film poster. Cool as fuck.
Side One is the score for Sunday Bloody Sunday, the controversial 1971 drama directed by John Schlesinger. Starring Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson and Murray Head, it tells the story of an open love triangle between a gay Jewish doctor, a divorced woman and a bisexual young male artist who makes glass fountains. Daniel Day Lewis also makes his uncredited screen debut as a yobbo scratching up posh cars. The films significance at the time of release lay in the depiction of a mature gay man who was both successful, well adjusted and at peace with his sexuality.

The music on Side Two comes from two different sources: tracks one to four are from the 1985 Channel Four documentary about Viv Richards. Simply called “Viv” it was directed by Greg Lanning, with words and narration by Darcus Howe. It was (and still is) a fascinating film recounting Richards’ rise from young talented Antiguan to global cricket superstar. It also explored the long history of West Indian players through the English game. Howe later recalled how seeing Viv Richards walking out to bat at the Oval (just down the road from where Howe lived in Brixton) without a helmet on no matter how fast the bowler was - and wearing his Rasta sweatbands of gold, green and red, was inspirational. The documentary was later re-titled ‘Viv Richards - King Of Cricket’ for the video market, and let’s face it, that’s a more commercial title. I’d strongly recommend trying to track it down to spend an hour or so in the company of Viv and Darcus. As I write this it’s still up on a popular online streaming site for free.

The last six cues of Side Two are from a 1970 BBC Omnibus film ‘Shapes In A Wilderness’. Directed by Tristram Powell this was a documentary about the importance and influence of art therapy in mental hospitals, tracing its origins from a painting hut in a wartime military hospital to its successful and widespread incorporation in institutions. It featured fascinating medical insights, disturbing imagery and Ron’s finely tuned accompaniment. On its original transmission John Schlesinger saw it and was heard to say “I must have that composer for my new film!”. And he got his way.

I could spend another paragraph analysing the music and stuff like that but you can listen and work all that out for yourself. But I will say that all the music just confirms the fact that Ron Geesin is one of the most underrated, inventive and versatile composers (and musicians) we have.

After the release of their highly successful self-titled album in summer 2021 (#1 in Germany and Spain etc.), HELLOWEEN -- one of the most respectable German metal exports and pioneers of German melodic speed metal -- are finally bringing their new anthems to the packed arenas, leading them all around the globe with their »United Forces« tour. The creators of the albums »Keeper Of The Seven Keys, Pt. I & II« (87‘/88‘), which are considered to be among the most successful German metal records of all time and are reckoned internationally as absolute milestones of power metal, haven’t only cemented but even expanded their status as giants of the scene. Caused by the pumpkinheads‘ aforementioned triumphant wave of success, the group’s back catalogue albums are also more in demand than ever which is why Atomic Fire are now set to release a series of brand new vinyl editions including the following hot HELLOWEEN records: »The Dark Ride« (2000), »Rabbit Don’t Come Easy« (2003), »Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy« (2005), »Gambling With The Devil« (2007), »Straight Out Of Hell« (2013), »My God-Given Right« (2015), and last but not least their latest offering »Helloween« (2021).

Of “Ese puerto existe”, lead vocalist, composer and cuatro player, Maria Fernanda, tells us “this song takes us to the coast, on that beach where the star and the grain of sand are tracing that vertical and infinite line of the present. Perhaps it is the mouth of the flame of the river reaching the sea. Perhaps a look of a bird in migration.”

“Ese puerto existe” takes its name from the first collection of poems by the Peruvian poet, Blanca Varela, who wrote, "On this coast I am the one who wakes up / among the foliage with brown wings”. The song is in the rhythm of the Gaita Tambora, from the Afro-Venezuelan tradition of the southern shores of Lake Maracaibo.

“Ese puerto existe” is mixed Malcolm Catto at Quatermass Sound Lab.

Mastered and cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London

House sleeve art & logo by Gaurab Thakali

For Fans Of...El Michels Affair, Adrian Younge, Roy Ayers, Karriem Riggins, The Roots, Khruangbin. Deep, Hard Hitting Soul-Jazz Meets Dub Instrumental Analog Grooves For Your Psyche. In few words, Doctor Bionic can be described as Instrumental b-movie psych-hop. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Doctor Bionic is the brainchild of Cincinnati's Jason Grimes, formerly the producer of the hip-hop group MOOD (with emcees Main Flow & Donte). Having grown up in the Scribble Jam scene here in Cincy, and running in circles that included artists like Hi-Tek & Talib Kweli, Grimes' music has continued to evolve from sample-based loops, to live instrumentation with deep layering; provided by a revolving door of local musicians. The common thread in most Doctor Bionic tracks are the neck snapping drum breaks, but the tempo adjustments and varying instrumentation lends itself to a collection of non-genre specific songs - held together in unity by the flawless drums, often provided by Josiah Wolf (of indie-rock band Why?). The result of these recording sessions are a masterclass in musical juxtaposition. Spacious yet clustered. Futuristic nostalgia. Ideal for long car rides or setting the vibe during a laid back gathering of friends. Also Available From Doctor Bionic: The Invisible Hand LP. Tracks: 1.The Messengers 2. No Middle Ground 3. Purple Spark 4. Decades To Come 5. Shadows In The Sun 6. Snow Bird 7. In The Mirror 8. Dose Of Dank 9. The Things That We Love 10. History Lessons

