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More than 20 years after its release, Arab Strap’s second album is reissued on vinyl.

Philophobia was recorded on the outskirts of Glasgow in the early incarnation of CHEM19 Studios with engineer/producer Paul Savage & at Cava Studios in Glasgow with engineer Geoff Allan.

Initially released in 1998, it was the follow up to the band’s 1996 debut The Week Never Starts Round Here. Instrumentally ambitious, Philophobia is adorned with sepulchral guitar, trumpet, cello & Scottish rainfall, providing a most beautiful backdrop to Aidan Moffat’s bold lyrical presentation as he articulates experiences most of us are too embarrassed to even think about; confessional, intimate, insightful and hilarious, ‘Philophobia’ remains a literate & musical revelation. ‘Philophobia’ - (from Greek "φιλέω-φιλώ" (love) and "φοβία" (phobia)), is the fear of falling in love / emotional attachment.

In November 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and driven by the desire to embark on an inner journey, Mario G. Quelart (Lucient) chose this peculiar enclave as a source of inspiration and focal point for his debut album 'Sa Casa des Carbó'. For ten days Lucient self isolated by choice and undertook an introspective journey to find himself. It was a voyage through uncertainty and fear, with moments of tranquillity; a personal pilgrimage traveling through light and the shadows, in which time became a relative element. Sa Casa des Carbó' is a sound journal of this experience, an album with an ambient base, but which opens the door to experimentation, rhythm and psychedelia. Field recordings - the sea, the birds, the wind, and a strangely silent airport - are fundamental parts of this journey and serve as a canvas for an album of cosmic electronica with Balearic overtones.

The Decades Collected compilations are part of the new Collected compilation series, which is a collaboration between Universal Music and Music On Vinyl. The compilations bring together the biggest names of each decade, combined with forgotten hits and less discovered gems, giving the listener an experience of listening to their favorite tunes while uncovering new musical grounds at the same time.

Various Artists - Zeroes Collected features Nelly Furtado “I’m Like A Bird”, The Script “Breakeven”, The Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling”, Alphabeat “Fascination”, T.A.T.U. “All The Things She Said” and Mika “Grace Kelly” amongst others.

The trance blues stylings of Otha Turner and his Rising
Star Fife And Drum Band should be a music classification
unto itself, a whole new primitive take on drum and
bass. This music is the oldest still-practiced post-colonial
American music, and Turner was one of its greatest artists
of the 20th century. Blowing the cane fife with a band
of drummers as back up, The Rising Star Fife And Drum
band was legendary in the hills of Tate County, Mississippi,
where they would perform during the yearly goat picnics
on Turner’s farm. These tracks were recorded by Luther
Dickinson during such picnics and released when Turner
was ninety years old. Everybody Hollerin’ Goat shows
first hand the hypnotic and rhythmic style of fife and drum
music at its best—raw and beautiful.
It is every bit as essential a document of America’s folkmusic
heritage as anything Harry Smith or Alan Lomax ever
offered up for posterity. Turner’s band included some of his
children and grandchildren that have gone on to continue
the fife and drum tradition since his death in 2003.
This first ever vinyl release of Everybody Hollerin’ Goat
contains a whole side of unreleased recordings from one
night of the picnic and is intended to bring the experience
of hollerin’ for goat in Senatobia, Mississippi to the living
room. Dancing around the plants is recommended (but
don’t eat the pickled eggs). The entire album is remastered
by legend Gary Hobish.

O’o share many of the musical characteristics of their ornithological namesake. The Kaua’i O’O produced the most exquisite birdsong before its extinction in Hawaii in the late 1980s. The beauty and character of its voice was delicate and mysterious, tuneful and surprising. You can experience it with just a cursory websearch, a haunting cri de coeur from the last century. If the poor O’O is consigned to history, then life is just beginning for this French duo, based in Spain, who’ve won plaudits and awards already in their short musical lifespan.

O’o are about to release their sublime debut album Touche. This is not an endling, it’s just the beginning: “I found the name on a website of weird English language words, and I loved the way the letters were arranged like a pair of glasses,” says O’o singer Victoria Suter. “Afterwards, I went onto YouTube and started listening to the last bird of its species, calling for a mate that would never come. I thought: ‘Oh my God, that’s so sad’. Then we talked about the name and we thought it could be a nice thing to honour it and keep it alive in some way.”

Suter met her musical partner Mathieu Daubigné at college in Agen, South West France, when the pair were studying music theory in their teens. Victoria moved to Barcelona in 2010; Mathieu followed six years later. Their debut EP, Spells, appeared in 2018 a beautifully crafted patchwork of vocals and samples that is redolent of the uncanny vocalese of Laurie Anderson. The bird makes an appearance at the beginning of the EP: “Sweet tooth beak. Soft melody peak / Oh O’o, go round and round in circles / Looking for a honeydrop, til you vanish, til you drop”.

That sense of profound longing for something lost is carried over to Touche, as well as the same heightened sensory awareness of the world around them. What has developed in spades is the creative process. O’o have blossomed organically, augmenting their pop sensibilities. Avant-garde techniques have been brought to heel as the pair create off-kilter pop music that warms the heart and nourishes the brain. The catalyst that enabled this bold pop transformation came with the song ‘Touche’ itself, a saucy chanson at the heart of the album. Suter’s wry narrative about a botanical femme fatale is inserted into a lithe and skittish song with reggaeton beats and an inviting, balmy atmosphere.

“The song is about a flower which attracts male insects, producing the very same smell as the female of the species,” explains Victoria. “The poor male is fooled by the sex-appeal of this botanical trap, and gets so excited that he exhausts himself and wastes all his other chances of ulterior mating and having any offspring. The flower entices the insect in in mermaid-like fashion, to come nearer and touch her. It’s the hot track!”

‘Touche’ reaches into hitherto unexplored areas of pop, while the rest of the album is accessible in the way that James Blake, Radiohead or Kate Bush are accessible, and it always challenges, in a way that pop isn’t supposed to. Suter writes playful, poignant, observational songs that tell stories as well as tell us something about ourselves. Songs like ‘Dorica Castra’ are built upon the voice as an instrument, centrifugal and layered from its core.

Complimentary to this method is Daubigné, who brings startling innovation with found sounds, samples and clever vocal manipulations—creating unique, otherworldly sonic flourishes. A guitar whirs like a musical spinning top on ‘Spin’, created in Ableton; an Ondes Martenot appears to make a guest appearance on the title track, though it’s the ingenuity of the Prophet 8 synthesiser. “I’ll often say to Mathieu, ‘what’s that?’” says Suter, He’ll reply, ‘that’s your voice’.”

O’o found their own voice when they won a competition held by the legendary festival organisers Primavera Sound. Victoria entered the band into a competition she saw on Instagram, sending off rough demos on the final day of entry, thinking little more about it other than the fact Mathieu might be annoyed. Soon they would have to build a live set from scratch and figure out how to present their music for the first time. At stake was seventy hours of recording time at Aclam studios, used by Rosalía and Kendrick Lamar, and for the winner a coveted spot at the festival. A pool of 350 acts were whittled down, and then O’o triumphed at a Battle of the Band style face off.

The O’O might be extinct, but O’o the band have learned how to fly. Just watch them go.

Propulsive tabla percussion and meditative drones collide in deep instrumental conversation on Shruti Dances, the debut collaborative album between UK heavyweights Auntie Flo and Sarathy Korwar, forthcoming on the newly relaunched, Make Music imprint.

Across six exchanges of dynamic electronic production and richly layered Indian classical percussion, Shruti Dances discovers two architects of rhythm and movement on an explorative journey through South Asian tonality and diasporic identity.

One an elemental force on drums, the other on the decks, London-based, Indian-raised drummer/composer, Sarathy Korwar and Scottish-Goan producer/DJ, Auntie Flo first connected back in 2019, unaware both were navigating opposite ends of the beat equilibrium. Where Auntie Flo (aka Brian D’Souza) was new to Korwar’s reimagining of jazz, Indian classical music, electronics and spoken word, Korwar was already a big admirer of Auntie Flo’s intl-facing club output, having first discovered D’Souza’s Rainfall On Red Earth off his Soniferous Garden 12” and 2019 SAY award-winning (Scottish Album of The Year), Radio Highlife. Once properly acquainted, Korwar invited Auntie Flo to remix a track off his landmark 2019 album, More Arriving, described by The Guardian as “a stylistic leap from jazz to hip-hop to spoken word…a protest record encompassing the breadth of immigrant experiences”.

