quête:ten ven

Deluxe LP features 140g virgin vinyl; heavy-duty board jacket, artwork by Art Rosenbaum + DL. RIYL: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Ry Cooder, Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley, The Youngbloods & Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Jake Xerxes Fussell’s 4th album finds the acclaimed folksong interpreter, guitarist, and singer navigating fresh sonic and compositional landscapes on the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. Produced by James Elkington and featuring formidable players both familiar (Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough) and new (Joe Westerlund, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), it includes Jake’s first original compositions; atmospheric arrangements with pedal steel, horns, and strings. One of the most striking and strangely moving moments on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washington.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded. In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing here he plays more acoustic than ever before pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects. On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of songcatching and songmaking into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension. The pair enlisted a group of formidable players including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals. Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy), an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory and a captain’s inevitable betrayal. “Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” The New York Times // “So elegant … It’s relaxing in the way that pondering a Zen koan is relaxing, and sweet in the way that the wounded, honey-voiced blues of Mississippi John Hurt are sweet.” Pitchfork // “Music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.”

Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for over 30 years. Among the former Saturday boy’s albums are his punk-charged debut Life’s a Riot With Spy Vs Spy, the more love-infused Workers Playtime, pop classic Don’t Try This At Home, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee-timed treatise on national identity England, Half-English, and his stripped-down tenth, Tooth & Nail, his most successful since the early 90s. The intervening three decades have been marked by a number one hit single, having a street named after him, being the subject of a South Bank Show, appearing onstage at Wembley Stadium, curating Left Field at Glastonbury, sharing spotted dick with a Cabinet minister in the House of Commons cafeteria, being mentioned in Bob Dylan’s memoir and meeting the Queen. At their best, Billy’s songs present ‘the perfect Venn diagram between the political and the personal’ (the Guardian). Billy Bragg added best-selling author/musicologist to his CV with the success of his acclaimed 2017 book ‘Roots, Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed The World’. Billy Bragg will release a new single ‘I Will Be Your Shield’ on 14th July 2021. Taken from his forthcoming 10th studio album ‘The Million Things That Never Happened’, ‘I Will Be Your Shield’ is a beautiful love song and is the beating heart of his new record.

Legendary Utrecht DJ and producer P.A. Presents (Peter Aarsman) returns with his first new release since 2000 with this vintage techno stunner, Swirling Gas. This EP also marks the first new music on U-TRAX in more than 21 years, kicking the label s comeback into a higher gear.
Peter ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn t lived in the city (or stadsie in Utregs, the local dialect) for the past 25 years.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12 -es and all those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, there are probably not a lot of DJs that can rival with Peter.
While the era of house of techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn t cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12 Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig s mix CD as part of !K7 s DJ-Kicks series.
Besides two releases on U-TRAX and three 12 -es on Deviate, Peter recorded a full length album for the latter label. Unfortunately, before the album ever saw the light of day, Deviate closed their doors and the tracks remained on the shelves for the next 17 or so years. These tracks still sound surprisingly fresh and original today and we are super excited to be able to release some of them on this Swirling Gas EP!
The title track Swirling Gas obviously gets its name from the documentary sample that the track kicks off with. The almost heartbeat-like electro rhythms, layered choruses and dreamy synths will give you goose bumps all the way to the soles of your feet.
Raw is quite another thing, but way more complicated and sophisticated than the title suggests. An in-your-face electro bass drum pattern supports layer after layer of additional rhythms, some even touching on salsa, and then big fat layers of pulsating synths take you away into deep space. A unique track that will instantly reward the DJ that has the guts to play it for her/his audience.
Drum Magic on the flipside is exactly that: a magic techno trip built around complicated syncopated drum rhythms, which should serve the adventurous DJ well as a foundation for mixing all sorts of weird stuff on top of. We can t wait to see videos appear with creative mixing ideas.
Final track Freaky is opening with some heavy pounding, yet jumpy beats before it opens up into a bit of a space trip around the 3 minute mark. Though the track has a touch of the Basic Channel sound, its echoing synth tones are very distinct and will light up any venue, no matter how big.
All tracks have been revamped and edited into more current lengths by DJ Zero One, blessed by DJ White Delight and mastered by Thee J Johanz. Label art by Bonk Artwork.

Legendary Utrecht DJ and producer P.A. Presents (Peter Aarsman) returns with his first new release since 2000 with this vintage techno stunner, Swirling Gas. This EP also marks the first new music on U-TRAX in more than 21 years, kicking the label s comeback into a higher gear.
Peter ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn t lived in the city (or stadsie in Utregs, the local dialect) for the past 25 years.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12 -es and all those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, there are probably not a lot of DJs that can rival with Peter.
While the era of house of techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn t cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12 Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig s mix CD as part of !K7 s DJ-Kicks series.
Besides two releases on U-TRAX and three 12 -es on Deviate, Peter recorded a full length album for the latter label. Unfortunately, before the album ever saw the light of day, Deviate closed their doors and the tracks remained on the shelves for the next 17 or so years. These tracks still sound surprisingly fresh and original today and we are super excited to be able to release some of them on this Swirling Gas EP!
The title track Swirling Gas obviously gets its name from the documentary sample that the track kicks off with. The almost heartbeat-like electro rhythms, layered choruses and dreamy synths will give you goose bumps all the way to the soles of your feet.
Raw is quite another thing, but way more complicated and sophisticated than the title suggests. An in-your-face electro bass drum pattern supports layer after layer of additional rhythms, some even touching on salsa, and then big fat layers of pulsating synths take you away into deep space. A unique track that will instantly reward the DJ that has the guts to play it for her/his audience.
Drum Magic on the flipside is exactly that: a magic techno trip built around complicated syncopated drum rhythms, which should serve the adventurous DJ well as a foundation for mixing all sorts of weird stuff on top of. We can t wait to see videos appear with creative mixing ideas.
Final track Freaky is opening with some heavy pounding, yet jumpy beats before it opens up into a bit of a space trip around the 3 minute mark. Though the track has a touch of the Basic Channel sound, its echoing synth tones are very distinct and will light up any venue, no matter how big.
All tracks have been revamped and edited into more current lengths by DJ Zero One, blessed by DJ White Delight and mastered by Thee J Johanz. Label art by Bonk Artwork.

Triumph breeds confidence, and with confidence comes an expansion of ambition, a focus of ability, an emboldening of audacity. De-Loused In The Comatorium had risked everything Omar and Cedric possessed on the wildest of gambits, the most impossible of dreams: making sense of the riot of influences ricocheting about Omar’s head, and memorialising their departed friend Julio Venegas through Cedric’s magical realist roman-a-clef. It Clouds Hill shouldn’t have worked. But it did, and with that fiendish tightrope act successfully accomplished, the duo stretched the wire even further and higher, over a figurative fiery pit peopled with lions, crocodiles, piranha and other sharp-toothed beasts not yet known to man. Because how do you make great art without taking great risks? Frances The Mute was no De-Loused Part Two. For one thing, the band’s configuration had changed, in the most painful way. Shortly before the release of De- Loused, sound manipulator and founder member Jeremy Michael Ward passed away, a wound Omar says the group never recovered from. But even though his inspired fucking- with-the-sonic-parameters is absent from Frances The Mute, his spirit and influence can still be determined, the album’s concept derived from a diary Ward had encountered in his day-job in repossession. “Jeremy picked up lots of interesting stuff when he was a repo man,” remembers Cedric. “Weird things, including this diary, He let us read it a bunch of times. It was by a guy who’d been adopted and was searching to find his real parents. It was very surreal, it didn’t make much sense – the guy might’ve been schizophrenic – but it was very inspiring. It felt like how certain music helps you escape your boring every-day life. The names and scenes in the diary directly inspired these songs.” Some of the tracks pre-dated De-Loused, having their origins in early demos Omar recorded at the duo’s Long Beach home Anikulapo, songs such as The Widow and Miranda The Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. Cedric had heard these jams in their embryonic state and began working in his mind on what he could bring to them. “I was attracted to The Widow like you would be to a lover, right?” Cedric remembers. “I sang over it with Omar while we were touring De-Loused in Australia on the Big Day Out, like, ‘Okay, I’ve got something for this.’” A potent ballad, laden with emotional crescendos and evoking the epic drama of Ennio Morricone – an effect aided by an elegiac trumpet part performed by Flea – The Widow would become The Mars Volta’s first song to chart on the Billboard Top 100, capturing the album’s potent sorrow and widescreen sprawl in miniature. Indeed, the lush sound of the album, the depth of detail and breadth of instrumentation, belies its grungy roots. Having tasted the luxury of Rick Rubin’s mansion, Omar veered in the opposite direction when recording Frances, cutting the album in what he describes as “a shithole... Basically a warehouse with one little air conditioner on its last legs, awful wiring and a console you couldn’t rely on. We were there night and day – I would literally lock engineer Jon DeBaun in there. He slept on a mattress in the vocal booth.” A considerably more complex and ambitious album than its predecessor – four of its five tracks lasted over ten minutes in length, with its closing epic Cassandra Gemini spanning over half an hour – Frances The Mute wasn’t recorded “live” by an ensemble, but with the individual musicians coming into the “shithole” and recording the parts Omar had scripted for them separately. “They had to have absolute trust in me,” Omar remembers, “Like actors trust their director.” In addition to the core band – now fleshed out with incoming bassist Juan Alderete, and Omar’s brother Marcel on keyboards and percussion – the album featured guitar solos from John Frusciante, saxophone and flute by future member Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales, a full string section, and piano played by Omar’s hero, salsa legend Larry Harlow. “It was a childhood dream come true,” Omar says. “We recorded with him in my hometown in Puerto Rico, and my father flew in to watch the session. Larry was a perfect gentleman, and a very lively spirit.” The album’s fevered intensity infected even the staid string section, Cedric remembers. “When they performed the part on Cassandra Gemini, ’25 wives in the lake tonight’, one of the guys in the orchestra played so hard he broke his bow, this real old, antique bow. And you could see his ‘classical’ side come out – like, ‘I broke this playing a fuckin’ rock song??’ He was pissed off. But I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, man, that’s on the record! You’ve got to realise things like that are cool.’” The album also features field recordings of “the coqui of Puerto Rico” during the opening minutes of Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. “We took a page out of the Grateful Dead’s book there,” laughs Cedric. “They recorded air. We recorded fuckin’ frogs in Puerto Rico.”