Another great release on BOY Records in the rebound.
Cosmic jam - Girl Don't Cry from 1988. Essential early Electro/ Hip-Hop from the german group. (re-mastered viny edition)

As the sun sets on a quaint East Nashville house, a young man bares a piece of his soul. Facing the camera, sporting a silky suit jacket/shirt/slacks/fingerless gloves ensemble that announces "singer" before he's even opened his mouth, Lee Tracy Johnson settles onto his stage, the front yard. He sways to the dirge-like drum machine pulse of a synth-soaked slow jam, extends his arms as if gaining his balance, and croons in affecting, fragile earnest, "I need your love… oh baby…"

Dogs in the yard next door begin barking. A mysterious cardboard robot figure, beamed in from galaxies unknown and affixed to a tree, is less vocal. Lee doesn't acknowledge either's presence. He's busy feeling it, arms and hands gesticulating. His voice rises in falsetto over the now-quiet dogs, over the ambient noise from the street that seeps into the handheld camcorder's microphone, over the recording of his own voice played back from a boombox off-camera. After six minutes the single, continuous shot ends. In this intimate creative universe there are no re-takes. There are many more music videos to shoot, and as Lee later puts it, "The first time you do it is actually the best. Because you can never get that again. You expressing yourself from within."

"I Need Your Love" dates from a lost heyday. From some time in the '80s or early '90s, when Lee Tracy (as he was known in performance) and his music partner/producer/manager Isaac Manning committed hours upon hours of their sonic and visual ideas to tape. Embracing drum machines and synthesizers – electronics that made their personal futurism palpable – they recorded exclusively at home, live in a room into a simple cassette deck. Soul, funk, electro and new wave informed their songs, yet Lee and Isaac eschewed the confinement of conventional categories and genres, preferring to let experimentation guide them.

"Anytime somebody put out a new record they had the same instruments or the same sound," explains Isaac. "So I basically wanted to find something that's really gonna stand out away from all of the rest of 'em." Their ethos meant that every idea they came up with was at least worth trying: echoed out half-rapped exhortations over frantic techno-style beats, gospel synth soul, modal electro-funk, oddball pop reinterpretations, emo AOR balladry, nods to Prince and the Fat Boys, or arrangements that might collapse mid-song into a mess of arcade game-ish blips before rallying to reach the finish line. All of it conjoined by consistent tape hiss, and most vitally, Lee's chameleonic voice, which managed to wildly shape shift and still evoke something sincere – whether toggling between falsetto and tenor exalting Jesus's return, or punctuating a melismatic romantic adlib with a succinct, "We all know how it feels to be alone."

"People think we went to a studio," says Isaac derisively. "We never went to no studio. We didn't have the money to go to no studio! We did this stuff at home. I shot videos in my front yard with whatever we could to get things together." Sometimes Isaac would just put on an instrumental record, be it "Planet Rock" or "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (from Evita), press "record," and let Lee improvise over it, yielding peculiar love songs, would-be patriotic anthems, or Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe tributes. Technical limitations and a lack of professional polish never dissuaded them. They believed they were onto something.

"That struggle," Isaac says, "made that sound sound good to me."

In the parlance of modern music criticism Lee and Isaac's dizzying DIY efforts would inevitably be described as "outsider." But "outsider" carries the burden of untold additional layers of meaning if you're Black and from the South, creating on a budget, and trying to get someone, anyone within the country music capital of the world to take your vision seriously. "What category should we put it in?" Isaac asks rhetorically. "I don't know. All I know is feeling. I ain't gonna name it nothing. It's music. If it grabs your soul and touch your heart that's what it basically is supposed to do."

=

Born in 1963, the baby boy of nine siblings, Lee Tracy spent his earliest years living amidst the shotgun houses on Nashville's south side. "We was poor, man!" he says, recalling the outhouse his family used for a bathroom and the blocks of ice they kept in the kitchen to chill perishables. "But I actually don't think I really realized I was in poverty until I got grown and started thinking about it." Lee's mom worked at the Holiday Inn; his dad did whatever he had to do, from selling fruit from a horse drawn cart to bootlegging. "We didn't have much," Lee continues, "but my mother and my father got us the things we needed, the clothes on our back." By the end of the decade with the city's urban renewal programs razing entire neighborhoods to accommodate construction of the Interstate, the family moved to Edgehill Projects. Lee remembers music and art as a constant source of inspiration for he and his brothers and sisters – especially after seeing the Jackson 5 perform on Ed Sullivan. "As a small child I just knew that was what I wanted to do."