The seeds of an unlikely yet powerful musical bond had been sown and when mutual friend, co-founder of Mixcloud, and Make Music label organiser, Nikhil Shah, asked the duo to inaugurate the label’s new live/electronic direction (previously home to Leon Vynehall, U and George Fitzgerald), Korwar and D’Souza hit the studio. Expanding on early conversations around traditional Indian instrumentation, practicing meditation and improvisation, Shruti Dances (a riff on free dance movement, Ecstatic Dance) was born. Meaning 'that which is heard' in Sanskrit, shruti refers to a note in musical terms, but in this case also references the album’s most prominent influence and instrument, the shruti box.

“The shruti box formed the basis of the sound of the project. It’s a drone instrument, similar to a harmonium, and it makes an amazing sound. I’ve spent the last two years studying sound therapy, and immersing myself in ambient and drone through the Ambient Flo project, and am particularly interested in how they can induce meditative states of consciousness. I was really excited to hear what the Shruti box could do with this EP.” Auntie Flo

Across six tracks, (each named after 6 of the 7 main musical notes in the Indian solfege system), Shruti Dances draws on a celestial mix of traditional percussion and processed digital effects. On opening track Dha, Korwar’s sparse tabla rhythms hop across D’Souza’s scattered, arpeggiated synths, where as on Pa, a Balearic shuffle channels Moroccan Gnawa music and Senegalese sabar meets Mark Ernestus’s Ndagga Rhythm Force. Harmonic speed tabla and roaming drones provide a sense of the ethereal and fourth-worldly on Ma, a track that’s resplendent, curious atmosphere would fit snug into the deep listening-focused programming of Auntie Flo’s Ambient Flo online radio station, a curatorial platform and avenue exploring his interest/promotion of mental health, launched over the UK’s first lockdown. Ni sees Korwar pick up the sticks, thrashing toms in a spirited frenzy, whilst downtempo album closer Sa offers some room for reflection, its slow, swirling chords cloud our focus, leaving us with all but the distant sound of birdsong.

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

"bit by bit" is the first full-length release from Toronto-based singer-songwriter Evan J Cartwright. This self produced album from the go-to drummer/collaborator (The Weather Station, U.S. Girls, Brodie West) presents a highly singular songwriting vision that combines existential lyrics with masterful musicianship. Steeped in jazz melodicism, Cartwright’s trumpet-like phrasing mixed with contemporary composition presents an eclectic art song performed by an artist that could perhaps be best described as a post-modern Chet Baker. Deep poetic observations on love and time paint an affecting picture of an artist reflecting on life’s universal truths. Visual in nature, "bit by bit" places its audience within a world of musical leitmotifs extracted from field recordings of bells and birdsong. Collected during years of touring, these sounds evoke extant spaces beyond that which the music inhabits. The use of this source material in its unaltered form evokes the feeling of a technicolour European film at one moment and then, as the extrapolated melodies are meticulously translated into electronic tone bank sequences, a modernist setting the next. One carillon melody is used as the basis for a wealth of the album’s musical material before its origin is finally revealed by the chiming of bells in the last seconds of the album. The result is a fragment of space between the constructed world of the musical compositions and the candid world of documentation, inviting the listener to ponder whether those two worlds are distinct or whether the songs and music are not simply “field recordings” themselves. Throughout "bit by bit" Cartwright drops staggering revelations hiding in plain prose that often involve the contemplation of time. In I Don’t Know he states “if I only trusted time / then I would wish it all away” and nearing the album’s end he opens impossibly blue with the phrase “the impossible truth of time”, playfully inserting a pregnant pause before the word time. A drummer’s fixation, to be certain, the album’s recurring theme of time is eclipsed only by Cartwright’s contemplation of human relationships. Here he elaborates on some of the album’s subjects: “Many of the lyrics circle, and try to give a name to the illegible space between human beings. “i DON’t know” celebrates the fact that we will never truly understand what love is. Its message is one of assurance. It says that we can never really touch love, and that is ok. “and you’ve got nobuddy” refers to life’s great tragedy: that we are unable to read each others’ experiences, and in reaction to this, we separate ourselves.” The entirety of "bit by bit" is a continuous work. There is seldom a clear demarcation of where one piece ends and another begins and when this does occur, it is done crudely, as if someone is flipping through a series of broadcasted channels. At times words are sliced right out of their lines and replaced by pure tones. This is both a comical interpretation of censorship and a reminder that there are things in life that will forever remain unseen and illegible. In fact, this statement lies at the centre of the LP and although hidden beauty does reveal itself through repeated listenings, "bit by bit’s" eccentric world remains just out of reach — an imaginary second story room viewed from a crowded city street.

Black Truffle is pleased to present Landscape and Voice, a radical new work (and rare vinyl release) from major Japanese sound artist Toshiya Tsunoda. Undoubtedly one of the most influential artists working with location recordings since the 1990s, Tsunoda’s work possesses a rigorously searching quality that sets him apart from his contemporaries. Tsunoda is known to many listeners for the subtle atmospheric poetry of his early Extract from Field Recording Archive series, which focussed on vibrations recorded in various indoor and outdoor environments in his native Miura Peninsula, often inside pipes, bottles and other vessels. In more recent years, his work has explored the implications of his claim that field recording should be seen as ‘depiction’ rather than ‘documentation’. He has explored disorienting editing and processing in his works with Taku Unami, and, perhaps most radically, represented Maguchi Bay as a kind of kinetic sculpture for shaking speakers by removing all but the inaudible low frequencies from a field recording (Low Frequency Observed at Maguchi Bay).

One of the recurrent concerns of Tsunoda’s recent work, as he explains in the crystalline liner notes accompanying this release, is ‘exploring how I can establish a subjective relationship with an environment, rather than seeing it merely as an object to be recorded’. This has taken various forms, from documenting simultaneously an outdoor environment and the blood flowing through the listener/recorder’s body (captured with a stethoscope) on The Temple Recordings, to representing his own experience of the landscape as made up of ‘grains of space and time’ by inserting looped fragments into field recordings in Grains of Spring.

On Landscape and Voice, this meeting between subject and object becomes an almost mystical union between the natural and the human. As with all of Tsunoda’s work, a relatively simple concept leads to compelling, thought-provoking results. Landscape and Voice combines vowel sounds spoken by six voices with short, looped fragments of field recordings, their noise character suggesting consonants: voice and landscape thus join together in something like words. The record consists of three pieces, each using a different, richly evocative field recording, which periodically freezes, catching on a looped fragment to which is synchronised an abruptly looped spoken vowel sound. The lengths between these interruptions vary, as do the tempi of the loops. The interruption of these lushly immersive recordings of the world – bristling with bird song, rushing water, distant traffic, and clinking metal – only serves to intensify them, as if the depicted environment itself had been returned to the listener each time it abruptly reappears. At the same time, the constant interruption creates an uncannily frozen effect, as if the recorded environment were an object rather than a stretch of recorded time. When combined with the bare human presence of the vowel sounds, the result is both austere and magical. Pressed on 45RPM for maximum fidelity, in a gorgeous sleeve designed by Lasse Marhaug with liner notes from the composer, Landscape and Voice is a radical proposition from one of the deepest thinkers in contemporary sound.

The groundbreaking 2015 PlayStation® 4 game Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture tells the story of the inhabitants of a remote English valley who are caught up in world-shattering events beyond their control or understanding. Made by The Chinese Room - the studio responsible for the hauntingly beautiful Dear Esther - this tale of how people respond in the face of grave adversity is a non-linear, open-world experience that pushes innovative interactive storytelling to the next level. This story begins with the end of the world. The game has already won GameSpot’s Best of E3 and was nominated for Best in Show and Best PS4 game by IGN.