‘Feelings’ took shape amidst the months of anxious tension that 2020 laid upon us, written and produced by Turkish artist Ekin Fil, it took around 1 year for the album to manifest in its final form.

Yet underneath the opaque veneer of swooning drones, timeworn chords and verbal lamentations, glimpses of sanguinity and optimism flicker through the fabric of the work, mirroring the perpetual state of uncertainty and isolation we collectively faced in 2020; suspended between minute, optimistic spur and months of dissolute ambivalence.

In January 2017 Rufus Wainwright toured with the prestigious all string ensemble Amsterdam Sinfonietta through the Netherlands. Critics and audiences of the ten concerts were enraptured by the intimacy and intensity of the program curated by Wainwright. The concerts reflected the immense bandwidth of Wainwright’s musical influences and interests from Verdi Arias to Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, from Rameau pieces to the American songbook and French chanson and from Wainwright’s beloved Berlioz to his family’s and his own songs, some of them written for this program. Emotional center piece of the album is Wainwright’s almost 9 minute version of late Canadian singer songwriter Lhasa de Sela;s harrowing “I’m going in”, a song she wrote about her own death from cancer at the age of 37. All arrangements were created specifically for the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and around Wainwright’s voice that is truly at the peak of its power. The artistic kinship between Wainwright and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta lead by Candida Thompson is astounding and make these live recordings into something utterly unique and breathtaking. “Rufus Wainwright and Amsterdam Sinfonietta Live 2017” will be released on BMG’s Modern Music Label as vinyl, CD and digital releases with two bonus tracks on the digital formats.
The album was mixed by multiple Grammy winner Ryan Freeland and mastered by Ruairi O’Flaherty both in Los Angeles and is comprised of live recordings from five of the ten concerts.

Paul Gilbert have announced the release of a new seasonal offering titled 'TWAS. Gilbert’s 17th solo album features a dozen recordings, two of which are new, original compositions.

Gilbert shares, “Many will agree that in recent times, challenging events have been pouring down upon our heads like an Exploding Waterfall of Molasses. At least it sometimes feels like that to me. But while I was jamming Christmas songs with my friends, playing an assortment of red, green, and white Ibanez electric guitars, I felt like life was THE BEST. I hope that this music can put a smile on your face as well. Merry Christmas to all. And to all, a good night.”

The track listing features “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “Frosty The Snowman,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “The Christmas Song,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “I Saw Three Ships,” “Every Christmas Has Love” (original), “Three Stings For Christmas” (original), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” and “Winter Wonderland.” On the Japanese release of ‘Twas The Guitar Before Christmas, there will be a bonus track titled “Down the Chimney Blues” (original).

Gilbert offers, “Ten of the songs are classics. I was inspired by the Christmas recordings of Nat King Cole, Loretta Lynn, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Ventures. And of course, inspiration came from my guitar heroes, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Lifeson, Johnny Winter, Robin Trower, Frank Marino, Pat Travers, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page, to name a few. I also wrote some of my own new Christmas songs. As I have been doing recently, I begin with lyrics and a melody. Then I let my guitar take over, as it sings better than I do.”

With the release of Sweet Inspirations At Muon, the first appearance on vinyl of Tori Kudo’s mythical early ‘80s primitive rock gang Sweet Inspirations, another piece of the seemingly endless puzzle of the Japanese underground has fallen into place. Recorded some time in 1982 at Yokohama venue Muon – precise details are sketchy – we’re now given another chance to discover what was going on in Kudo’s mind just before he formed the group he is now best known for, the ragtag gang of pro and amateur musicians that was Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

Sweet Inspirations were one of several groups formed by Kudo around this time. He’d already released the visionary naïve-art album, Tenno, in collaboration with Reiko Omura, in 1980, and a trip to New York the following year led to the recording of Atlantic City, under the name La Consumption 4. Returning to Japan, Kudo first formed Guys’N’Dolls with Jun Yoshiwara (bass) and Kiyoaki Iwamoto (drums); Yoshiwara carried over into Sweet Inspirations, who existed for a few years, their membership, at various times, featuring Asahito Nanjo (High Rise etc.), Jutok Kaneko (Kousokuya), Yoshio Kuge (Les Rallizes Denudes etc.), 3C123 and many more.

The material here was originally released, without permission, by the Cragale label on CD-R in 2000. It was one of a sudden wave of archival CD-Rs that Cragale pumped out that year of material recorded at Muon, which was owned by Kohei Iehara, who co-founded Cragale with Tamotsu Hongo. In the context of the recent unleashing of material from the Kudo archives – the 9CD At Goodman set, the reissue of the first two Maher Shalal Hash Baz cassettes and the Noise LP, and the tantalising glimpses of other historical gems via Tori’s own Bandcamp page – hearing Sweet Inspirations with such clarity fills in a significant piece of the puzzle; here is Kudo, just before Maher, channelling the rough conceptualism of Red Krayola and the glinting, staggered rhythms of Syd Barrett into extended blooms of ragged glory, sketching out future classics like “Manson Girls”; A bonus CD includes a cover of a song by legendary South Korean rock group San Ul Lim.

AUF TOGO is the long-time collaboration of Sasa Crnobrnja
(from In Flagranti and Mytron & Ofofo) and Clement Cachot-Coulom
(from The Fabulous Penetrators and Big Girls).

After multiple singles and EPs on Leng Records and SaS Recordings, including two collaborative EPs with the tentacular outfit Becker & Mukai, acclaimed by fans and DJs alike, most of their time has been spent writing, recording and bringing to life the 8 amazing tracks that form their debut album “Movements”.

“Movements” follows in the steps of Auf Togo’s previous releases and won’t disappoint the early fans, but it also offers a completely new proposition. Their signature blend of slamming percussion, driving bass lines, psychedelic guitar hooks, fat analogue synths are expertly mixed with new musical ventures across the tracks: from the louche Hawaiian jazz of Along The Dotted Line to the psych-funk of Pan Con Tomate, the electronic wanderings of Mexico to the cinematic intensity of Radical Departures.

The result is a spell-binding summer album, one to listen to on a coastline somewhere under the Mediterranean sun, and one that is not afraid to wear its many influences on its sleeve, from 70s psych-rock to Balearic Beat, Space Disco and Afro Beat. The scope of “Movements” is wide and proves a captivating and gratifying listen.
Debut album from supergroup with members of In Flagranti and Mytron & Ofofo Pressed on 12” vinyl with artwork drawn and designed by Award winning animator Erica Russell UK/EU marketing campaign led by Neighborhood and specialist press/DJ by Your Army, with previous support from Mixmag, Trax, Ransom Note, NTS, Bill
Brewster, Andrew Weatherall and more.

Recorded in Havana’s famed Egrem Studios, the group displays a cohesion forged by an intense performing and touring cycle. The musical conversation that began in the Areito studios three years earlier blossomed into an easy, intimate dialogue between good friends - allowing full, fearless musical expression and risk-taking outside of their comfort zones.

Building upon Perez Prado’s dissonant, near avant-garde vision of the mambo, and highlighting the Lucumí subtext of Cuban rhythms and styles, the band continues to explore, develop and expand the island’s rich rhythmic palette and repertoire - pushing the conventions of what is considered “mambo” - and drawing deeply from folkloric and religious traditions seldom heard in popular music. 16 Rayos is here to shine its musical rays on us, warm our hearts, and irresistibly move our bodies.

When Orquesta Akokán burst onto the global music scene a mere three years ago, their no-holds-barred 21st century take on the venerable Cuban mambo lit up stages around the world with a fierce and unremitting joy. Singer José "Pepito" Gómez, Chulo Records producer and multi instrumentalist Jacob Plasse, and arranger Michael Eckroth joined forces with a carefully curated selection of Havana’s most extraordinary musicians as Orquesta Akokán, polishing Cuban mambo’s golden sound to a luminous, contemporary sheen. Along the way Orquesta Akokán imbued these legendary Cuban grooves with a renewed vitality and powerful sense of akokán ---the Yoruba word used by Cubans to mean “from the heart” or “soul.”