His older brother Don began musically mentoring him, introducing Lee to a variety of instruments and sounds. "He would never play one particular type of music, like R&B," says Lee. "I was surrounded by jazz, hard rock and roll, easy listening, gospel, reggae, country music; I mean I was a sponge absorbing all of that." Lee taught himself to play drums by beating on cardboard boxes, gaining a rep around the way for his timekeeping, and his singing voice. Emulating his favorites, Earth Wind & Fire and Cameo, he formed groups with other kids with era-evocative band names like Concept and TNT Connection, and emerged as the leader of disciplined rehearsals. "I made them practice," says Lee. "We practiced and practiced and practiced. Because I wanted that perfection." By high school the most accomplished of these bands would take top prize in a prominent local talent show. It was a big moment for Lee, and he felt ready to take things to the next level. But his band-mates had other ideas.

"I don't know what happened," he says, still miffed at the memory. "It must have blew they mind after we won and people started showing notice, because it's like everybody quit! I was like, where the hell did everybody go?" Lee had always made a point of interrogating prospective musicians about their intentions before joining his groups: were they really serious or just looking for a way to pick up girls? Now he understood even more the importance of finding a collaborator just as committed to the music as he was.

=

Isaac Manning had spent much of his life immersed in music and the arts – singing in the church choir with his family on Nashville's north side, writing, painting, dancing, and working various gigs within the entertainment industry. After serving in the armed forces, in the early '70s he ran The Teenage Place, a music and performance venue that catered to the local youth. But he was forced out of town when word of one of his recreational routines created a stir beyond the safe haven of his bohemian circles.

"I was growing marijuana," Isaac explains. "It wasn't no business, I was smoking it myself… I would put marijuana in scrambled eggs, cornbread and stuff." His weed use originated as a form of self-medication to combat severe tooth pain. But when he began sharing it with some of the other young people he hung out with, some of who just so happened to be the kids of Nashville politicians, the cops came calling. "When I got busted," he remembers, "they were talking about how they were gonna get rid of me because they didn't want me saying nothing about they children because of the politics and stuff. So I got my family, took two raggedy cars, and left Nashville and went to Vegas."

Out in the desert, Isaac happened to meet Chubby Checker of "The Twist" fame while the singer was gigging at The Flamingo. Impressed by Isaac's zeal, Checker invited him to go on the road with him as his tour manager/roadie/valet. The experience gave Isaac a window into a part of the entertainment world he'd never encountered – a glimpse of what a true pop act's audience looked like. "Chubby Checker, none of his shows were played for Black folks," he remembers. "All his gigs were done at high-class white people areas." Returning home after a few years with Chubby, Isaac was properly motivated to make it in Music City. He began writing songs and scouting around Nashville for local talent anywhere he could find it with an expressed goal: "Find someone who can deliver your songs the way you want 'em delivered and make people feel what you want them to feel."

One day while walking through Edgehill Projects Isaac heard someone playing the drums in a way that made him stop and take notice. "The music was so tight, just the drums made me feel like, oh I'm-a find this person," he recalls. "So I circled through the projects until I found who it was.

"That's how I met him – Lee Tracy. When I found him and he started singing and stuff, I said, ohhh, this is somebody different."

=

Theirs was a true complementary partnership: young Lee possessed the raw talent, the older Isaac the belief. "He's really the only one besides my brother and my family that really seen the potential in me," says Lee. "He made me see that I could do it."

Isaac long being a night owl, his house also made for a fertile collaborative environment – a space where there always seemed to be a new piece of his visual art on display: paintings, illustrations, and dolls and figures (including an enigmatic cardboard robot). Lee and Issac would hang out together and talk, listen to music, conjure ideas, and smoke the herb Isaac had resumed growing in his yard. "It got to where I could trust him, he could trust me," Isaac says of their bond. They also worked together for hours on drawings, spreading larges rolls of paper on the walls and sketching faces with abstract patterns and imagery: alien-like beings, tri-horned horse heads, inverted Janus-like characters where one visage blurred into the other.

Soon it became apparent that they didn't need other collaborators; self-sufficiency was the natural way forward. At Isaac's behest Lee, already fed up with dealing with band musicians, began playing around with a poly-sonic Yamaha keyboard at the local music store. "It had everything on it – trumpet, bass, drums, organ," remembers Lee. "And that's when I started recording my own stuff."