The soundtrack features the music by Jessica Curry, who is also joint Studio Head of the developer The Chinese Room. The music was recorded at the famedAIR Studios in London and features solo vocal performances by renowned Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, ethereal choir, and a tragically beautiful orchestral accompaniment. With her compelling soundtrack, Curry took home the BAFTA Games Award for Best Music.

Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture is available as a 2LP limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on translucent red coloured vinyl and includes a
4-page booklet.

TANGERINE DREAM'S 'MALA KUNIA' IS BACK AVAILABLE ON VINYL -
'Mala Kunia', the mini-album & roughly Tangerine Dream's 140th release
was originally released in tangent with the bands' 2014 Australian
concerts - The album features seven new compositions including two of
which were co-composed by new band member Ulrich Schnauss together
with Edgar Froese
With this release, a new Tangerine Dream era began, "The Quantum Years", which
focused on a more back to basics approach to composition influenced by
quantum physics. The album itself is named after two Aboriginal tribes, which,
according to Aboriginal mythology, living a long time ago around Uluru, also
known as Ayers Rock. The Mala tribe lived on the sunny side & the Kunia on the
shady side of the rock.
Tangerine Dream have been a fundamental influence on electronic music since
Edgar Froese founded the band in West Berlin, 1967. Providing the groundwork
for multiple electronic music genres including ambient & electronica, inspiring
musicians & other art forms.
The group have also received seven Grammy nominations, written over 100
studio albums & were led by Froese, who developed an instantly recognisable
synth-based instrumental music based on a meditative musical experience that
came to prominence in the 70's & 80's.
Although Edgar Froese passed away in 2015 with a new phase in the bands
history only just beginning, he left direct orders to remaining members: "Carry on
& make my vision for the Quantum Years phase of the band happen!"
'MALA KUNIA' WILL BE ISSUED VIA KSCOPE ON GATEFOLD DOUBLE LP

Three decades on, Nick Lowe has evolved from British pub-rock pioneer
(with Brinsley Schwarz) to new wave godfather (producing Elvis Costello,
among others) to postrock crooner.
It’s a surprising but convincing transformation, begun with the country-inflected minimalism of 1994’s superb The Impossible Bird and pared to an even
leaner chamber pop on this subdued charmer. Bird found Lowe damping his
jokester’s instincts to dig deeply and soberly into romantic despair and a gnawing, midlife confrontation of self.
While the tracks on Dig My Mood suggest that some of the wounds have
healed, there’s still an elegiac air to songs like “Faithless Lover,” “What Lack of
Love Has Done,” and “Failed Christian” that qualifies these as songs of experience. Lowe’s baritone has deepened and acquired a deft finesse with redeeming glimmers of wit and no loss of intelligence.
The 2021 reissue of Dig My Mood is remastered from the original tapes.

Repress

Growing Bin burst into 2018 with a bang, crash and symbol splash, uniting a premier pair of per-cussion obsessives for a supernatural mission into the heart of the rhythm.
Dressed in the pitch black of Du¨sseldorf stands Wolf Mu¨ller, master of the tropical drums and seven time Salon Des Amateur breakdance champion. Repping Cologne and Berlin is Niklas Wandt, Germany's funkiest drummer and a mixed musical artist as adept in experimental jazz as demen- ted Euro dance. Standing toe to toe in a no holds barred, no drum unstruck groove contest, these two titans will make you swing your pants like a Crash Bandicoot victory dance...so stretch out and step in to ‚Instrumentalmusik von der Mitte der World'.

Taking to their task with the joyful abandon of two big kids getting creative with the Kindergar- ten music tray, Mu¨ller & Wandt marry dripping electronics, Froesean pads and rubber-limbed basslines with tribal polyrhythms, C2 claps and Indonesian shakers - and that's only on the A1. Comprising of three trance-inducing epics, a handful of medium-sized movers and a couple of freeform interludes, this dynamic double pack could almost pass as a lost Library masterpiece, but our mind guides go Furthur, fusing esoteric funk and free-jazz freak-out a truly transportive experience. Prepare to enter a world of techno totems and neon skulls, shades of Yello and excel- lent birds. Within these grooves lies a transdimensional pathway between the Temple of Doom, the Twilight Zone and De Palma's Paradise, brought to life in a shamanic rite.

Forget the healing frequencies of Growing Bin's ambient outings, this time we're dancing for mental health.

(words by Patrick Ryder)

On a balmy Brazilian night in February, 1981, a crowd gathered in Rio de Janeiro's Gávea neighbourhood under the iconic dome of the city's Planetário (Planetarium). Alongside musicians like Helio Delmiro and Milton Nascimento (who were in the audience that night), they were there to see the great "Bruxo" (sorcerer) Hermeto Pascoal live in concert, with his new band formation which would become known simply as "O Grupo" (The Group).

Growing up on a farm in Brazil's northeastern state of Alagoas, Hermeto has always been deeply in tune with, and inspired by nature. In his youth he would make his own flutes to play call and response with the birds and frogs. He would build scrap-metal instruments in his blacksmith grandfather's forge, and sit for hours by the lake listening to the sounds of nature. On the Planetário Da Gávea recordings though, Hermeto is cast as the "sorcerer" or the "cosmic emissary" (as the great Brazilian guitarist Guinga once called him), exhibiting an intuitive sense of harmony and melody beyond that of our own world.

"Tudo e Som" (All is Sound). It's a phrase Hermeto regularly returns to, and it points to the fact that not only can music be made from anything, but also alludes to something much more profound. It's an understanding of the universe as being in a state of constant movement, forever vibrating at the quantum level, like the string of a guitar, or a saxophone's reed. "Tudo e Som" is a declaration of the mystical and spiritual power of sound, as a fundamentally vibrational force.

The series of concerts at the Planetário marked the birth of "O Grupo" which would last with the same line-up (apart from Zé Eduardo Nazário) for the next eleven years. Every member of O Grupo was a phenomenal musician in their own right. It was one of saxophonist/flautist Carlos Malta's first gigs with the group, and the concert unusually featured two drummers, Zé Eduardo Nazário and Marcio Bahia. Nazário, from São Paulo, had played with Hermeto during the mid-70s (as well as with Milton Nascimento, Egberto Gismonti and Toninho Horta, to name a few). Bahia though had just joined the group. Acclaimed keyboard player Jovino Santos Neto was on keyboards, piano and organ, and the great Itiberê Zwarg (who remains in Hermeto's band to this day), played bass. Rounding the group off was the percussionist Pernambuco. During this period (up until the early 90s) the group would rehearse for hours on end, virtually seven days a week, with a total dedication to music and Hermeto's musical vision.

Most of the compositions performed that night at the Planetário had never been recorded before, and many are unique to this album, including the wild 'Homônimo Sintróvio', the exaltant 'Samba Do Belaqua', 'Vou Pra Lá e Pra Cá' and 'Bombardino', which features Hermeto's wonderfully absurd call and response mouthpiece soliloquy. Then there's the stunning 7/4 Samba 'Jegue' which builds with inventive dissonance, before releasing yet another celestially colourful, celebratory refrain. The show also features the first recorded performances of 'Era Pra Ser e Não Foi' and 'Ilza na Feijoada' (inspired by Hermetos' wife Ilza's famed black bean and meat stew), which Hermeto later recorded on his 1984 studio album "Lagoa Da Canoa Município De Arapiraca".

Dubbed by Miles Davis as "one of the most important musicians on the planet", a Hermeto Pascoal live show was (and still is) an experience like no other. Across the recording of the Planetário concert, wild improvisation meets groovy, virtuosic vamping on progressive, extended psychedelic jams. The tracks are generally built around a beautiful, transcendent melody; instantly recognisable as being Hermeto's, and for the most part, the musicians then solo over extended two chord vamps. There's a plethora of powerfully delivered rhythms, wild solos and the performances are punctuated by Hermeto's unpredictable, at times comical sonic antics.

Over forty years since this historic happening, Far Out Recordings is overjoyed to release this magical recording of Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo Live at Planetário Da Gávea, on double vinyl LP, CD and digitally for a February 4th 2022 release.