On the Cuban side of the equation the Orquesta boasts some of the island’s greatest instrumentalists culled from members of near-mythical groups such as Los Van Van, NG La Banda, and Irakere (notably César Lopez, Orquesta Akokan’s point man in Havana). The ensemble for 16 Rayos shines a light on Cuba’s musical families and multigenerational legacy with the participation of two fabled Vizcainos on percussion - Roberto "Tato" Vizcaino Jr. and his father Roberto Vizcaino Guillot, a member of Chucho Valdes’ seminal 90’s quartet. Another family duo added their masterful legacy to the recording, with trumpeter Reinaldo “Molote” Melián bringing in his son, Reinaldo Melián Zamora, to play trumpet on several tunes alongside lead trumpet Harold Madrigal Frías. The winds and brass are rounded out with a rich saxophone section made up of young lion Jamil Shery and Germán Velazco (musical director for Pablo Milanés)on tenor, with Evaristo Denis on baritone and César López on alto, along with Yoandy Argudin and Heikel Fabián Trimiño on trombone. Coros were sung by Eddie Venegas and Luis Soto. Significantly, Orquesta Akokán added strings to the ensemble for the first time, with the participation of violinists Amelia Febles Díaz, Jenny Peña and Anabel Estévez Acosta, whose virtuosity stems from the classical training for which Cuban musicians are so renowned. The power and grace of Pedro "Tata" Francisco Almeida Barriel’s vocals lead the way on “4 de Octubre” and “Llegue con mi Rumba,” evincing why he is considered one of the Cuban rumba’s premier exponents. Another highly recognized singer, legendary guarachera Xiomara Valdés - who’s shared the stage with legends such as Beny Moré and Omara Portuondo and received the Ministry of Culture’s Distinción por la Cultura Nacional de Cuba as a significant contributor to Cuba’s musical legacy - is the featured guest on the title track.

Green Vinyl

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Spice Girls smoked crack and joined forces with the Power Rangers on acid? Meet BĘÃTFÓØT. These punk-infused electronic poltergeists and big-beat acid trio are Udi Naor, drummer and founding member of electronic duo Red Axes, Adi Bronicki (who also fronts Israeli garage-punk-folk band Deaf Chonky) and ace of all trades guitarist Nimrod Goldfarb.
The band have been launching warped stoner-acid-pop out of Tel Aviv with maniacal intent and are producing post-punk rave bangers that will scorch every dance floor with a huge lethal smile. BĘÃTFÓØT
are a DIY supergroup who describe themselves as sitting somewhere between Aqua, Beastie Boys and The Prodigy.
Their music endeavours feel akin to being hurtled through a kaleidoscopic waterslide, overflowing with the spirit of 90’s youth culture. The radioactive trio are DJ’s, musicians, songwriters and producers with a diverse range of individual projects and talents, their combined sonics map your journey across the hazy astral spectrum of hip-hop, big beat and rave music. Morph these radioactive pieces with the no New Release Informationnonsense attitude of punk-rock and the venomous spitting flow of golden-era rap and you might just come close to fabricating the freakish sound of BĘÃTFÓØT.
The band’s self-titled debut is set for release on 17th September on Manfredi Romano aka DJ Tennis’ Life and Death. Founded in 2010, the imprint curates soulful dance music with a post-rock aesthetic.
This refreshingly original and experimental LP from BĘÃTFÓØT marks a new direction for Life and Death this year and beyond.
“BĘÃTFÓØT” takes unsuspecting listeners on a wild ride of unprecedented musical madness (firmly without seatbelts). Fizzy synthesiser programming stimulates you effervescently through the album like the welcomed sting of sour sweets, surprising accompaniments appear in the form of manipulated vocal lines and quirky samples, all jovially mixed together in a gummy melting pot of wild conceptualisation and starry eyed rhythms.
Thirteen tracks of unprecedented dancefloor mutations send us triumphantly into the candy-covered kingdom of BĘÃTFÓØT with open arms and infinite imagery of fanciful gutter-glam escapades. This project fulfills the role of a musical bulldozer, flattening all previous conceptions of what it means to belong to a genre and leaving behind a hot mess trail of anarchic musical fragments in its wake. The undying spirit of the nineties.
With fans that include legendary Irish born singer, songwriter and producer Roisin Murphy, BĘÃTFÓØT are a breath of fresh air set to be igniting dancefloors this summer.

After the demise of the Ooga Boogas in the Before Time,
the four band members went their very separate ways. Being
in that band was such an intense high pressure experience,
some chillax time was well-deserved.
Leon Stackpole aka Stacky recorded under the name
Leon, Per Byström joined Voice Imitator, Mikey Young
recorded with The Green Child and Richard Stanley
played in Drug Sweat. All quite deserving projects, but it
was Stackpole’s solo outing that garnered the most interest
from public and industry alike. The demand for live shows
led him to recruit Byström from Ooga Boogas and a guy
named Brad into his touring lineup.
The trio was red hot, but inevitably the venues they
filled required a fuller sound so Stackpole recruited Young
as well on second guitar. The gruelling touring schedule
became too much for family-man Brad, so Stanley jumped
in to fill his size 11s and off they went for another lap of
regional Victoria.
Eventually the question presented itself to this freshlyminted
foursome: should they continue as Stackpole’s
backing band or strike out anew with a fresh identity? The
answer came in a moniker too electrifying to resist; a name
as clever, enigmatic and indeed, as powerful as the band
itself: Power Supply.
Back in the shed, jams became songs, jokes became
lyrics and long afternoons spent together became this record—
listen though, and one will hear life through the lens
of Stackpole and the tactile tentacles of his pals. In The
Time Of The Sabre-toothed Tiger contains ten songs that
listen so easy, one will barely notice when they’re gone.

In creating Our Beautiful Baby World (May 2021), the pacing of Izzy True’s
songwriting process has slowed down since their prior Don Giovanni
releases -- Sadbad (2018) and Nope (2016).
Arranging with Curtis and Sam, Reidy says they’ve grown as musicians together, and their songs were given space to grow, too. OBBW exhibits eleven rock
songs of melded collaboration, expressing the deepness of acceptance. These
are the band’s most dynamic compositions to date. The result is, Reidy hopes,
to ‘sound like a bad drawing of a rock record.’
The inspiration for the soft-hard dynamics of OBBW may have come from Reidy
listening to Thin Lizzy, along with the bleeding of the band members’ strengths
and histories: Curtis as a courageous experimental musician in the DIY circuit,
Sam’s expertise as a hardcore drummer, one Halloween cover-set of System
of A Down in a Chicago basement from another world, and Reidy’s childhood
growing up listening to old love songs and country music.
OBBW was recorded in Rock Island, IL at Rozz-Tox, a well-loved bar and music
venue in the humble Midwest. Recorded and mixed by Ian Harris on reel-toreel, Izzy True’s tunes returned to tape after Sadbad, which was digitally produced.
The record utilizes the talents of Chicago music friends Jess Shoman (Tenci)
on backup vocals and Andrew Clinkman (Spirits Having Fun) on lead guitar on
‘Four Good Ponies’. OBBW was recorded in the months before the pandemic,
January and February 2020, which can feel obvious (‘I don’t wanna hang out
for a thousand years’) and subtle. The authentic limitations of reel-to-reel tape
recordings give this project the aura of a time when live music was possible.

‘The Pulse of Iron’ an apt reflection of modern progression into the unknown industrial world. It comes from Narrm based artist, Consulate who has found a home on Pure Space Records for our 10th label release. On this EP, Consulate delivers four tracks of dance music for the dystopian with a slick DnB sheen.

On the A-side ‘Postrach’ the centres the record squarely within the realm of its influences, its intricate percussive patterns offset by industrial ambience. Here a half-time snare cuts through the abyss of ambience, while a floating topline carys you through dreary territories. Completing the A-side is ‘Spec 4’, a subtly staunch percussive track that is fueled by acute vocal sampling, weighty breaks and a hypnotic dub infused bassline.

The flip side heads back into half-time territory with ‘The Fear’. Delayed vocal samples paired with dub-style stabs pulse in a heady but immersive rhythm. Rounding out the record is ‘Warlock’, a percussive track that proves the restraint Consulate has in his craft. Moody, sliced vocals skitter through delayed percussion creating a sense of tension. When it feels as though the storm is just about to hit, you are enveloped by fast-paced jungle breaks drawing you deeper into the eye of the storm.

‘Here beyond man’s judgements all covenants were brittle.’
~
Tracks written, produced and mixed by Consulate on Wurundjeri Land. Pure Space and Consulate both acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.

~
Pure Space Recordings is the label venture from the beloved radio show hosted by Andy Garvey, and produced by Mija Healey which has broadcast weekly on Eora Nation (Sydney) radio station FBi Radio for over four years. The label focuses on Australian music both for home listening and that made for the club.

Clear Vinyl

Superb transparent record with transparent serygraphy.
Music by praised Tzii : experimental cinematic ambient, deep distortions of oriental soundscapes.
Noises surprises !


recorded from 2010 to 2012 at Venetie studio and erasmus studio by tzii himself, this record is perfectly situated in his own discography between HUMANS (TZII 2008/ARN008) and A SHOT IN DARK (TZII 2018/TS004) passing by the first TZII on NIGHT ON EARTH in 2001 or even SAND HEART RAGE (TZII 2013/TUT031 & 2nd F52) and THE GREEDY RAVEN AND THE FOUR BRANCHES (SOLAR SKELETONS 2015/ZZR054).
the central tool of this record is an electronic tabla, an MS20, voices, a shenaï, many effects and increasing the use of various samples of voices, violon etc.
mixing in side a two hits between muslimgauze and third type tapes, buddha bar as an introduction of a piece with tendency harsh surgical ethnic-breakcore noise well severe all that in frank cuts, brutal with a good toast of noise. at the end of side a we also find an enigmatic mental ketamine hole more calm and intimist sprinkled with ultra sounds.
side b as for her, is opened by an ultra violent white noise but very quickly caught up by two long ambient tracks to intensely lose the balance, very close to the door between the conscious and the unconscious with drones of shenaï and delay.

mastering & cut by angstrom mastering in 2020 kali yuga.
visual by ssm.
published during summer 2021 kali yuga in 33rpm 12" by kali nada.
223copy.