The technology afforded Lee the flexibility and independence he craved, setting him on a path other bedroom musicians and producers around the world were simultaneously following through the '80s into the early '90s. Saving up money from day jobs, he eventually supplemented the Yamaha Isaac had gotten him with Roland and Casio drum machines and a Moog. Lee was living in an apartment in Hillside at that point caring for his dad, who'd been partially paralyzed since early in life. In the evenings up in his second floor room, the music put him in a zone where he could tune out everything and lose himself in his ideas.

"Oh I loved it," he recalls. "I would really experiment with the instruments and use a lot of different sound effects. I was looking for something nobody else had. I wanted something totally different. And once I found the sound I was looking for, I would just smoke me a good joint and just let it go, hit the record button." More potent a creative stimulant than even Isaac's weed was the holistic flow and spontaneity of recording. Between sessions at Isaac's place and Lee's apartment, their volume of output quickly ballooned.

"We was always recording," says Lee. "That's why we have so much music. Even when I went to Isaac's and we start creating, I get home, my mind is racing, I gotta start creating, creating, creating. I remember there were times when I took a 90-minute tape from front to back and just filled it up."

"We never practiced," says Isaac. "See, that was just so odd about the whole thing. I could relate to him, and tell him about the songs I had ideas for and everything and stuff. And then he would bring it back or whatever, and we'd get together and put it down." Once the taskmaster hell bent on rehearsing, Lee had flipped a full 180. Perfection was no longer an aspiration, but the enemy of inspiration.

"I seen where practicing and practicing got me," says Lee. "A lot of musicians you get to playing and they gotta stop, they have to analyze the music. But while you analyzing you losing a lot of the greatness of what you creating. Stop analyzing what you play, just play! And it'll all take shape."

=

"I hope you understood the beginning of the record because this was invented from a dream I had today… (You tell me, I'll tell you, we'll figure it out together)" – Lee Tracy and Isaac Manning, "Hope You Understand"

Lee lets loose a maniacal cackle when he acknowledges that the material that he and Isaac recorded was by anyone's estimation pretty out there. It's the same laugh that commences "Hope You Understand" – a chaotic transmission that encapsulates the duality at the heart of their music: a stated desire to reach people and a compulsion to go as leftfield as they saw fit.

"We just did it," says Lee. "We cut the music on and cut loose. I don't sit around and write. I do it by listening, get a feeling, play the music, and the lyrics and stuff just come out of me."

The approach proved adaptable to interpreting other artists' material. While recording a cover of Whitney Houston's pop ballad "Saving All My Love For You," Lee played Whitney's version in his headphones as he laid down his own vocals – partially following the lyrics, partially using them as a departure point. The end result is barely recognizable compared with the original, Lee and Isaac having switched up the time signature and reinvented the melody along the way towards morphing a slick mainstream radio standard into something that sounds solely their own.

"I really used that song to get me started," says Lee. "Then I said, well I need something else, something is missing. Something just came over me. That's when I came up with 'Is It What You Want.'"

The song would become the centerpiece of Lee and Isaac's repertoire. Pushed along by a percolating metronomic Rhythm King style beat somewhere between a military march and a samba, "Is It What You Want" finds Lee pleading the sincerity of his commitment to a potential love interest embellished by vocal tics and hiccups subtlely reminiscent of his childhood hero MJ. Absent chord changes, only synth riffs gliding in and out like apparitions, the song achieves a lingering lo-fi power that leaves you feeling like it's still playing, somewhere, even after the fade out.

"I don't know, it's like a real spiritual song," Lee reflects. "But it's not just spiritual. To me the more I listen to it it's like about everything that you do in your everyday life, period. Is it what you want? Do you want a car or you don't want a car? Do you want Jesus or do you want the Devil? It's basically asking you the question. Can't nobody answer the question but you yourself."

In 1989 Lee won a lawsuit stemming from injuries sustained from a fight he'd gotten into. He took part of the settlement money and with Isaac pressed up "Saving All My Love For You" b/w "Is It What You Want" as a 45 single. Isaac christened the label One Chance Records. "Because that's all we wanted," he says with a laugh, "one chance."

Isaac sent the record out to radio stations and major labels, hoping for it to make enough noise to get picked up nationally. But the response he and Lee were hoping for never materialized. According to Isaac the closest the single got to getting played on the radio is when a disk jock from a local station made a highly unusual announcement on air: "The dude said on the radio, 107.5 – 'We are not gonna play 'Is It What You Want.' We cracked up! Wow, that's deep.

"It was a whole racist thing that was going on," he reflects. "So we just looked over and kept on going. That was it. That was about the way it goes… If you were Black and you were living in Nashville and stuff, that's the way you got treated." Isaac already knew as much from all the times he'd brought he and Lee's tapes (even their cache of country music tunes) over to Music Row to try to drum up interest to no avail.

"Isaac, he really worked his ass off," says Lee. "He probably been to every record place down on Music Row." Nashville's famed recording and music business corridor wasn't but a few blocks from where Lee grew up. Close enough, he remembers, for him to ride his bike along its back alleys and stumble upon the occasional random treasure, like a discarded box of harmonicas. Getting in through the front door, however, still felt a world away.