Eve Adams offers solace within life's shadows. Un-numbing senses with anthems of surrender and tender-hearted tales that tingle with Californian folk-noir, her album Metal Bird takes flight with the turbulence and romance of Hollywood’s golden age, and meditates on the mysteries of love, death, insecurity and loneliness.
Like a match struck in a cobwebbed attic, Adams voice is a fiery detective, unafraid to explore the unseen; the liminal spaces between mourning and rapture, between the coldness of a corpse and the heat of cremation. Imagery of flight and the denial of gravity floats slyly through the ten songs on Metal Bird by the California-born musician and hints at the experience of being caught in purgatory, like a passenger on a plane ride from Hell to Heaven.
Combining airy folk with haunting soundscapes the album takes listeners on an auditory voyage from sonorous lullabies, to dreamy ambience, skeletal jazz, 1930s torch songs and 1940s film noir. Metal Bird has a distinct, genuine tone, with orchestral arrangements, ambient hallucinations and high fidelity vocals that are unafraid to be heard loud and clear.
For those who are hopelessly enamoured with a by-gone time, there is solace in these songs and sounds.  Flickering back and forth between dread and hope, the unrelenting march towards a spiritual transformation and the realization that each of us are driven by our own dreams and as much as we want to hold it in our hands, often it is intangible. The sublime remains elusive, existing somewhere in the heart, and it sounds like Eve Adams knows this best.

The Decades Collected compilations are part of the new Collected compilation series, which is a collaboration between Universal Music and Music On Vinyl. The compilations bring together the biggest names of each decade, combined with forgotten hits and less discovered gems, giving the listener an experience of listening to their favorite tunes while uncovering new musical grounds at the same time.

Various Artists - Zeroes Collected features Nelly Furtado “I’m Like A Bird”, The Script “Breakeven”, The Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling”, Alphabeat “Fascination”, T.A.T.U. “All The Things She Said” and Mika “Grace Kelly” amongst others.

 The Slow Show release their fourth studio album, their first for three years, entitled ‘Still Life’,
via PIAS. The four-piece, who first formed in Manchester, will support the release with a
European tour in February and March 2022, culminating in an already sold-out hometown show
at Manchester’s Hallé St Peters on 4th March.
 Lead track ‘Blinking’ is a perfect taster to the new direction ‘Still Life’ offers. Same but different
again. “An ode to love and loyalty. The song is a defiant pledge to never giving up on the
people you love. Musically we wanted the song to have impact, a directness and powerful
punch that we’d previously shied away from.” - Robert Goodwin (vocals)
 The making of ‘Still Life’ has been quite the ride. Following their breakthrough album, ‘White
Water’, it was clear The Slow Show were not just ‘another band from Manchester’. The legacy
of The Smiths, Joy Division and all those other great predecessors is not something to be trifled
with, but The Slow Show didn't need to wear their address on their sleeve: this was something
else, fully formed, with a mesmerising sound, rich in atmosphere and melody.
 With the band’s desire to push each other outside of their respective comfort zones during the
recording process, ‘Still Life’ subsequently offers a more diverse, rich and interesting sound
than previous albums.
 “We did develop our sound,” says Rob Goodwin. “We had to try something else. We felt we
owed that to ourselves, and to the people that come and enjoy the music. We explored a lot of
stuff: different sounds, different feelings, different ideas, different processes as well. Some of
them didn’t work at all, but some did. It was difficult and challenging, but it felt good in the end.”
 This experimental side to the creative process allowed the band to introduce new elements to
their work. “Some new approaches and sounds crept in,” keyboardist Frederik ‘T Kindt admits.
“Some were far from our older work. For instance: after some initial encouragement from me,
Rob was keen to sing a bit higher on this record. Chris was encouraged to make his drums a
bit more present; some things almost sound like a breakbeat to my ears.”
 Recorded remotely over the course of the past year, with Goodwin recording vocals from
Dusseldorf in Germany and the rest of band recording in the UK, ‘Still Life’, as a concept, takes
inspiration from the experiences of lockdown: “Before the virus arrived, I had a busy life;
spending two weeks in Germany with my girlfriend, and then flying to Manchester to work with
Fred or to a gig.” Goodwin remarks: “And then all of a sudden, life came to a halt. It took a little
getting used to, but I actually had a really nice realisation during that time. I understood that the
slower life got, the more I saw. I spent a lot of time in nature, seeing things in a different
perspective. And that's what you need when you're trying to create. You have to really look,
and then you see things happening everywhere.”
 The tracks themselves are brimming with emotion and reverence towards the significant
relationships we encounter in life. Stand-out anthem ‘Blinking’ is a defiant pledge to never
giving up on the people you love. Musically the band wanted the song to have impact, a
directness and powerful punch that they’d previously shied away from. Whilst ‘Woven Blue’
deals with the aftermath of uncoupling. The idea that meaningful relationships are very often
woven and complex, making resolve difficult.
 These very personal tracks are counterbalanced with the more topical, ‘Breathe’, which
documents some of the unjust and heart-breaking scenes of 2020 with spoken word references
to John Boyega’s emotional rallying cry in support of Black Lives Matter movement in London’s
Hyde Park.
 In all, Still Life marks another evolution of a band that have never tried to fit in any particular
box but have inhabited their own unique universe.
 LP pressed on white viny

Martina Topley Bird’s new studio album ‘Forever I Wait’, features collaborations and arrangements from Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, Euan Dickenson, Rich Morel, Christoffer Berg, Benjamin Boeldt and Tiadiad.

'Forever I Wait' is Topley-Bird’s fourth long awaited studio album and her very first self-produced and curated piece of work to date. The album, set for a digital release on September 10th, with a vinyl LP available to pre-order now, captures an extensive journey confronting, exploring, analysing and reflecting on the devastating fragilities of life as it ultimately seeks to make peace with what life is.

A sentient and sensual presence framed Tricky’s trip-hop pioneering white label debut release, Aftermath. Hauntingly unique and immediately recognisable, that voice became the defining timbre of a new music movement. Behind this voice was mysteriously soft-spoken, London-born Martina Topley-Bird, whose exquisite voice came to inspire and infuse other pioneering artists across all genres.

“It’s a trip through different emotional states and frequencies, mostly dark, from insecurity and desire, all the way through to serenity and acceptance with themes that resonate from my young teens all the way through till today. Things that I’ve seen and things I’ve felt and worked through, although sometimes I sense them trying to return”

“Forever I Wait”, as the title alludes, was written and re-written over a long period of time.

“I had to change my way of relating to music and the music industry in order to make the record I wanted to make.…and that took time. And I took the time I needed. I started in London, moved and lived in America for the first time in my life, then briefly moved back to London and finished the record in Spain.”

“After trying to work on a new record for a couple of years, I came to a realisation that in order to move forward I had to separate the concept and vision I had for this record from me as a person. I had to shift my perspective. That was a big personal win and the beginning of “Forever I Wait.”

'Forever I Wait' leans on a multitude of tense sounds, dubby atmospherics and natural instrumentation to demand the listeners attention leading to over two decades of observations, experiences and musical sacrifices. It is a bi-product of the new perspective featuring carefully selected and tailored supporting arrangements from a handful of collaborators including Robert del Naja (Massive Attack), Rich Morel (Deep Dish), Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Benjamin Boeldt (Adventure).

A truthful expression of desire and heartache “Forever I Wait “Is Topley Bird’s most precise and accurate album to date.

After more than a year of strengthening our bodies through workout, our poetic endeavors via the discovery of our inner worlds, and also the life of plants and mushrooms, insects, arachnids, birds and wild mammals, after a year and a half that saw us in lockdown, shattered around the planet, after one a and a half year in which we deepened our production skills and also the meaningfulness of our work, Cómeme returns to a new planet with new music.

The beginning is this unique collaboration between Medellín based musician and DJ Julianna, and Matias Aguayo aka “The Don” himself.

In this deep therapeutical exploration of rhythm and sound, these artists established a magical dialogue on distance, leading up to this EP called “Que si el mundo”, roughly translated: “What if the world”.