The Altered Hours have just announced details of their second full length album ‘Convertible’. The Irish group have just signed with Pizza Pizza Records and the 8 track album is set for release in May 2021. Following on from some successful headline tours across Europe supporting their debut album & some blistering EP’s along the way, the group found themselves looking for the next step in their ever- evolving journey. Having previously recorded in Anton Newcombe’s Berlin studio for their debut singles & ending up in the infamous Funkhaus studios to lay down what would become their debut album ‘In Heat Not Sorry ’, the band decided once again to



change the approach & take their new songs back to the privacy of their own studio space on the outskirts of Cork City. The new LP ‘Convertible’ is the result of countless late night/early morning sessions that took place over the past 2 years. Choosing to self produce and engineer this record was a conscious choice as the band felt an urge to take what they had learned on the road & in various studios previously, and condense all of this energy back into the boiling pot of their own rehearsal space.

The group have been a part of some exciting movements since the beginning and their path has been an organic one. They quickly became known in their hometown for taking over an ex-government building in the heart of Cork city, turning into a studio and creating a hub for the scene that surrounded them. The years that follow shine a light on the relentless energy of this group and unwavering love for playing shows anywhere & everywhere. Having been invited to perform at Liverpool Psych Fest numerous times, supporting the Brian Jonestown Massacre, selling out venues, churches & clubs, playing rip-roaring DIY shows in friends’ basements, getting joined by members of Spacemen 3 on stage and more recently, being invited by fellow Irish rockers Fontaines D.C to join them on their 2019 European tour playing sold out shows in venues like The Bataclan, Paris & Paradiso, Amsterdam. It’s been a wild ride for The Altered Hours so far & their music keeps evolving & growing as the experiences build. This is a group with the spirit of music deeply ingrained in them and a passion for making rock music something that you can believe in.

Their second full length album ‘Convertible’ is a window into the band’s idiosyncratic tendencies, a closer look into how their writing & sound continuously moves forwards while somehow remaining rooted in their own unique world all at once. The Altered Hours seem born to be an underground affair, something that they wear with pride and this album is a wonderful culmination of their DIY upbringing, their unfiltered rock ‘n’ roll spirit along with a confident stride into personal songwriting.

Born in Brixton, a child of the Windrush Generation, Letts’ slippery and unorthodox career is somewhat hard to define, without taking a few detours around London, New York and Jamaica. He began his working life managing the dauntingly hip Acme Attractions on Chelsea’s Kings Road, where he made a mark with his attitude, dress and, especially, the pounding dub reggae that vibrated the shop’s walls. His first gig as a DJ at the short-lived Roxy in Neal Street, became mythical for turning a generation of punks on to reggae. They in turn hipped him to their DIY ethos resulting in his reinvention as a filmmaker. This led to a shed-load of music videos (Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Clash, Bob Marley) not

to mention documentaries on the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, George Clinton and Sun Ra.



In the ’80s, he was part of Mick Jones’ new venture, Big Audio Dynamite and his innovative use of samples were a core part of their sound. Listeners of his weekly 6 Music radio show are taken on a musical safari that moves seamlessly between time, space and genre. It’s not called Culture Clash Radio for nothing. So this latest bulletin from Letts HQ is merely one angle of a multifaceted personality, his take on the JA tradition of the cover version.



The history of Caribbean music owes a debt to R&B as many of the early island releases were cover versions of US 45s. Ska’s breakthrough commercially, Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’, was originally recorded by Barbie Gaye in ’50s New York. Cover versions became quite a thing in Jamaica and Don, following in that tradition, has dug deep with a selection of interesting dubbed out covers including thirteen exclusives.



“A disciple of sound system, raised on reggae n’ bass culture my go to sound was dub. Besides being spacious and sonically adventurous at the same time, its most appealing aspect was the space it left to put yourself ‘in the mix’ underpinned by Jamaica’s gift to the world - bass. But that’s only half the story as the duality of my existence meant I was also checking what the Caucasian crew were up to not to mention the explosion of black music coming in from the States. That’s why this version excursion crosses time space and genre, from The Beach Boys to The Beatles, Nina Simone to Marvin Gaye, The Bee Gees to Kool & The Gang, The Clash to Joy Division and beyond. You’d think it impossible to draw a line between ‘em but not in my world. Fortunately, the ‘cover version’ has played an integral part in the evolution of Jamaican music and dub covers were just a natural extension.”



There’s a diverse mix of classic and new, with legendary figures like John Holt, The Tamlins and Cornell Campbell, mixed in with British veterans Mad Professor and the irrepressible Dennis Bovell, while (relatively) young striplings Kiko Bun, Emily Capell and Prince Fatty deliver the goods, with laidback Texan groovers Khruangbin also offering an exclusive bass heavy-delight.



The song choices are diverse, from French dubsters’ OBF’s renditions of ‘Sixteen Tons’, the miners’ paean popularised by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the 1950s, to Ash Walker’s refix of Omar’s ‘There’s Nothing Like This’ and ‘All I Do Is Think About You’, immortalised by the ill-fated Tammi Terrell and preserved here by Quantic (the latter two both exclusives). Being a Rebel Dread compilation, there’s a cover (by Wrongtom Meets The Rockers) of The Clash’s ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ while Don’s exclusive, naturally, is a rendition of Big Audio Dynamite’s debut hit, ‘E = MC2’.



“Truth be told I’ve wanted to work with the Late Night Tales crew from the get go. We’re talking nearly two decades such was the allure of their musical aesthetic typified by curators like Nightmares on Wax, The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Trentemoller, Khruangbin and countless others. Now being as old as rock n’ roll (born in ‘56) and having nearly 20 years of Culture Clash Radio under my belt I figured I was tooled up to musically juggle with the best of ‘em. But I wanted to carve out a space that was distinctly my own - something that reflected my musical journey and the culture clash that’s made me the man I am today.”

The anticipation is there in Elizabeth Stokes’ solo guitar riff under the opening lines of “I’m Not Getting Excited”: a frenetic, driving force daring a packed Auckland Town Hall to do exactly the opposite of what the track title suggests.

As the opener of The Beths’ Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 expands to include the full band, the crowd screeches and bellows. It’s a collective exhalation, in one of the few countries where live music is still possible.

The album title, and film of the same name, deliberately include the date and location, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce says. “That’s the sensational part of what we actually did.” In a mid-pandemic world, playing to a heaving, enraptured home crowd feels miraculous.

In March 2020, everything seemed on track for another huge year for The Beths. Home after an 18-month northern hemisphere tour, they had just finished recording sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers and were primed for more extensive touring. But within days, New Zealand’s lockdown split the band between three separate houses. All touring was cancelled.

“It was existentially bad,” Stokes says. As well as worrying about economic survival, they lost something crucial to the band’s identity: live performance. “It's a huge part of how we see ourselves... What does it mean, if we can't play live?”

The band found an outlet through live-streaming, returning to the do-it-yourself mentality of their early days to connect with a global audience. The album and film have their genesis in that urge to share the now-rare experience of a live show, as widely as possible.

The fuzzy-round-the-edges live-streams pointed the way aesthetically. Native birds, wonkily crafted by the band from tissue paper and wire, festoon the venue’s cavernous ceiling while house plants soften and disguise the imposing pipes of an organ. The presence of the film crew isn’t disguised: much of the camerawork is handheld; full of fast zooms and pans.

With much of the material still fresh, the band was less focused on re-invention than playing “a good, fast rock show”, Pearce says. The tempo is up on crowd favourites “Whatever” and “Future Me Hates Me” (released as a live single on its third anniversary) as both band and audience feed off the mutual energy in the room.

Certain songs have taken on special resonance post-Covid. Pearce has found “Out Of Sight”, a tender rumination on long-distance relationships, hits particularly hard with live audiences.

Album closer “River Run” visibly brings Stokes to tears as a mix of achievement and relief kicks in. “You can finally relax at that point … You play the last note, breathe out a sigh and look up - and you’re in a giant room full of people happy and smiling.”

John Lord Fonda announces a new album and returns to Citizen Records after a ten-year absence with a new EP, featuring two hard-hitting unreleased tracks.

A decade after his last album Supersonique, the Dijon-born artist is back with a vengeance, showcasing more than ever his dark side, and the least we can say is that it was worth the wait. Releasing once again on Citizen Records, the label founded by Vitalic, Fonda has dug deep into his psyche, channelling his experiences into strong, metallic, dreamlike rhythms.

Like a steel machine, the deep baseline of They Will Fight For You, with its slow, heavy, mechanical beat sets off at the pace of a long-distance run and keeps us locked into a deliciously brutal alternate reality. Early fans of the artist will go crazy for this dark, cerebral techno!

Les Dunes d’Altaïr offers a warmer, more mystical voyage thanks to its oriental tinges, and is a fitting homage to Plastikman's Spaz and Spastik monikers.

Despite being an ode to the power of rhythm, it's the image and delicate feel of a desert wind that wafts towards us, and the track keeps listeners breathless for nearly eight minutes, oscillating between these two worlds.

Guest of honour Damon Jee has remixed Les Dunes d’Altaïr, delivering a disco-flecked minimal rework perfect for accompanying the sun as it sets, or indeed rises.

The return of John Lord Fonda is definitely the comeback no-one should miss in 2021.

The Altaïr EP is the first taste of the artist's next album, due this autumn.