"I just don't think at the time our music fell into a category for them," he concedes. "It was before its time."

=

Lee stopped making music some time in the latter part of the '90s, around the time his mom passed away and life became increasingly tough to manage. "When my mother died I had a nervous breakdown," he says, "So I shut down for a long time. I was in such a sadness frame of mind. That's why nobody seen me. I had just disappeared off the map." He fell out of touch with Isaac, and in an indication of just how bad things had gotten for him, lost track of all the recordings they'd made together. Music became a distant memory.

Fortunately, Isaac kept the faith. In a self-published collection of his poetry – paeans to some of his favorite entertainment and public figures entitled Friends and Dick Clark – he'd written that he believed "music has a life of its own." But his prescience and presence of mind were truly manifested in the fact that he kept an archive of he and Lee's work. As perfectly imperfect as "Is It What You Want" now sounds in a post-Personal Space world, Lee and Isaac's lone official release was in fact just a taste. The bulk of the Is It What You Want album is culled from the pair's essentially unheard home recordings – complete songs, half-realized experiments, Isaac's blue monologues and pronouncements et al – compiled, mixed and programmed in the loose and impulsive creative spirit of their regular get-togethers from decades ago. The rest of us, it seems, may have finally caught up to them.

On the prospect of at long last reaching a wider audience, Isaac says simply, "I been trying for a long time, it feels good." Ever the survivor, he adds, "The only way I know how to make it to the top is to keep climbing. If one leg break on the ladder, hey, you gotta fix it and keep on going… That's where I be at. I'll kill death to make it out there."

For Lee it all feels akin to a personal resurrection: "It's like I was in a tomb and the tomb was opened and I'm back… Man, it feels so great. I feel like I'm gonna jump out of my skin." Success at this stage of his life, he realizes, probably means something different than what it did back when he was singing and dancing in Isaac's front yard. "What I really mean by 'making it,'" he explains isn't just the music being heard but, "the story being told."

Occasionally Lee will pull up "Is It What You Want" on YouTube on his phone, put on his headphones, and listen. He remembers the first time he heard his recorded voice. How surreal it was, how he thought to himself, "Is that really me?" What would he say to that younger version of himself now?

"I would probably tell myself, hang in there, don't give up. Keep striving for the goal. And everything will work out."

Despite what's printed on the record label, sometimes you do get more than one chance.

Combining powerful and heartfelt vocals with thundering guitar riffs, Essex-based Blues Rock band When Rivers Meet offers originality with both talent and winning personalities. Grace Bond leads with her incredible vocals, as well as bringing ranched-up mandolin and violin instrumentals. Her husband Aaron Bond commands attention with his imaginative guitar and cigar box playing and complements with compelling vocal harmonies… a winning formula. Since bursting on to the UK music scene with their debut The Uprising EP in April 2019 followed by their second EP Innocence of Youth in May 2020, husband and wife Grace and Aaron Bond have released two critically acclaimed studio albums We Fly Free (2020), followed by their sophomore album Saving Grace (2021). When Rivers Meet were the first band to win four awards at the UK Blues Awards 2021 and another three awards in 2022, including “Blues Band of the Year” on both occasions. Last year WRM were voted Best New Band at Planet Rock’s The Rocks Awards 2021, and in 2022 won the “Blues Power Award” and “Album of the Year” (Saving Grace), beating Iron Maiden who came second place. In 2021, the husband-and-wife duo show their chemistry on stage, performing 17 dates along with powerhouse bass and drums on their first UK Headline Tour to mostly sold-out crowds, receiving rave reviews for their captivating stage presence and blistering performances. Tour dates: 14-Oct / Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach - 16-Oct / Gloucester Guildhall - 21-Oct / Huddersfield The Parish - 23-Oct / York The Crescent - 27-Oct / Southend-on-Sea Chinnerys - 29-Oct / Liverpool Arts Club - 30-Oct / Milton Keynes The Stables The E.P


Track listing:
(The Uprising EP): Freeman; Like What You See; Tomorrow; Kill For Your Love

(Innocence Of Youth EP): Innocence Of Youth; A Dead Man Doesn’t Lie; My Babe Says That He Loves Me; Fire; Want Your Love We Fly Free: Track listing: Did I Break The Law; Bound For Nowhere; Walking On The Wire; I'd Have Fallen; Battleground; Kissing The Sky; Breaker of Chains; I Will Fight; Bury My Body; Take Me To The River; Friend of Mine; We Fly Free Saving Grace: Track listing: I Can't Fight This Feeling; Never Coming Home; He'll Drive You Crazy; Don't Tell Me Goodbye; Do You Remember My Name; Have No Doubt About It; Eye of The Hurricane