Between soulful industrial expressions, emotional breakdowns but also discoveries free of any grids and algorithms, Julianna and Aguayo have created a beautiful piece of work, intense as the movements that we had to experience mentally and economically. “Que si el mundo” is state of the art electronic music of today, a work that is both introspective but also extremely open to the outside world and the universe. Compositions reminiscent of Coil, Angelo Badalamenti, Closer Musik, Steve Pointdexter or Mark Broom, shaped this EP that can be considered a short album in its conceptual layout and narrative. Let’s dive into it...

A1. Hiedra
One of the more danceable tunes, ideal for both a sensual warmup or the very late night to the rising sun sensitivity, is polyrhythmical melancholy and hypnotic inevitability, slow dance, deep trance.

A2. Primer Paso
A fat, slick and modern synth sequence, accompanied by heavy drumming and celestial drops that seem to fall onto the body of the listener or dancer, this post EBM stomper is a manifestation of elegant minimalism and reason. As if Liaisons Dangereuses reincarnated in a cloudy forest, to then pause towards the end of the track, with sentimental and gloomy synth chords that open the view towards the horizon.

B1. Que Si El Mundo
The title track keeps up the more melodic approach - somewhere between ambient, avant- garde and late night jazz. Morphing melodies that are both disturbing and soothing at a time encounter smooth free jazz drumming with drums that seem to have travelled from the sixties to today’s world.

B2. Bajo Tierra
This track continues the deep drumming experience that this record means, between laid back rides and intense taikoesque drumming. Distorted dark pads and subterranean choirs build up to a heavy sadness and intensity. Again, a therapeutical track to send those demons fly.

B3. Micelio
A more hopeful conclusion of the EP is “Micelio”. Open chords, soothing and melancholic, spread over profound drum grooves of champed and house. Nothing seems as it was before. A new life has begun.

Martina Topley Bird’s new studio album ‘Forever I Wait’, features collaborations and arrangements from Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, Euan Dickenson, Rich Morel, Christoffer Berg, Benjamin Boeldt and Tiadiad.

'Forever I Wait' is Topley-Bird’s fourth long awaited studio album and her very first self-produced and curated piece of work to date. The album, set for a digital release on September 10th, with a vinyl LP available to pre-order now, captures an extensive journey confronting, exploring, analysing and reflecting on the devastating fragilities of life as it ultimately seeks to make peace with what life is.

A sentient and sensual presence framed Tricky’s trip-hop pioneering white label debut release, Aftermath. Hauntingly unique and immediately recognisable, that voice became the defining timbre of a new music movement. Behind this voice was mysteriously soft-spoken, London-born Martina Topley-Bird, whose exquisite voice came to inspire and infuse other pioneering artists across all genres.

“It’s a trip through different emotional states and frequencies, mostly dark, from insecurity and desire, all the way through to serenity and acceptance with themes that resonate from my young teens all the way through till today. Things that I’ve seen and things I’ve felt and worked through, although sometimes I sense them trying to return”

“Forever I Wait”, as the title alludes, was written and re-written over a long period of time.

“I had to change my way of relating to music and the music industry in order to make the record I wanted to make.…and that took time. And I took the time I needed. I started in London, moved and lived in America for the first time in my life, then briefly moved back to London and finished the record in Spain.”

“After trying to work on a new record for a couple of years, I came to a realisation that in order to move forward I had to separate the concept and vision I had for this record from me as a person. I had to shift my perspective. That was a big personal win and the beginning of “Forever I Wait.”

'Forever I Wait' leans on a multitude of tense sounds, dubby atmospherics and natural instrumentation to demand the listeners attention leading to over two decades of observations, experiences and musical sacrifices. It is a bi-product of the new perspective featuring carefully selected and tailored supporting arrangements from a handful of collaborators including Robert del Naja (Massive Attack), Rich Morel (Deep Dish), Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Benjamin Boeldt (Adventure).

A truthful expression of desire and heartache “Forever I Wait “Is Topley Bird’s most precise and accurate album to date.

“It was important just to get some new music out sooner rather than later,” says Thomas Sanders, the singer and guitarist of Teleman. “Making an EP felt like we could be more spontaneous and try things out without the pressure and expectation surrounding an album release. So it was a more fun experience I'd say.”

However, a fleeting, throwaway stop gap this is not. The EP is as realised a piece of work as any the band have created. Although the sense of fun, spontaneity, and intuition that Sanders speaks of can be palpably felt across the breezy five tracks here that span art rock, electronic pop and that unshakable idiosyncratic tone that is always unmistakably Teleman.

Record Kicks drops "Solid Ground", the explosive debut album by US band The Grease Traps, recorded at Kelly Finnigan' Transistor Sounds and mixed by Orgone's Sergio Rios.

Recorded between Kelly Finningn's Transistor Sound in San Francisco and Fifty Filth Studio in Oakland and mixed by Orgone' producer Sergio Rios and Kevin O' Dea, Record Kicks is proud to finally present Solid Ground, the long-awaited debut album by US very finest deep funk & soul outfit The Grease Traps. The album is set for worldwide release on November 5 on vinyl, CD and digital format. The band, based in Oakland, CA, is the latest addition to Milan-based Record Kicks roster. Active since 2002, with a 45 released on well-respected funk/soul label, Colemine Records, now, after six years spent working on the album's recording and mixing, they are ready to present their first full-length release Solid Ground on Record Kicks. The album is anticipated by the two killer funk singles "Bird of Paradise" and "More and More" on limited edition 45 vinyl.

As avid record collectors and fans of that old school analog sound, Solid Ground was recorded straight to 8-track tape on a Tascam 388, which also graces the cover art. Half of the tracks were recorded live at Transistor Sound Studio by soul crooner, Kelly Finnigan, and Ian McDonald where both Kelly and their band, Monophonics, have recorded their last few albums. The other half of the tunes were recorded by Kevin and Aaron at Fifty Filth Studio in Oakland, CA where the band also rehearses and mixed by analog-obsessive Orgone producer Sergio Rios. The album's original tunes draw from the Traps' various soul influences ranging from gritty funk ("Bird of Paradise" and "Hungry") to fuzzed-out psychedelic ("Residue") to sweet lowrider soul ("More and More"). The lyrics by lead singer The Gata also don't shy away from pressing issues of the day such as racism in America ("Roots") and finding hope in a world that seems pitted against you (the JB's style "Solid Ground"). The rare funk covers from the album provide a taste of the raw energy one would experience at a Grease Traps live show. The Traps also supplemented their sound with special guests including the Monophonics horns, background vocals from seasoned Bay Area vocalists, Sally Green and Bryan Dyer, as well as strings organized by Kansas City master viola player, Alyssa Bell.

The seed of The Grease Traps formed back in 2000 when keyboardist, Aaron Julin, answered an ad put out by guitarist, Kevin O'Dea, searching for players who were hip to the rare grooves laid down by Blue Note artists such as Grant Green and Lou Donaldson. They quickly formed Groovement, covering those same artists along with other jazz-funk staples. When their sax player and frontman moved away, they switched gears to form the band, Brown Baggin, getting into the harder funk of the JB's, the Meters, Kool & the Gang, and lesser known acts such as Mickey & the Soul Generation. They also started digging into the rare funk compilations put out by Keb Darge, Jazzman Gerald,and labels like Harmless, Ubiquity, Soul Jazz, and Now-Again. Modern day soul and funk outfits such as Breakestra, the Whitefield Brothers, and the Daptone/Soul Fire crews provided additional inspiration.

In 2005, while still playing with Brown Baggin yet fed up with juggling the schedules of seven band members, Aaron and Kevin put out an ad to find a bassist and drummer to jam with as a quartet. The first two cats to show up were bassist, Goopy Rossi, and drummer, Dave Brick. It was clear from the get-go that this rhythm section had great chemistry. Originally intended as a fun side project, the Traps quickly took priority as Brown Baggin dissolved. Performing as an instrumental quartet for a number of years, they eventually expanded their repertoire to include horns as well as that sharp-dressing soul brother, The Gata, on lead vocals. Over the years, they've shared the stage with acts such as Shuggie Otis, Robert Walter, Durand Jones, Monophonics, Neal Francis, and Jungle Fire.