'The Works and Days: The Black Sections' is a sound collage album that emerged out of the production material of the film, The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin). The film — winner of the Encounters Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2020 Berlinale — is the second feature of C.W. Winter & Anders Edström. It is an eight-hour fiction shot for a total of twenty-seven weeks, over a period of fourteen months, in a village population forty-seven in the mountains of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It is a geographic description of the work and non-work of a farmer. A portrait, over five seasons, of a family, of a terrain, of a sound space, and of a duration. The film was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by critics at: Artforum, Cargo, Cinema Scope, Desistfilm, Filo, La Internacional Cinéfila, Mubi, Nobody, Senses of Cinema, and Sight & Sound.

The film is accompanied by this LP, TheWorks and Days: The Black Sections, by C.W. Winter, and the photo book, Shiotani, by Anders Edström. The album features musical excerpts from Tim Berne & Bill Frisell, Tony Conrad, Graham Lambkin, Mary Jane Leach, Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Folke Rabe, Éliane Radigue, and Akio Suzuki. Producing, editing, and recordings by C.W. Winter. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Winter & Edström’s first feature, The Anchorage, won a Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and won the Douglas E. Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by critics at Cinema Scope, Film Comment, Senses of Cinema, Variety, and Indie Wire and was named Best First Film of the Year by The New York Times. Their first film, a documentary short called One Plus One 2 was made in collaboration with the late British guitarist, Derek Bailey. Their film/video work has shown at such venues as the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Centre national de la photographie (Paris), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur, NRW-Forum (Düsseldorf), the Harvard Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), Centre de cultura contemporània de Barcelona, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto).

C.W. Winter was born in California. In 2020, he completed his DPhil in Art Practice & Theory at The Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts where he studied closely under Thom Andersen, James Benning, and Allan Sekula. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, Moving Image Source, Purple, and Too Much. He lives in the United Kingdom where he is currently a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art and a Lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Side A excerpts:
“Thursday, May 5, 1977 & Friday, May 6, 1977: Part 4” Performed by Tony Conrad. Used by arrangement with The Tony Conrad Estate
“Sethwork” Performed by Phill Niblock. Used by arrangement with Phill Niblock
“What?? (Second Version)” Performed by Folke Rabe. Used by arrangement with the Folke Rabe Estate
“Pipe Dreams” Performed by Mary Jane Leach. Used by arrangement with Mary Jane Leach
“What?? (Second Version)” Performed by Folke Rabe. Used by arrangement with the Folke Rabe Estate
“2011” Performed by Tim Berne & Bill Frisell. Written by Tim Berne. Published by Party Time Music BMI. Recording courtesy of Minor Music Records/Screwgun Records

Side B excerpts:
“Ceremoniolose” Recorded by Graham Lambkin. Used by arrangement with Graham Lambkin
“Kugiuchi” Performed by Akio Suzuki. Recorded live for TheWorks and Days Used by arrangement with Akio Suzuki
“Music on a Long Thin Wire (Side A)” Performed by Alvin Lucier. Used by arrangement with Alvin Lucier
“A Third Trombone” Performed by Phill Niblock. Used by arrangement with Phill Niblock
“Triptych: Part 1” Performed by Éliane Radigue. Used by arrangement with Éliane Radigue

"Ry Cooder" - Ry Cooder (voc, g, mand, b); Van Dyke Parks (p); Bobby Bruce (v); Chris Ethridge Roy Estrada, Max Bennett (b); John Barbata, Richie Hayward (dr); Milt Holland (dr, perc); Gloria Jones (backing voc)



By the time he was aged 22, Ry Cooder was already a veteran of the music business and in great demand as a studio musician and sideman. Shortly after signing a contract with Warner Music in 1969, he released his first album under his own name, placing his confidence in the musical talent he had developed since being a child and on the rare value of his favourite instrument, the steel guitar.

The present LP that carries his name is a fascinating blend of blues, folk, rock ’n’ roll and pop – a unique mixture, which combines superb songs, virtuosic playing and somewhat bizarre yet imaginative arrangements. For material, Cooder, the son of folklorist parents, dug out ten gems coming from over six decades, right back to the 1920s – by legends such as Woody Guthrie, Blind Blake, Sleepy John Estes and Leadbelly, as well as a more up-to-date Randy Newman composition. As magnificent as his choice might be, it is the exuberant charm of his own instrumental composition "Available Space" that almost steals the show here. Expansive and unbiased, Cooder plays an ironic game made up of wordless irregular phrases, which promise the listener something new and ultimately circle in an infinite loop.

Cooder’s need to prove himself, moderated by his veneration for the past, helps to create a completely original work that will prove rewarding for the adventurous listener.



This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under pure-analogue

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.



Recording: 1970 at various studios by Bob Kovacs, Doug Botnick, Rudy Hill and Jim Lowe

Production: Lenny Waronker and Van Dyke Parks

Ten songs, ten exorcisms of negative energy, ten lifesavers:
Before the last sounds of the gripping finale ‘Mountains’ have faded you have
become aware that this could be the new gold standard for contemporary metal, a journeyman’s piece that in a just world will propel VENUES up the ladder.
And then, at some point in the future, we can all say: Well, I always knew they’d
get that big!

From the many musical lives of artist Glenn Donaldson emerges The Reds, Pinks and Purples, a project that sifts out the purest elements of pop music and in the process chronicles the point of view of an assiduous San Francisco-based songwriter. The Reds, Pinks and Purples’ third album, called Uncommon Weather, is both an elusive portrait of San Francisco––during one of its fluctuations as an untenable place for musicians and artists––and also a self-portrait, however inverted, of a songwriter who has dispatched another treasured collection of timeless sounding DIY-pop songs.

How The Reds, Pinks and Purples arrived here is a story with many roots, the most consequential of which is perhaps the musical aftermath of his earlier band, The Art Museums, whose brief tenure in the late ’00s coincided with an explosive period of the Bay Area rock scene and was followed by a hermetic musical period of Donaldson’s. Disenchanted with the dissolution of his band, Donaldson averted the DIY-pop sound with an instrumental, conceptual project called FWY! but meanwhile started a habitual songwriting practice, sharing nascent songs with friends in an email exchange. In 2013–2014, The Reds, Pinks and Purples took shape as the moniker for Glenn’s most direct expressions in the DIY-pop mode, enabled by this new disciplined output. By then, San Francisco was already a changed place. The tragic loss of his former bandmate in Art Museums was another source of discontinuity and rupture. You can hear in The Reds, Pinks and Purples’ earliest songs this grappling with life, anxiety, and atrophying subcultures. For an artist with an overriding interest in the aesthetic principles of discrete musical genres, this turn toward his immediate world for subject matter was a major shift, setting The Reds, Pinks and Purples apart from Donaldson’s other musical ventures.

Preceding the release of Uncommon Weather was the Reds, Pinks and Purples’ 2nd album, one of the record buying joys of 2020, You Might Be Happy Someday, and, earlier, their first proper full length Anxiety Art, a title that might nod to the classic Television Personalities song “Anxiety Block.” Donaldson’s music continuously reckons with the influence of Dan Treacy, whose own forays into drum-machines, echo, and reverb in the early 1990s is an important reference point for The Reds, Pinks and Purples’ musical template. Paul Weller, Robert Smith, and Sarah Records also come to mind. But, as important, Donaldson sees his projects as visual expressions too, often blurring the lines of records and physical art objects. They could just as well be “art multiples” as well as records. The pattern for Reds, Pinks and Purples’ records is to document San Francisco’s Inner Richmond district in photographs: the muted, pastel colours and unpeopled compositions unfold in a series of images that read like counter-melodies to Donaldson’s distinctive voice, a vocal tone that always complements the colours.

Self-recorded and mostly self-performed, Uncommon Weather features pinnacle versions of songs Donaldson has honed since the beginning of the project. The album arrives with grateful timing, quick on the heels of You Might Be Happy Someday, and alleviating, for a brief window at least, whatever it is that keeps us coming back to this elemental music. Donaldson imagines his listeners are just like himself: fascinated and addicted to the spiritual power of uncomplicated pop classics. Anthony Atlas

The International Feel label is back from an extended meditation. Well-rested and with a cornucopia of new ideas and records, IFeel is happy to announce the debut album from Charlie Charlie as the starting shot. „Little Things“ is the brainchild of Gabriella Borbély alias Bella Boo and Jens Resch better known as Chords. Born on a beach in Southern California instead of their hometown Stockholm, it is exactly what you would hope for such a record to be: pop music that is informed by hippie or counter culture and by a Balearic ethos (hence the International Feel address) that is free of blinkered definitions. In equal parts, the duo’s ten songs take the listener through honey dripping r&b, while respelling that certain Californian recording studio sound aesthetic, revisit vintage yacht rock and pop tropes as well as they are reflecting dance music influences in a broken, yet gold framed mirror. Most of all, it’s like a day dream that you don’t want to end. To quote our Italian friends from Edizioni Mondo: good listening experience!

Band info:
Charlie is Gabriella Borbély – also known as Stockholm's deep house virtuoso Bella Boo. Charlie is Jens Resch – also known as prodigious producer/musician Chords. The two Charlies met on a beach in Southern California and immediately decided to write a song together.
That first track was built on the sampled sounds of a rusty drainpipe. Charlie fired up a dusty ARP Odyssey and played a woozy solo over the drainpipe beats, then the other Charlie did the same, using that same legendary 70's analogue synth. When they realized the two separately recorded solos played together in perfect harmony, they knew they had to keep heading down their newly found, shared musical path.
Charlie & Charlie have since continued making music together, describing their common process as liberating, free-flowing, genre-less. "Little Things", their debut album, is made up of tracks recorded in Los Angeles and Stockholm, using that very same ARP as well as pianos, electric guitars and machines like the Prophet 6, the Juno-106 and the Syncussion SY-1. Vocal contributions come from the Charlies themselves as well as friends like Mapei and Julimar Santos.