(Friend of Mine pt.2); Testify; Shoot The Breeze; Lost & Found; Talking in My Sleep; Make A Grown Man Cry Flying Free Tour Live: Track listing: Did I Break The Law; Walking On The Wire; My Babe Says That He Loves Me; Battleground; Don't Tell Me Goodbye; Free Man; Lost & Found; Innocence of Youth; Bury My Body; Tomorrow; Kissing The Sky; Want Your Love; Testify

Within the last ten years the resurgence of sixties Gallic Pop, once known as Ye-Ye music, has escalated beyond an inter-stellar dizzy height. What might have been a waning, embarrassing genre destined for a shelf life/death gathering dust amongst the Eurovisions of yesteryear, the ‘jerk-beat’ psychsploitation records of the latter day French-Disco had soon found new floor space in some of the most credible nightspots in London and Japan.

Without a shadow of doubt, the flagship LP with best odds on becoming a discerning household object was “Histoire de Melody Nelson” by one Serge Gainsbourg. An inimitable, 45-minute concept LP handcrafted by a bass-driven psychedelic rock group and a heaven sent, 1001 piece orchestral and choral symphony. The album left hip hop producers alongside progressive rock aficionados crying out for more and more for years to come. This LP was in a league of its very own… or was it?

The seldom-sung musical arranger for Melody Nelson has become one of the most enigmatic names in French-funk; lorded by many as the “French David Axelrod” Jean-Claude Vannier’s name is the lesser-spotted, tell-tale seal of sample-friendly quality when it comes to crate-digging ‘en Francais’. Suitably, when rumours amongst French record dealers claiming “the band who played Melody Nelson recorded a follow-up lp” became a legend of psychedelic folk-lore. Another unconfirmed rumour about JCV taking the remaining out-takes of the beloved Melody Nelson to create a promo-only experimental rock LP left sample hungry producers and DJs in turmoil…

For those in the know the answers to these mysteries lay flat between the anonymous gatefold sleeve of an undiscovered conceptual album bizarrely entitled “L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches” by a custom-built avant-rock entourage called Insolitudes. The rocking-horse manure treasure hunt began.

So here we have it. The mythical teen-tonic for all those suffering from Melody Nelson withdrawal symptoms. For record collectors looking for that special something, this LP contains the extra-special EVERYTHING. Peruse the following genres: Psychedelic, Classical, Soundtracks, Jazz, Hip Hop, Samples, Avant Garde, Funk. Then place a copy of “L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches” in each section.

History denotes that when ‘our man in Paris’ Msr. Gainsbourg first heard the initial bones of this LP he took his poetic pencil to paper providing bizarre liner notes, thus consummating the most extraordinary concept album of all time. The story “The Child Assassin Of The Flies” was to be included as the only information to grace the LPs highly collectible, concertina gatefold sleeve. The story in full is reproduced in its native-tongue on this very special re-release package. The CD also includes the bonus track “Je M’ Appelle Geraldine”, a beat heavy John Barry-esque track taken from Vannier’s super-rare 7? EP “Point D’Interrogation”.

DJs and Producers such as Jim O’Rourke, Stereolab’s Tim Gane and David Holmes have spent sleepless nights in perusal of original copies of this perfect release and now regard it as ‘One Of The Best’. Recent copies on eBay have commanded ridiculous price-tags, and is now one of the most sought-after articles amongst the vinyl hungry hip-hop community.

“I had to write myself back into existence,” says Jessie Baylin. “I’d been feeling lost, empty, unsure if I’d ever make music again, and I think this album came along to remind me of who I really am, of who I could still become.” Indeed, Jersey Girl is more than just another record for Baylin; it’s a radical act of self-actualization, a moving work of reflection and rebirth from an artist who’s spent the better part of her adult life running from her roots. Written and recorded with GRAMMY-winning producers Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk (Kacey Musgraves, Birdy), the collection marks Baylin’s first release since the passing of her longtime collaborator Richard Swift, whose influence looms large here even in his absence, and it signals the start of a profound new chapter, one marked by love and empathy for the face staring back in the mirror. The songs are lush and dreamy here, drawing on a hazy palette of warm guitars and vintage keyboard tones, and Baylin’s performances are nothing short of mesmerizing, her tender voice front-and-center in the mix as she grapples with guilt and shame, pain and healing, purpose and identity. Baylin’s the first to tell you this wasn’t an easy record to make—in fact, it wasn’t a record she intended to make at all—but sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from the most unexpected places. “I had to be tricked into writing these songs,” Baylin confesses, “but it was a good kind of trick. I didn’t realize what was happening until I was already in the midst of it, and that turned out to be exactly what I needed.”