When hearing Anna Gréta at the piano, you become witness to an
astonishingly mature artist, with absolutely profound technique, a
complex understanding of style and harmony and an impressively
wide range of musical expression, who has made an extraordinarily
good name for herself in just a few years on the Scandinavian scene.
Over a period of two years, partly influenced by isolation, the twelve
compositions of ‘Nightjar in the Northern Sky’ emerged, for Anna
Gréta not only as a pianist but also as a singer.
 The album title ‘Nightjar in the Northern Sky’ sets the tone for the
world of the album: A metaphor for the Scandinavian expanse,
tranquility and the close connection between people and nature, a
theme that runs through the songs in many pictures. “Nature is just an
enormous force in life. It is so much bigger than most of the other
things that otherwise seem so significant to us. And it is, in its infinite
facets, perhaps the greatest inspiration for my music. A place where
the noise falls silent and you can feel and hear yourself again,” before
adding: “Recently I have been developing a passion for bird-watching
- something that I reflect on in the title track. When you observe
nature carefully you can experience or see something unique. Sort of
like searching for love. The nightjar is a bird that is rarely seen flying
across the sky in Sweden and has been observed in Iceland less than
five times. I feel that everyone is looking for something unique in their
lives. And that nature can offer that to the ones open to see it.”
 With each of the tracks on the album she creates little, self-contained
worlds that fit into a bigger picture. Light-footed, relaxed, reduced,
concentrated. An art that required a great deal of work and attention
to detail. Together with pop-experienced producer Albert
Finnbogason, Anna Gréta chose the perfect, hand-picked line-up and
sound for each of her extraordinarily refined - harmoniously and
rhythmically - compositions.
 Although always in a coherent framework, Anna took elements from a
very diverse range of musical styles, alternating between jazz
elements and influences from pop music to excerpts from classical
and folk. All these elements create a remarkably multi-layered album,
which at the same time tells a coherent, bigger story.
 CD in 4-page digipack with 12-page booklet.
 180g vinyl with digital download code

'After 20 years of absence THE THE celebrated their comeback with a glorious UK and US Tour in 2018, topped by a sold-out performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the so called “Comeback Special”. What started as an unforgettable live experience now turns into something even bigger as THE THE announce their new live album and make the whole comeback experience available to fans worldwide. Available as 2CD Digipak, 2CD Mediabook, 3LP Black Vinyl, Limited 3LP Crystal Clear Vinyl, Blu-ray, and DVD formats.LIMITED NUMBERS. ALLOCATION SHARED OUT WHEN ALL ORDERS IN AT 12PM DEADLINE.

“Sympathetic Magic” is the new surprise album from Portland’s indie-rock outfit Typhoon. The album is scheduled for a surprise release on January 22, 2021. This is the band’s first new music since the release of their critically-acclaimed fourth LP Offerings in January 2018, followed by extensive touring across North America, UK, and Europe.
“The songs are about people - the space between them and the ordinary, miraculous things that happen there, as we come into contact, imitate each other, leave our marks, lose touch. Being self and other somehow amounting to the same thing.” – kyle / Typhoon
“This marks a major moment of growth for Typhoon. An album born from reckoning and upheaval, the experience is fraught with heavy sentiments and dark themes that are explored in a graceful manner. Sympathetic Magic is one of the band’s most personal and intimate albums yet. Each track is crafted with purpose, further carrying on the message Morton is trying to share. The album came as a surprise, but the love for it was guaranteed, and Typhoon has yet again proven their talents are to be lauded.” – Atwood Magazine

UK multi-instrumentalist and story-teller Mara Simpson's new album In This Place will be released on September 24th, 2021. A heady blend of alt-folk, analogue synth and classical composition, In This Place is a tale of quiet rebellion, and taking back control. Fittingly, the new album marks the start of another new journey for Mara. In This Place will be the first record to be released on Downfield Records, a non-profit imprint set up by Simpson, placing artists at it’s centre. “I want to try and promote transparency and equality, assist other artists to get public funding and to ‘pay’ forward the time and resources I’ve benefited from,” she says. The label’s mission is to see musicians paid fairly and release records through a creative and joyous process.

Whilst the struggles of 2020 will go down in history, for Mara it was 2019 that was the tough one. A year spent consumed by worry, whilst in and out of hospital with her one year old daughter, had left Mara feeling like she was playing a constant game of catch up with a world that wouldn’t slow down. With songs ready to be recorded for her new album, she headed into the studio. “I stepped into the studio not needing my hand held, just my voice heard” explains Mara, who quickly came to the realisation that she was working in a toxic environment. Enough was enough

It was whilst waiting for a train that she had the sudden realisation that the album she was recording would never see the light of day. Struck by an overwhelming feeling of failure, Mara began to ruminate on the time and money she had wasted but then something clicked. “Perhaps it’s something about train stations, the coming and the goings, that allows a stagnating frame of mind the grace and space to clear” she says. “The funny thing is, upon realising failure, the despair I’d been feeling was now replaced with something else...Relief”.

Feeling re-energised, Mara called her dream producer Ellie Mason, of Voka Gentle, and together the pair began working on a new record. “I’ve been more hands-on with this album than I’ve ever been, taking a much more active role in production. Throughout the whole process Ellie has heard my voice, and been open to any possibility” explains Mara. “We’ve stumbled across golden moments, recording four part harmonies in Brighton’s oldest church, using every drum there is in Brighton Electric, layering New Zealand bird song with tape delayed piano, all thanks to her nurture, playfulness and kindness” she continues.

Album opener ‘Serena’, named after the apartment building in Brighton where Mara’s daughter was born, is based on the experience of becoming a mother and the responsibility of making important healthcare decisions. “How will I know how to love you” she sings over undulating synths and sparse piano chords. Title-track ‘In This Place’ is about the confrontation between mother and new-born child. The ‘sizing-up’ of one another as they embark on a new journey together. “When I left home to travel around the world and was so worried about breaking my Mum’s heart,” says Mara. “I just remember her saying that your children are never yours to keep. This is a song about the rawest of loves, and the fact that however much we love someone, they are never ours, and the beauty in that.”

In addition to the experience of motherhood, the songs on In This Place take inspiration from a wide range of places, including Mara’s ‘second home’ New Zealand. ‘Christchurch’, written in response to the Christchurch Mosque shootings in 2019, layers New Zealand birdsong on top of swirling piano and moving choral vocals. ‘Fault Lines’ was inspired by The Waitangi treaty. Signed in 1840 in New Zealand by the British Crown and Maori chiefs. The British understood that the Maori were signing over land that the British could now govern and effectively ‘own’, however to the Maori people it is impossible to own land, in the same way that you can’t ‘own’ air. “We live and die, the land remains and we are just it’s keepers for the very short time we are here. This song is about us not owning this earth - how can we? We are only the guardians of it while we are here” says Mara.

Backed by a band of accomplished musicians (Jools Owen (Bears Den) on drums, James Smith (Anaïs Mitchell) on banjo, Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres on clarinet and strings by Poppy Ackroyd) on In This Place, Mara sounds the most confident she’s ever sounded. With her new material, Mara Simpson hopes to promote a gentle, yet radical shift toward kindness and it’s this warmth that can be both heard and felt across her new record.

A work that literally immerses the listener into an acoustical substance. The sound becomes almost like matter, like jelly. Soon, you're swimming in sound, getting lost inside it.

With the Sonic Waters project initiated in 1978, my aim was to situate field of electronic music within a liberating and futuristic experience, outside the concert halls and in sync with the development of new instruments - in particular the Synclavier digital synthesizer, the first model of which I acquired in 1977. As concert space, the Pacific Ocean seemed to me to be the ideal experimental medium for both acoustic and cultural reasons. I then developed the aesthetic and technical elements that would contribute to the conception of Underwater Music. Numerous performances would follow spanning four decades, in natural sites or in large public pools such as those of Sydney, Paris or Venice during the 2006 Biennale.