There’s liberation on the dance floor in the songs of Matthew Urango – glimpses of revolution that glimmer beneath the disco ball. “I want my music to bring people together,” says the Californian pop innovator, best known as Cola Boyy. “Because standing together is our best chance at fighting this shit show.” The shit show in question is a broken, brutal system the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist has witnessed up-close. Urango was born with spina bifida and scoliosis in Oxnard, California: a town in which almost 30,000 are estimated to live in poverty. Prosthetic Boombox, his eagerly awaited debut album, might at first glance seem a joyous confetti-burst of pop eclecticism, engineered to sound like “scanning between stations on a car radio, landing on all these different sounds and styles” as Urango puts it. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll discover a simmering sense of rebellion. “The working class are injured, struggling to pay rent and struggling to put food on the table,” he says. “I want to represent that.” Prosthetic Boombox
achieves that goal in a thrilling flurry of inventive indie, funk and soul: take Urango’s car radio analogy, place it in a time-travelling Delorean with Prince in the passenger seat, and you’re half-way there.

Look no closer than Prosthetic Boombox’s euphoric opener, the Avalanches-assisted ‘Don’t Forget Your Neighbourhood.’ The track – which Urango says mixes “the Beach Boys, French disco, house keys and ragtime piano, kinda like the Cheers soundtrack!” – ends with lyrics urging listeners to “fight for your town with your fist closed, strike it and make it more than just a memory.” It’s a reminder that the working classes need to “turn our fists against our oppressors instead of each other,” he explains. After that emphatic introduction comes a horn-laced funk wig-out titled ‘Mailbox’ – a song that gives Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia a run for its Studio 54-themed money, featuring rising Londoner JGrrey. Elsewhere, ‘Song for the Mister’ ventures into smooth R&B territory, before ‘Roses’ – a collaboration with Myd of Ed Banger fame – offers a bouquet of bustling disco guitars and infinite bisous of Connan Mockasin’s band drops in on the immaculate ‘Go the Mile’. Urango saves his most introspective moment for the album’s starry closer. ‘Kid Born in Space’, a cosmic collaboration with MGMT frontman Andrew VanWyngarden, sees the artist reflect on what he once had to overcome as a disabled person of colour. “I see them looking down on my dreams of being,” he sings tenderly. “I hear them making fun of my voice, but I keep on moving forward, I refuse to live in anyone else’s shadow.” Prosthetic Boombox, on this subject, is more than an album title – it’s a statement of intent.

“The message of my music is that our class is exploited, oppressed and murdered on the daily. That’s not right, and the system that enables that deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth,” he says. “The only way that happens is if we’re united. That’s the point of my music – to relate to people and unite them.” And what unites more than raucous, irresistibly danceable pop? Prosthetic Boombox is a riot of joyous grooves and catchy hooks for good reason. “I want to reach and spread my message to as many people as possible. You can’t do that if you’re some obscure motherfucker, you know?” he laughs. Don’t bet on him being an “obscure motherfucker” for long.

Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Dan Friel is unrivaled in his capacity to inject blistering noise and energy into ferocious pop songs. A champion and mainstay of the NYC underground, Friel the has played alongside the likes of Lightning Bolt and Black Dice as well collaborated with acclaimed string quartet ETHEL. Upper Wilds channels Friel's unbreakably ebullient spirit into mountainous rock music dripping with molten fuzz. The trio's exploration of the interstellar expands in parallel to their increasing levels of bombast and precision. Venus synthesizes the experimentation of debut Guitar Module 2017 and the thunder of 2018's Mars into ten lean chunks of cosmic rock laden with scorching hooks. On Venus, Upper Wilds rocket lovestruck anthems centered around the planet named for the Roman goddess of love at full tilt from the moment "Love Song #1" makes liftoff. The album's incendiary opening trilogy crashes with a relentless vigor and addictive melodies. The rhythm section of bassist Jason Binnick (who also mixed the album) and drummer Jeff Ottenbacher tear through off-kilter riffs that pound with meteoric impact. Friel's guitar sputters and froths beneath his voice before soaring into frenetic leads that pack every moment with powerful melody. Alien croons and glitching spasms spill out of Friel's wild, filtered humming, amplified into oblivion. Venus' few moments of respite lay bare the raw efficiency and beauty of Friel's songwriting, like transmissions home to loved ones thousands of miles away slipping through the crackle and chaos of space. Venus traverses the havoc, mystery, and joy of humanity's countless follies in both space and love. Both cosmic and human, Venus is a deeply affecting celebration of the wonders of what is beyond comprehension internally and externally. Upper Wilds' Venus is an exhilarating odyssey of tremendous exuberance and a testament to human resilience in the face of the unknown.

In the fall of 2016, having overcome serious health issues, Marco Repetto – Bigeneric – begins to weave new delicate soundscapes from a place of stillness, unaware of his emerging role in the fabled magic web of the fairy queen Helva. Inspired by an encounter with the storyteller Andreas Sommer and the legend of Helva, the fairy queen who lives on the Gantrisch mountain, and another gentle message from the universe, Marco Repetto merges his electronic strands of magical sounds into a tender and mystical composition he names Helva. Helva is a cinematic work of sound with long, hypnotically mesmeric tonal progressions and subtle ambient colors, combining influences from the electronic avant-garde and the futuristic spectrum of contemporary electronic music. This is the spiritual soundtrack of the Heart Rebels Gang who ceaselessly radiate into the world a powerful and profound force of beauty

Musique Pour La Danse is proud to present SPACED OUT!, a compilation curated by Belgian artist and producer DJ Athome (Front de Cadeaux) which focuses on psychedelic dub, space rock, and early electronica created in the UK's festival scene between 1986 and 1996, the result of a life long passion and 30 years of following artists from the festival scene.

It was a loosely organized British musical movement born in the early 80s and focused on free festivals in Stonehenge and other countercultural sites across the country. It represented a continuation of the psychedelic spirit of the 60s, with altered states of consciousness, dub production techniques, non-Western influences as well as instruments featuring heavily, along with a desire to side-step mainstream venues, labels, and attitudes.

Musically, it took on many forms, from mind-expanding space rock to third eye-opening electronica to shattering psychedelic dub. Visually, the zines, cassettes, LPs, and CDs created by this scene also displayed heavy influences from 60's psychedelia, updated for the late 80s and early 90s.

In the 90s, the zines and cassettes reached the eyes and ears of DJ Athome, then a young DJ living in Liège. After meeting a group of like-minded individuals organizing local gigs which was single-handedly responsible for putting Liège on the map for many British bands, he dived headfirst into the sights and the sounds of this festival scene, gathering as many albums as possible and joining local collectives involved in the organization of events.

This compilation is in equal amounts an introduction for newcomers and a confirmation for those who already know that this was without a doubt one of the trippiest and most compelling psychedelic musical movements of the last decades, notable for its hybridity, its sincerity, and above all its wonderfully life-changing effects for listeners and performers alike.

The compilation is presented in 2LP format, along with a limited edition Riso printed scene which features a foreword by acclaimed philosopher Timothy Morton, along with liner notes by David Borsu, one of the key players of Liège's musical collectives in the 90s and illustrations by designer Andrew Beltran.

Aquaregia mainstays, Troma & PERS1, return for their fourth release on the label. Their Kaede EP exhibits the duo's signature exquisite acid lines though a tracklisting of five dripping dreamscapes.

"Kaede" introduces the release with a bubbling acid line and up-tempo groove. A euphoric journey through a new destination; a mental escapade moving from excitement and anticipation to pure bliss.

"Samara" takes over with a haunting acid line and eerie pads, venturing deeper into the unknown. Atmospheric fog intertwines between the rosy foliage of the Japanese maples; a cool breeze propels the ripened samara, helicoptering from their stems.

"Crimson Breath" relieves the tension with a chilled out and dubby trip. We're taken bankside of a babbling brook, sheltered by an enclosing leafy canopy; comforted in a safe haven.

Next, "Autumn Moon" gently guides us on a psychedelic excursion laced with intricate dribbling acid lines and breaky percussion. A walk through a shadowy limestone cave, water trickling down and plinking from the luminous stalactites.

For Bajram Bili, every new record is the kick off for reinventing himself in a series of explorations and experimentations.
After venturing through techno, Adrien Gachet opens a new page bursting with artistic possibilities and sonic freedom. His new research is founded on two cornerstones : his reassuming of the piano, the historic medium he’s left aside those past years, and the deconstruction of contemporary electronic music. The result is a flush yet tight affair condensing the broad spectrum of its ambitions in just six tracks.
A true mine for textures and melodies, Detuning Euphoria feels like a blinding mirage. The music conjugates cinematic composition and borrowings of the 2020’s club music, where laser synths and skeletal beats melt one another in bare and frontal feelings. It’s a total work, an exhilarating and untamed piece opening a new chapter in a maniac and turbulent discography. We’re very proud to be associated to this new stage of Bajram Bili’s fascinating research for new horizons.