Live: Return of the Storyteller – his third live album and nineteenth overall - plays like a masterclass by one man with a guitar and a freewheeling imagination. Threading his husky-voiced phrasing through a likable cosmic cowboy manner, he invites you on a tour of tunes humorous (“Big Finish,” and the have-meets- have-not “In Between Jobs”), Proustian (“Play a Train Song,” “Too Soon To Tell,” and the lump-in-the-throat snapshot of John Prine on “Handsome John”) and heart-worn (“Like a Force of Nature,” “The Very Last Time,” “Roman Candles”). As the fifteen-song set unfolds, you can feel a tangible bond building between Snider and his fans. While the album captures what Snider laughingly calls his “second tour - because I went out on the road in '94 and never went home until the pandemic” - it acts as both a summing up of a thirty-year career and a look ahead.

Japanese electronica and ambient composer Morimoto Naoki presents his 3rd album for Seil Records. »Kotoba« is a mesmerizing collage of sounds and the most beautiful, gentle phrases. Each sound tells a story, each word has a sound.

Popa Chubby stands before a sold-out crowd in Paris at l'Olympia - The
theatre where Hendrix, Miles, The Beatles and so many greatsplayed - He
tells the audience : "Je T'aime Mes Amis" !"I love you my friends" and in
that moment it's like the pandemicnever happened.Popa has not stopped
working
He followed the 2020 release celebrating his 30thanniversary ("It's A Mighty Hard
Road") with an introspective outing reflecting his timeat home : "Tinfoil Hat". The
year that has followed has lead to more upbeat themes andtimes. This is strongly
reflected on his latest recording, "Emotional Gangster", out worldwide on
Dixiefrog records on March 2022.And indeed the emotions run high on this
recording. 11 tracks featuring The Chubbfatha on many instruments and doing all
the mixing and recording duties. "Thisrecord definitely reflects happier times and
good solid dose of classic blues !" Says Popafrom his studio full of guitars in the
Hudson Valley. "I specifically included covered like"Hoochie Coochie Man" and
"Dust My Broom" to show respect for the Fathers. WillieDixon has always been my
idol you know".But the real gems here come in Popa's original compositions.
"Equal Opportunity"is a light-hearted sing along that celebrates the feminine at a
time when it is seriouslyneeded. And songs like "Fly Away" and both French and
English versions of "Why YouWanna Make War?" are big standouts !There is more
than an ample amount of pure guitar bliss on this record and slideguitar on tracks
like "Tonight I'm Gonna Be The Man" add flavor to a savory mix ! For an added
bonus Harmonica Wizard Jason Ricci joins Popa on the Blues Rockanthem "New
Way Of Walking" and the swing shuffle "Best For Last".Popa has been given many
accolades in a 30 years career. He shuns recognitionand has little use for awards
as he says it just gets in the way of the music. This has notstopped his last 3
outings from reaching the Billboard Blues Charts. He has also beengiven the
prestigious Red Rooster Award by Willie Dixon's family and been nominatedfor a
Grammy and a W.C. Handy Award.With "Emotional Gansgster Popa puts his heart
on the line and makes a play tosteal yours !

Of all the celebrated home recording artists that haunt the pages of
Bandcamp and the basements of the DIY touring circuit, few have had an
output as eclectic, enigmatic, and consistent as The Cradle's Paco
Cathcart
In a departure from The Cradle's more lo- fi works, "Radio Wars" bounces from
track to track with a polished exuberance as Cathcart delivers some of their
catchiest music to date. Pumping with auto- tuned nursery rhyme hooks and
densely-programmed drum machine beats, the album boasts a sonic palette that
owes as much to the production of DJ Rashad and the erratic vocal approach of
Playboi Carti as it does to Cathcart's more familiar Dub and Gamelan influences.
It's a musical world that draws you in quickly and leaves you deeply immersed
throughout its 22 - track running time.
As with previous releases, Cathcart's lyrics celebrate and reflect on the profundity
of day-to-day city life experiences. The words are delivered through deceptively
simple refrains that often mask challenging subject matter. Radio Wars was
written and recorded in NYC in the lead up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic,
a time which included the run up to the electoral defeat of a fascist president,
historic protests against police abuse across the country, as well as the early
months of the pandemic, when NYC was at the center of the outbreak. Social and
political dissonance, alluded to in the album's title, was at a high, and that air of
contradiction can be heard throughout, bleeding into moments that feel intimate
and reflective. Coupled with bold production choices and feverish energy
throughout, "Radio Wars," is a Cradle album of and for the times.
Tracks: Lights Off / Tell Me What You Want / Ha Ha Ha! / Black River Side / My
Right Side / American Spirit / I Went in and You Came Out / Radio Wars / Let’s
Clean Up / City Life / Numb Time / I Love that Music / It’s Not Related / What’s in
Between / I Love the World I’m In