Michel Redolfi (1951), French composer and sound artist, is the founder of Underwater Music. The natural elements captured and highlighted by experimental technology are a constant in Redolfi's catalogue: many compositions explore the earth environments such as in 'Pacific Tubular Waves', 'Jungles', 'Desert Tracks' (re-released on Sub Rosa records) and especially with 'Sonic Waters', a work that literally immerses the listener into an acoustical substance. During the mid-seventies Redolfi carried out his electro-acoustic research in the United States, with major electronic music centers including the California Institute of the Arts and chiefly the University of California in San Diego. As invited resident of their studios, Michel Redolfi launched the underwater music concerts, with the series 'Sonic Waters' performed in the Pacific Ocean. Michel Redolfi's underwater creations have since been regularly programmed by major international festivals, with multi-media installations held in ecological marine reserves or in historical city pools. Among them, the Sydney Festival, Paris 'Nuit Blanche', Ars Electronica in Linz, the 2006 Venice Biennale (nominated Golden Lion) and lately the 2018 Ars Musica festival in Brussels. This record presents different variations of Sonic Waters from 1980 to 1987, alternating studio mixes with their re-recordings in the depths of the Pacific. Michel Redolfi CD's and LP's are currently published by Sub Rosa, INA-GRM and Radio France.

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.”

Could the missing link between Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler be the Michel Portal of 1970? After having worked alongside François Tusques defending a free jazz “made in France”, we find him here, heading up an international quintet of which each member is on fire: John Surman, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin and Jean-Pierre Drouet. The quintet had full leeway to break out the free-form in long ambient tracks to compose this Alors!!! which leaves listeners with just one word to say: More!

Do we still need to present Michel Portal?... Clarinetist destined for the classical and contemporary world after his passage in the Paris Conservatory, he decided to try his hand at jazz, with an incendiary flamboyance! After his first experience with André Hodeir and Pierre Michelot, he would break all the codes with François Tusques (Free Jazz, in 1965) before starting the emblematic Michel Portal Unit. It is the Portal of those years that Alors!!! offers us the chance to listen to again.

“There are periods of insolence”, the musician declared and the year 1970 was one all on its own. Heading up an impetuous international troupe, a quintet consisting of John Surman (saxophones, bass clarinet), Barre Phillips (double-bass), Stu Martin (drums) and Jean-Pierre Drouet (percussion), Portal moves from alto sax to clarinet in the compositions shared with his partners.

From the off, the group sparks an explosion with the sound of “OO Bam Ba Deep” battered by the horns and percussion. Next up is the fabulous free jazz of “Yes, Oh Yes, You Wonderous Sun Kissed Maiden!” and the fantastic disjointed march of “Ça Boom?” which shakes up the musicians every which way. The quintet imagined that listeners would need to catch their breath, and thoughtfully added: “Billie the Kid” and “Undercurrent”, marvelous moments of ambient mystery.

Audacious from beginning to end, including the sleeve – the bird-man and his quintet brain designed by Avoine, –, the album is a fabulous object, to which the label Futura gave wings at the time. And as it is being reissued today there is just one word to use: the French translation of the title, So!!!

Amateur Dramatics is Awkward Corners AKA Chris Menist's second LP in the space of a year. In 2020 – a time when the global pandemic gave artists more time and space to think about their music – Chris took his collaborations and compositions to a different level. Having already collaborated remotely with Sarathy Korwar, as well as Kitty Whitelaw through Karthik from Flamingods' Isolate/Create/Collaborate community, Chris turned his thoughts towards a new project. Amateur Dramatics is influenced by the events of early 2021 and alludes to the general atmosphere of political life in the UK right now where we are chivvied along by people who seem woefully unqualified to be commanding authority. Musically, the LP builds on foundations of the meditative, devotional electronic aspects of previous LP Dislocation Songs but this time frames it more in a jazz context with significant collaborations with Collocutor and Maisha's Tamar Osborn on four tracks.Vocals (from Kitty Whitelaw) feature on an Awkward Corners track for the first time, as well as double bass provided by David Leahy.The result is a thoughtful and deep listening 40 minute listening experience.

‘Concordance’ is Susan Howe’s and David Grubbs’s fifth album in the
fifteen years of their unexpected and richly satisfying collaboration. Here
they’ve pared down their materials to voice and piano, aspiring to the
hushed intensity of their live performances. What had previously resulted
from Grubbs’s recomposition of recorded materials now arrives as
unadorned duo performance.
“Howe is a poet who has spent her career reminding us that our
experiences of meaning and sound are synchronous.” - Tess Taylor, The
New York Times
‘Concordance’ is Susan Howe’s and David Grubbs’s fifth album in the
unexpected and richly satisfying collaboration that began with ‘Thiefth’
and includes ‘Souls of the Labadie Tract’, ‘Frolic Architecture’ and
‘WOODSLIPPERCOUNTERCLATTER’. Where these works feature the
fragmentation and multiplication of Howe’s recorded voice - in a style
akin to her celebrated text collages - with ‘Concordance’ they’ve pared
down their materials to voice and piano, aspiring to the hushed intensity
of their live performances. After fifteen years of working together, the
subtleties of inflection and interaction that previously resulted from
Howe’s nuanced delivery and Grubbs’s composition using recorded
materials now arrives as unadorned duo performance.
One of America's greatest living artists, Bollingen Prize-winning poet
Susan Howe’s text for ‘Concordance’ originates in a collage poem of the
same name published by Grenfell Press, which then became the title
work in her most recent book, published to acclaim by New Directions in
2020. She has continued to rework the text for this performed version,
incorporating material from her 2015 book of essays, ‘The Quarry’. Her
source material is scissored from print concordances of the poetry of
Milton, Herbert, Arnold, Browning, Dickinson and Coleridge, as well as
old field guides to birds, rocks, trees, moths and mushrooms; Howe’s
fiery commitment to placing these echoes of the past in dialogue with the
present speaks to her position as one of America’s essential artists.
David Grubbs is Professor Of Music at Brooklyn College and The
Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of ‘The Voice in the
Headphones’, ‘Now that the audience is assembled’ and ‘Records Ruin
the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording’ (all
published by Duke University Press) and, with Anthony McCall,
Simultaneous Soloists (Pioneer Works Press). Grubbs has played in
Gastr del Sol, The Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with
Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros and Will Oldham, among many others.

Birgit Minichmayr captures the imagination and holds centre-stage on
‘As An Unperfect Actor: Nine Sonnets by William Shakespeare’. This
won’t come as a surprise to people in the German-speaking world,
where the Austrian actor is well-known from countless appearances on
TV and a substantial filmography. Perhaps equally unsurprising is the
deep experience she can bring to Shakespeare: as an ensemble
member of the Burgtheater company in Vienna, she has repeatedly lived
out the searingly dramatic lives of the Bard’s characters, notably the
daemonic anger of Lady Macbeth, the sadness of Ophelia and even the
uncomfortable truths of the Fool in King Lear.
What might be more of a surprise, however, is the exhilarating musicality
she shows on this, her first complete album as a vocalist. One could
have predicted the crystal clarity, meaning and intent in her words - the
desolation in her voice in “the very birds are mute... the leaves look pale”
in Sonnet 97, for example. And yet there is more, much more, not least
Minichmayr’s uncannily instinct to find artful and felicitous ways to shape
musical phrases.
Composer/ pianist Bernd Lhotzky has provided a wonderful array of
musical contexts. As Minichmayr says: “He got so deep into the meaning
of each sonnet, his music made it different every time. And we talked a
lot about the colour, the meaning of each poem.” The opening track, ‘My
Mistress’ Eyes (Sonnet 130)’ is a masterfully deft piece of gender-fluid
irony. In the poem, a man is describing possibly the ugliest woman he
has ever seen - while also declaring that she is the one he loves.
Lhotzky gives us an acerbic version in that most male-led of dances, the
tango, complete with bandoneon, in which the words are sung by... a
woman. Minichmayr then gives a masterclass in how to end a song as
she hits, holds and nails the words “false compare” with triumphant
fearlessness.
Throughout the course of the album, we are magically transported to
new musical and emotional places. As Minichmayr says: “Through
singing, through just doing it, I was able to find deep love, or deep
sadness. I was really touched by it.”
One of the secrets to this album’s success is Lhotzky’s wish to find
melodies which have a certain ease and straightforwardness about
them. He says that he approaches all music - whether he is listening to it
or writing it - with one simple and direct question: “What story is this
telling me?” Lhotzky is known for his work in the field of early jazz, but
the range here is far broader, with allusions to such examples of fine
songwriting as Brassens, Robert Plant and James Taylor.
LP pressed on 140g black vinyl.