It’s been ten years since Adrian Gachet first ventured into electronic soundscapes under his Bajram Bili moniker. On wax, the project started with the romantic label Another Record with the Sequenced Fog EP and his dance-kraut manifest of a debut album Saturdays With No Memory.
The affair became more muscular with the acquaintance of the Neo Punks from Le Turc Mecanique. After a first warning with the break-heavy Distant Drone (with the banger ‘Roger and Stan’) and the blasting Need Meditation, the Remembered Waves LP is released, oscillating between ecstatic urgency and foggy electric landscapes.
The following Spin / Consequence was dedicated to the drills of seminal techno giving way to the quieter Reshaped Distortion EP on Chloe’s label Lumière Noire.
Those years of intense creation, massive live sets and federating DJ sets come together in today’s new research, mixing the experience of his epic machinery with the deviation of the acoustic piano, following the aesthetic of his new record Detuning Euphoria.

RED FANG return with their highly anticipated new album, Arrows! Their first album in five years, everyone's favorite beer-crushing, zombie-killing, air-guitar-contest-judging metal heroes are back in action, doing what they do best- AND MORE. “This record feels more like Murder The Mountains to me than any record we’ve done before or since,” bassist/vocalist Aaron Beam ventures. “It doesn’t sound like that record, but Murder the Mountains was us doing whatever the fuck we wanted, and that’s what this is, too.” Arrows was recorded at Halfling Studios in the band’s hometown of Portland, OR, with longtime collaborator Chris Funk, producer of Murder The Mountains and 2013’s Whales and Leeches. “Chris is a major influencer as far as the weird ambient stuff in between the songs and the creepy incidental noises within the songs,“ guitarist Bryan Giles points out. “I think he definitely creates an added layer of atmosphere that we wouldn’t have otherwise.” Arrows is also a proper title track, which is new territory for the band. “This is the first time we’ve named an album after a song that’s actually on the album,” Beam explains. “We have other albums that are named after songs of ours that are not on those albums. So this time we’re really fucking with you because we didn’t fuck with you.” Similarly, fans might not believe what the song “Arrows” is partially about. “If you’re confused by some of the lyrics to the song, that makes sense,” Beam explains. “But it makes reference to meditation. I started meditating six years ago, but I can only do it when I’m not feeling too anxious. So, when I don’t need it, that’s when I can do it.” Elsewhere, “Fonzi Scheme” was named after legendary Happy Days cool guy Arthur Fonzarelli—if only because it’s in the key of his famous catchphrase, “Aaay.” Producer Chris Funk came up with the idea of bringing in string players from the Portland Cello Project to class up the track. Meanwhile, the opening riff of closer “Funeral Coach” was written 11 years ago. But it took until recently for the song to blossom into its full double-entendre glory. “I was driving around and I saw a hearse that said ‘funeral coach services’ on the back,” Beam explains. “So the first thing that popped into my head was a dude with a headset and a clipboard going, ‘Alright, dudes—more tears! Five minutes in is when the tears are critical, or no one’s gonna believe that anyone cares that this person died.’” In a nod to tradition, Arrows will be available in formats that include all the drums, bass, guitars and vocals. But it could’ve gone another way. “Our original idea was to release the album with no vocals or guitar solos,” Beam explains. “If you want the guitar solos, it’s an extra five bucks. If you want the vocals, it’s an extra ten bucks. So basically people should feel lucky that we didn’t do that. You get to buy the whole thing altogether.” RED FANG think of it as a generous display of gratitude toward their fans. “Yeah,” says Sherman, “Thank you for buying our album, you lucky bastards.”

Billy Harper is one of the great tenor saxophonists in the post-Coltrane mold. Originally from Houston, TX and with a degree from the venerable University of North Texas College of Music, Harper emerged on the New York City jazz scene in the late 1960s performing with Art Blakey, Max Roach, Lee Morgan and others. Known for his soulful and propulsive tone, Harper was already a highly regarded and prolific session man before the release of his debut album as a leader on the cult favorite Strata-East label in 1973.

Recorded in 1975, Black Saint was the second album for Billy Harper as bandleader and is the most acclaimed and fully realized of his long career. The inaugural release of the Italian label Black Saint – to which the album lent its name – is comprised entirely of Harper compositions; the peaceful and subdued opener “Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!,” the swinging and fiery “Croquet Ballet” and the side-long epic “Call Of The Wild And Peaceful Heart.” Harper’s group features trumpeter Virgil Jones - a graduate of Roland Kirk’s mid-60s groups and session player for McCoy Tyner, Charles Tolliver and others - along with Joe Bonner on piano, David Friesen on bass and Malcom Pinson on drums.

Black Saint is too melodic and swinging to be free jazz but too forward-thinking to be described as modal post-bop; Harper’s advanced compositional sense and galvanic tenor work make this an album of pure fire music. This is a beautiful album back into print on its original format for the first time in over 40 years.

The venerable composer and keyboardist Stale Storlokken follows up his previous Hubro release (and solo debut recording), The Haze of
Sleeplessness, with a second solo album performed entirely on pipe organ and recorded at Steinkjer Church by Stian Westerhus.
He describes the album as “a cavernous cathedral of sound”. While the Norwegian Grammy-nominated ‘The Haze of Sleeplessness’ used a whole keyboardmuseum’s worth of antique synths and contemporary digital software to create
its vast array of sounds, everything on ‘Ghost Caravan’ is the product of one organ’s pedals, pipes and sonic plumbing.
“There’s not so much of a relationship to ‘Haze’, says Stale Storlokken of the new album. “That album was more based on improvised ideas that were tweaked and arranged , while this one is all improvised with almost no editing at all. Everything you hear is from the church organ, with no additional instruments.
The basic concept of the record, and the arrangement of the titles and pieces, is done in such a way that they alternate between a fluent, “on the move”, abstract mood and a more recognisable, concrete and grounded mood. At the same time it should be so open that listeners will hopefully have their own unique experience. The organ at Steinkjer is not a big organ but it has some really nice sounds, with a number of quirks and mechanical eccentricities that suit my music.”
The organ is partly a reconstruction based on a Wagner organ in Nidarosdomen built originally in 1741, the organ is housed in the strikingly modernistic Steinkjer kirke, designed by Olav S. Platou in 1965, and featuring glass panels by the artist Annar Millidahl. What Ghost Caravan does share with its predecessor is a seemingly limitless acoustic space for the listener’s imagination to roam in, with Storlokken creating a cavernous cathedral of sound.
The audio dynamics span an enormous range, capable of stretching from the quietest breathy whisper to a basso profundo squawk or scream, sometimes within seconds of each other. Similarly, the incredible variety of sounds that Storlokken coaxes from the organ can defy rational analysis, with the resolutely analogue instrument appearing to echo the industrial, found-sounds of clanking machinery or buzzing electronics that one might expect to encounter through digital sampling or the tape-based experiments of musique concrete.
Over ten separate improvised pieces which connect into an informal suite through the repetition of key elements and sequential titles (with four ‘Spheres’ and four ‘Cloudlands’, plus ‘Ghost Caravan’ and ‘Drifting on Wasteland Ocean’), Storlokken has made a strikingly unified, self-referential aesthetic world that can stand as a true work of art.

If there’s ever been a way to describe David Allan Coe, it’s got to be his ability to defy categorization. With over six decades of following his musical muse wherever it’s led, this craggy voiced outlaw has crossed the panorama of American roots music. As well as being a singer, guitarist, songwriter, David is also a magician and a ventriloquist, deep sea treasure hunter, and movie star. His movies included Stagecoach, The Last Days Of Frank and Jesse James, Lady Grey, Buckstone County Prison, Take This Job and Shove It, to mention a few. David signed with Sun Records in 1968 and recorded his first album Penitentiary Blues, all songs that David had written in prison. In 1973, Columbia Records bought David’s contract from Sun Records and he recorded his first Columbia album, titled “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy”, several years before Glen Campbell had a hit with the song, “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Much has been written about David’s past and his lifestyle, but not much about his achievements over the years. From performing on Farm Aid to touring with Neil Young, Kid Rock and Willie Nelson. David’s song, “Take This Job and Shove It” has received multi-million airplays certificate from BMI. His “Greatest Hits” album is multi-platinum and his “First Ten Years” album is gold. David has had sixty three songs on the Billboard Singles Charts, including, “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile”, “The Ride”, “Please Come To Boston”, “Willie, Waylon and Me”, “Jack Daniels If You Please” and “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” to name a few. David has written songs for Johnny Paycheck, Tanya Tucker, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Charlie Louvin, Del Reeves, Tamy Wynette, Melba Montgomery, Stoney Edwards, The Oak Ridge Boys and Kid Rock. Both “Would You Lay With Me” and “Take This Job and Shove It” are multi- million seller songs penned by David. Johnny Cash has also recorded David’s songs including “Would You Lay With Me” on his chart topping album entitled, Cash. David has been through a lot in his life but has managed to put his past behind him and move forward with his life. This album was recorded in 2001 live from the Iron Horse Saloon in Daytona, Beach Florida and includes the only recorded version of, I’m An Ohio Boy.

Throughout his vast career, the New York based Australian composer JG Thirlwell has adopted many masks as a means of infiltrating and subsequently subverting a wide range of pop cultural forms. His work under the Foetus moniker has taken on everything from big band to opera to noise-rock. Steroid Maximus embraced exotica and the world of soundtracks, while his Manorexia project continued his quest to the outer limits of contemporary composition and musique concrete. Thirlwell has also carved out a significant output in the field of the soundtrack via the large body of work created for the animated television shows Archer and The Venture Bros. In addition he has been commissioned to create compositions by such notables as Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, Alarm Will Sound, String Orchestra of Brooklyn and many others.