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Rocky Mountain High album and song, John Denver's Windstar Records is reissuing the album on limited edition Transparent Blue Vinyl. Originally released September 15, 1972, Rocky Mountain High was Denver's first Top 10 album, propelled by the self-titled single. In 2007, the title track was made a state song of Colorado. The album has gone on to earn 2x Platinum status and the title track certified Gold. In the early 1970s, Denver was one of the first artists to share an environmental message through his music, and fans responded. John understood that responsibility came with having a public voice. The album's iconic namesake Rocky Mountain High was written while Denver was camping in the Rocky Mountains during the Perseid Meteor Shower, with lyrics expressing the love and wonder John Denver felt for his adopted state of Colorado, and speaking of environmental sustainability. Released while war was raging in Vietnam, the album's second single "Prisoners" tells a story of prisoners of war. The album also features Denver's take on songs by The Beatles and John Prine, and the five-part Season Suite finds reflection through the seasons. Tracks: 1 Rocky Mountain High, 2 Mother Nature's Son 3 Paradise 4 For Baby (For Bobbie) 5 Darcy Farrow 6 Prisoners 7 Goodbye Again 8 Season Suite: Summer, Fall, Winter, Late Winter Early Spring (When Everybody Goes To Mexico), Spring

Alden Tyrell dusts of the Roland MC202 MicroComposer for a 6 track EP based around just the one synth. Easily floating between techno, electro, IDM and ambient this collection shows the versatility of the machine and the producer. MC-202 MICRO COMPOSER The MC-202 is a 2 channel microcomposer incorporating a monophonic synthesizer and offers a total memory capacity of 2600 steps (approx. 150 measures with 8 steps in each measure). Also the display window tells you how many more steps you may enter. The LCD indicates the current information or tempo, etc. A beep wil be heard if the operation has been done correctly.

Das postume Album „Faith“ der New Yorker Drill- und Rap-Ikone Pop Smoke ist ab sofort auf Vinyl erhältlich! Sein neustes Meisterwerk debütierte auf Platz #1 der Billboard 200 Charts und auf Platz #7 der deutschen Albumcharts. Auf seinem Projekt ist die Crème de la Crème der Rap und Pop-Welt vertreten, darunter Megastars wie Kanye West, Pharrell, Kid Cudi, Chris Brown, Rick Ross, Future, Dua Lipa und viele mehr. Auf 20 fulminanten Tracks stellt Pop Smoke sein Talent und seine Vielseitigkeit wieder einmal unter Beweis, darunter die hitverdächtigen Songs „Demeanor“, „Woo Baby“ und „Tell the Vision“. Pop Smoke konnte in seiner kurzen Karriere bemerkenswerte, globale Erfolge zelebrieren und erreichte mit seinem Debütalbum „Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon“ als erster posthumer Künstler die Spitze der deutschen Hip Hop Album Charts. „Faith“ ist ein weiteres Testament an die Rap-Welt, welches seinen Legendenstatus nochmals untermalt. Rest in Peace Pop Smoke – gone but never forgotten.

Candonble rhythms meets Jazz

Alabê Ketujazz was founded in 2012 by french percussioinist/composer Antoine Olivier and brazilian saxophonist/composter Glaucus Linx.

Together, Glaucus and Antoine creatd orignal musica and textures inspired from the rhythms and the rituals, where the saxofone assumes the part of the Orixás telling their story through musical movements.

This artistic approach oponed many esthetic possibilities, transforming the raw material of the rituals in a new music format, essentially brazilian, where the spontaneous creativity of Jazz meets the traditional rhythms of the Ketu Nation: Alabê Ketujazz

Energy and inspiration come from the Gwoka. From these hands which, when they are not a raised fist, pound the drums, proud of their roots and of their Guadeloupean identity.
This is where Celia Wa comes from, from all that she inherited by spending her childhood between the West Indies and France.

The first years of her life were spent discovering the musical soul of the island, letting the seven gwoka rhythms seep into her until they became an integral part of her. The following years were spent discovering reggae, salsa, jazz and the omnipresent hip hop. Music whose original source was close to her, but to which she only opened up after having travelled thousands of kilometres.

After two self-produced EPs, Wastral is the sum of these inspirations and influences. Born in the acoustic, it is under the modern and futuristic production of Victor Vagh (producer of Flavia Coelo) that the seven tracks were revealed and then sublimated. Dissipated in the vaporous arrangements, softened under the effect of the synthetic layers, the organic was meticulously covered with an electro varnish disturbed by the echoes and reverbs of the dub. Celia Wa's soaring, twirling flute grazes or stirring the groove, her lyrics reviving the memory of her island. In Creole or in English, they tell the story in the present tense without forgetting the past. A past full of the sounds of struggles, of clashing chains and cracking whips, marks that have disappeared from bodies but remain deeply rooted in families and history. New feminine signature at Heavenly Sweetness, Celia Wa draws with Wastral the map of an avant-garde stellar journey in which the musical star of Guadeloupe shines the brightest.