Airplay from Mary Ann Hobbs, Liz Alker and Tom Ravenscroft and beyond

Reviews in Mojo, The Wire, Quietus, Uncut and more

On October 9ththe multi-instrumentalist Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet/Szun Waves) presents his new project Paradise Cinema. It was recorded in Dakar, Senegal in collaboration with mbalax percussionists Khadim Mbaye (saba drums) and Tons Sambe (tama drums).

The impressionistic and dream-like quality of 'Paradise Cinema' is a stunningly effective realisation of Wyllie's experience, in ahypnagogic state of aural consciousness:

"I had a lot of nights in Dakar, when the music around the city would go on until 6am. I could hear this from my bed at night and it all blended together, in what felt like an early version of the record."

Atmospherically 'Paradise Cinema' is vaporous and enigmatic, but also percussive; existing in a paradoxical sound-space that's amorphous,yet still purposeful, serene, but propulsive and aesthetically sharp.

Khadim Mbaye and Tons Sambe, provide the rhythmic backbone of the record. There are traditional elements of mbalax rhythm, but it is often deconstructed or played at tempos outside of the tradition, so while it hints at a location it occupies a space outside of any specific region.

'Paradise Cinema' is also informed by notions of hauntology – a philosophical concept originating in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida– on possible futures that were never realised andhow directions taken in the past can haunt the present.

On the album's title Wyllie comments, "there are a handful of old cinemas in Dakar – these big modernist buildings dotted around the city built around independence. They're old and derelict now, but feel to me like monuments to that period, when the city was flooded with utopian ideas about its potential futures."

As such it sits closely to 4thworld music – situated in an imagined culture and time that never came to pass. And while it contains rhythmic references to Senegal it combines these elements with ambient and minimalist music to produce a sound that sits outside of any tradition.

Setting the tone for the long-player's themes is the optimism-driven, balmy beauty of 'Possible Futures', where rich-toned drums throb and levitate in a stratospheric ether.

Like a time-lapse video of plants in bloom, 'It Will Be Summer Soon' is the sound of anticipation and growth. Rhythmically it flickers and flutters, evoking rainfall, or the blurred wings of a bird in in flight.

Casamance moves through field recordings drifting in and out of focus, beats pitched-down low and unfurling saxophone, whilst the ambient 'Utopia' was made mainly with processed saxophone and suggests a longing for a perfect world.

Galloping percussion juxtaposes with a wistful mood on 'Liberté' – a title that referencesa derelict modernist cinema in Dakar of the same name– a hauntological landmark, made more poignant by the its name being part of the French national motto.

Tying into the cover artwork, Jack explains, "the 'Digital Palm is a telecommunications mast disguised as a palm tree in central Dakar. As a modern piece of technology that on first glance looks natural, it mirrors the combination of modern and acoustic elements."

Perhaps eliciting a time that never came, or maybe still in hope of it yet to come, 'Eternal Spring' concludes the LP's otherworldly beauty with hypnotic drums powering a subtly-building, sparkling and powerful crescendo.

Jack Wyllie is a musician, composer, electronic producer who draws on influences of jazz, ambient, and the trance-inducing repetition of minimalism.

Wyllie performs and records in Portico Quartet, Szun Waves (withLuke Abbott and Laurence Pike)and Xoros. He has also collaborated with Charles Hayward, Adrian Corker and Chris Sharkey and released on Ninja Tune, Babel, Leaf, Real World and Gondwana.

Khadim Mbaye and Toms Sambe play in various mbalax groups in Dakar. Khadim has also toured internationally with Cheikh Lo.

Imbued with the grit of vintage country music and the grace of gospel, Leah Blevins’ debut album is a scrapbook of sorts, a collage of feelings and memories from a decade spent working in the big city of Nashville while missing the small town she left behind. “It’s a timestamp of my twenties,” says the Sandy Hook, Kentucky, native. “Here are all the stories and all the experiences from that decade. Here are all the mixed emotions I’ve felt about things I’ve gone through and people I’ve met along the way.” First Time Feeling turns tribulations into what Blevins calls “bundles of triumphs,” which lend weight to her well-observed lyrics and gravity to her soulful vocals. “It’s about coming into womanhood, but it’s more than just a coming-of-age story. It’s me discovering that I’m capable of writing a song on my own. I’m capable of staying sober. I’m capable of all these things that once felt so far out of reach. Within those walls these songs had to be unapologetically honest.” Or, as she puts it on the bluesy opener “Afraid,” “Have you ever been afraid, with nowhere to hide? Scared of nothing, but you’re running inside?”
. “I want people to find something relatable within these ten songs. But for me they’re a reminder that all the pain that I went through—which isn’t that different from the pain every human goes through—it’s all mine. By making this album, I’ve taken it, I’ve owned that pain, I’ve made it mine, and I’ve wrapped it up with a bow on top.”

Welcome valued share-holder, great to have you on board! This musical soundtrack by Running Out Of Time is a digital epic consisting of federally approved 99,9% original material carbon-dated to the last previous 12-24 lunar cycles. For 50 minutes, sit back and let our R.O.O.T. executive branch provide an experience like no other - neuro-programmed especially for your individual cerebral make-up. Choose from a selection of premium Terraform Realities, ranging from cyborgs battling human rebels through synthetic jungles and swamplands, to alien organisms escaping through intricate water tank systems. As you can see in diagram 2.1 in our presentation, each territory is mapped out in complete dimensional fidelity. For example, the water tank causeways also lead to a long-forgotten underwater world full of hidden creatures. Embrace your inner subaquatic explorer, as you search for artefacts and alien embryos that could be exploited for the corporation. Just remember - our trademark Quantum Parallel Reality Experience is guaranteed to feel as authentic as the real thing!* As a top tier investor, you will also have early bird access to our Platinum Realities selection - including our award-winning Apocalypse Cityscapes. With fully-rendered city centers that once bustled with 21st century traders, these abandoned heritage sites are now home to the lost souls of a free market economy that collapsed eons ago under its own weight. But beware! Some of the spirits will help you, and some will lead you into deadly traps - so choose wisely. Your investment portfolio depends on it! We are excited to have you join the team and look forward to sharing many more experiences together. *Tax Free corp accepts no liability for cognitive dissociation or neural dysfunction as a result of any Quantum Parallel Reality Experience.

This album is a sequel to trumpeter/bandleader Red Rodney’s ‘One For Bird’ recorded live at the Tivoli Gardens 1988. The band he brought from USA includes then up-and-coming young players: Dick Oats (alto saxophone), Garry Dial (piano), Jay Anderson (bass) and John Riley (drums), musicians that have become regular SteepleChase recording artists. Red Rodney (1927-1994) succeeded Miles Davis’ post in the Charlie Parker Quintet from 1949 to 51. This indelible experience enabled him to be an adviser on Clint Eastwood’s 1988 Golden Glove awarded film “Bird”, which featured Red’s character extensively. The publicity that came with the film seemed to have given a boost to his career. Red started to play professional at the age 15 but slowed down during early and mid- 70s due to his addiction. He made a successful come back later and toured the world with his band. “Rodney rockets through most of his solos here, ascending into high-register terrain with the audacity if youth. At 62, he plays with the ebullient spirit more typical of men half his age.” - Mark Stryker, Cadence

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry
has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving that
his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds.
Following the acclaim of last year’s Top 30 album
‘Phantom Birds’ (★★★★ The Times), Acid Jazz release
‘Blue Elephant’, Matt Berry’s sixth studio album with the
ground breaking label.
Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is
testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production
skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument
played by Matt - including guitars, bass, a variety of
keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron,
Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs) - with the
exception of drums (supplied by Craig Blundell), on
arguably his best album to date.
This music soundtracks an album that explores themes
surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering,
objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a
conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the
album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout
tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’
and the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses
a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter,
mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.
‘Blue Elephant’ is available on digipack CD, blue vinyl,
black vinyl and audio cassette.