Now we have ‘Omniverse’, the second release under the moniker Xordox. Xordox is a synthesizer-based project, and on this evocative album we see the project branch into many new avenues. The science fiction element brushes up against crime noir, even veering into areas that could well fit in the video game soundtrack genre. With an audacious attitude and an arsenal of machines Thirlwell serves up a selection of thrilling retro-future mind capsules. This is music made from a life saturated in culture, both underground and mainstream, high and low. Tense sequencing and noir tinged keyboard lines invoke a powerful visual image of films and memory, of screens and speakers, of sound and space, all entering the cosmos and the subsequent galactic race. Thirlwell’s decades long exploration of sampling and sequencing, composing and ingesting a daunting amount of audio and visual artworks speaks volumes for the bold assimilations exposed here. ‘Between Dimensions’ lays out a tense theme which starts off like a score to a a crime thriller before morphing into a simulacra of Kraftwerk scoring a video game. The living ghosts of Giorgio Moroder and John Carpenter haunt ‘Oil Slick’ as it permeates wormholes, updating lifeforms with its stealth sequencing and tense momentum.

‘Omniverse' is a synthesised soundtrack journey, one which embraces past forms whilst reshaping them for the new unknown. ‘Omniverse' is a thrilling liquid ride through fear and hope, and like all the best of Thirlwell’s output, is simply one hell of an enjoyable journey to take.

Buzzing new Glasgow five-piece VLURE release their hotly anticipated
debut 7” ‘Shattered Faith’ via London-based label Permanent Creeps
Records.
Bursting onto the scene at the dawn of 2020, VLURE introduced
themselves to the world with a live audio/visual performance of their
phenomenal track ‘Desire’, captured in beautiful cinematography from
the loading bay of their Glasgow studio space. Blurring the lines between
live electronics, jarring guitars and the performance sensibilities of their
post-punk contemporaries, the video offered a keyhole view into their
captivating live shows.
Combining synth laden hooks, heavy club influenced rhythms and
emotionally confronting lyrics, VLURE have already seen support from
the likes of So Young and Wax Music praising their life affirming, intense
and enigmatic live performances.
Recorded between the halls of a deconsecrated church in the heart of
the Scottish Borders, the self-produced ‘Shattered Faith’ is an indulgent,
genre bending coming of age anthem influenced by the rhythms,
repetitions and euphoric hooks of Glasgow’s thriving afterparty and club
scene with an angular post-punk foundation. Speaking on the track the
band explain: “We wanted to create something that felt at home on the
dancefloors that we all found ourselves on growing up, yet still equally at
home in the sweat-filled venues that the band was conceived in. At its
crux, ‘Shattered Faith’ is about self-empowerment. It’s the
disillusionment with where you are and what you’ve been given. It’s lying
on your kitchen floor at 3am realising who you truly are and finding
power in that - it’s a new lease of life. We believe that, if they want to find
it, there is something for everyone in this song.”
“There is nothing comparable - this is a new era of musically skeletal
human showmanship” - So Young Magazine
“Urgent, destructive and completely absorbing. Brutalist in form -
unyielding, massive-sounding, distinctive - their atmospheric, yearning
mood is overflowing with inclination and exposed tenderness -
vulnerable and exasperated. They pound the door down with every inch
of blood, sweat and tears in their vessels” - Wax Music
“This is post-punk, but not as you might familiarly expect” - Little Indie
Blogs
“One of Scotland’s most exciting new bands” - Tenement TV

Cuernavaca / Stateville / Frankincense And Myrrh / Apsara / Ancestral / Spin / Zincali


Approaching his eighty-fifth birthday, sharp and lean, Phil Cohran lives a couple of blocks from the lake on the north side of Chicago. His modest apartment is filled with a palpable richness. His cornet and trumpets, zithers, French horn, harp and frankiphones (an electric kalimba of his own invention); his beloved telescope; African art; a mural of the Chinese monastery where Muslim monks bestowed on him the name Kelan ('holy scripture'); hand-printed posters from the culture wars of 1960s Chicago; all reflect a life dedicated not just to music, but also to science and astronomy, to history and activism. In its range of subject matter the track-list of Kelan Philip Cohran & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble embodies this invigorating and all-embracing curiosity: a Mexican hill-town filled with perfume and flowers... an Illinois state prison where Cohran taught inmates in the 1960s... heavenly dancers in the temples of Cambodia... a tribute to a sixteenth-century Venetian musicologist. Welcome to the musical world of Kelan Philip Cohran.
Cohran was born in Mississippi and grew up in St Louis. In the immediate post-war years St Louis was a jazz heartland, home of stalwarts like Clark Terry and Oliver Nelson (both of whom he played with), not to mention a genius called Miles Davis. In 1950 Cohran moved to another heartland, Kansas City, where he played trumpet in one of the hardest swinging swing-groups, led by Jay McShann (who famously had given Charlie Parker his first job). With McShann he spent 'the best year of my life', touring as far as Mexico and playing proto-rock'n'roll in Texas with the likes of Big Mama Thornton on vocals. Back in St Louis Cohran led his own group, the Rajas Of Swing, whose show involved wearing red jackets, grey slacks, blue suede shoes and turbans.
Then in the mid-50s he moved to Chicago. He had a small group with a friend, the legendary tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, whose regular gig was to play at Sarah Vaughan's weekly 'birthday' parties, an excuse for the Sassy One to splash the cash and have some fun. ('What, Sarah Vaughan would sing with you and John Gilmore' 'No way, Sarah didn't sing, she was too busy partying.') And in 1959, through Gilmore, he was invited to join Sun Ra's Arkestra, at a crucial period in the evolution of that extraordinary group. Effortlessly wrapping traditions as divergent as boogie-woogie and electronica in an Afro-centric, intergalactic mythology of his own making, Sun Ra casts a huge shadow across conventional narratives of jazz history. 'With Sunny', Cohran simply says, 'I found my own voice'.
You can hear the emergence of this voice on the LP Angels And Demons At Play, recorded in 1960 - Sun Ra's masterpiece from the period. On the track Music From The World Tomorrow, against the urgent whipped and chopped percussion of the Arkestra, it is Cohran's zither, initially bowed and then plucked and strummed, which is the track's magic ingredient. More profoundly it was Sun Ra's example - his defiant self-confidence and sense of purpose - that set Cohran on his own (to quote another Ra composition) 'pathway to unknown worlds'. Indeed this spirit of self-belief led Cohran to turn down the invitation to accompany the Arkestra when Sun Ra moved east in 1961.
Staying in Chicago, Cohran founded the Affro-Arts Theater and performed with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, recording the group for his own Zulu Records imprint. (Co-members went on to become Earth Wind & Fire; Cohran taught the group's leader Maurice White the mysteries of the frankiphone). The AACM, a musicians' collective of immense influence and importance, had its first meeting in Cohran's front room. With Oscar Brown Jr and Gene Page he wrote and performed in a show celebrating the nineteenth-century Afro-American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. He taught music tirelessly in schools and prisons. His studies into music theory and history led him to the discovery of a key book in his life, Gioseffo Zarlino's treatise on harmony, published in Venice in1558. Astronomy is another passion and another area of expertise. One of the gems of the Cohran discography is African Skies, with its lovely harp playing, commissioned by the Chicago Planetarium in 1993.
In Chicago he also raised a large family. Many of his children have gone on to become professional musicians; eight of them are the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. For each of them, their first teacher was their father, who famously insisted on giving them music lessons not just for several hours after school, but for several hours before school as well. Their father's music was all around them as children; they all vividly remember lying in bed at night not being able to sleep because their father was rehearsing with the Jazz Workshop downstairs.
For the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the voyage to where they are now - whether tearing up festivals from Glastonbury to Melbourne, or touring with Gorillaz, or recording their first album on Honest Jon's - has involved a necessary stepping away from their father's shadow. Phil Cohran is the first to recognise this, happily allowing their sound - heavy on the funk, with the urgency of hip hop never far away - to blossom.
But likewise this album is for all of them a natural step. Recorded in Chicago in June 2011, the idea was beautifully simple - 'my music and their band' as Phil puts it, 'we don't have to rattle on more than that'. Only to point out perhaps that here - in the majestic surge of Zincali, for instance, or in the sheer verve and bounce of Cuernevaca - is music not just filled with the warmth of home. This is music that plumbs the depths and rings with joy.

'Cuernevaca is a town in the mountains south of Mexico City. I was there in 1950 when I was on the road with Jay McShann's band. It's a place close to paradise, a city filled with the fragrance of flowers. I always wanted to go back... In 1974 I taught workshops at the prison in Stateville, the Big House where Al Capone spent time. There's a huge wall around the prison, and once I took Hypnotic there - ha - to see what the future holds for them... Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, sent a caravan of gifts to King Solomon - a caravan that took more than a day to pass one point - and the main gifts were Frankincense And Myrrh... I wrote Apsara in 1967, when Jackie Kennedy was in the news with her visit to the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Apsara were celestial beings, dancers who brought forth the civilization of ancient Cambodia, by dancing in the holy nectar called Amrita... Ancestral is a meditation drone written for my Friday-night residence at the Ethiopian Diamond Restaurant in Chicago's Rogers Park... Spin is the latest of these compositions. Everything in the cosmos spins, from the smallest objects we can see in a microscope to the largest galaxies. Spin is the motion of all things whether it looks like it or not... Zincali is a name Spanish gypsies call themselves. 'Zin', East Africa; 'cali', the people. One of the offshoots in my research into Moorish Spain has led me to Gioseffo Zarlino, the sixteenth-century master of music at St Mark's in Venice. It's said that Bach lost his sight reading Zarlino's treatise on counterpoint. His greatest composition is his setting of the Song of Songs - 'Nigra Sum', 'I am black'. This is my tribute to Zarlino and to the zincali.'