quête:the earl

The Kenyan music scene is one of the most diverse and vibrant in Africa. However, ask any Kenyan which pop music style truly represents Kenya as a nation and there is only one possible answer: benga.

Benga is a pop style with its roots in traditional rhythms, instruments, and melodies. Luo musicians from western Kenya brought the style to prominence in the late 60s but other cultural/linguistic groups in other parts of Kenya quickly developed their own localized variants. With its pulsing beat, interlocking guitars, extended solos, and rapid-fire bass, benga music has dominated the Kenyan music scene over most of the post-colonial period.

Kakai Kilonzo is one of only a handful of benga artists to attract a broad following across Kenya. He opened up his music to others outside his Kamba language and background by singing in Swahili, which is widely understood throughout Kenya. At the same time, with catchy melodies and engaging lyrics, Kakai sang about subjects that all Kenyans can relate to: songs on all aspects of love and marriage, on social responsibility, societal ills (like drinking and witchcraft), moral guidelines, national unity, economic development, and more.

The songs on this compilation are taken from across Kakai's recording career, spanning from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, shortly before his illness and untimely death in early 1987, aged only 33. No Wahala Sounds are proud to present this selection of hard-to-find 45s from Les Kilimambogo Brothers, which are being released on vinyl here, for the first time outside Kenya.

The vinyl version includes a free CD copy of the album.

Due for release on 31 July 2020. Interest for airplay from Tom Ravenscroft and Gideon Coe from BBC 6 Music, DJ Ritu from Resonance FM/SOAS Radio, Roger Hill from BBC Merseyside and Steve Barker from BBC Lancashire.

Paul Bradley returns with another massive EP, and this time he means business. Stretching his creative muscles as well as the tempos, this EP ranges in style and speed from late 1991 to early 1995 and contains everything a growing raver needs. Hefty beats, uplifting piano riffs and wicked stab sections all rolled together with a light, humorous touch. Its an unbeatable combination…

Club / DJ Support
Billy Bunter, the Fat Controller, Glowkid, Slipmatt, Dj Jedi, Dj Luna-C, Dj Brisk, Clayfighter, Jimni Cricket, Bustin, Sc@r, Doughboy, Saiyan, Dave Skywalker, Ponder and many others

PATRICE YVONNE HOLLOWAY was born in Los Angeles and is perhaps best known as the younger sister of Motown’s Brenda Holloway, the darling of the Northern Soul scene, particularly in recent years. Patrice also signed to Motown and recorded an unreleased version of “The Touch Of Venus” made famous by Edna Wright (aka Sandy Wynns).
In the mid-sixties Patrice signed to Capitol records and recorded “STOLEN HOURS”, arranged by the great Gene Page and written and produced by his brother Billy Page – she was only 15 years old at the time. It failed to hit Stateside but some thirty years later it became a Northern Soul anthem of the nineties, although it was originally played in the early days of Wigan Casino.
Our chosen flip-side, the follow-up single, “LOVE AND DESIRE”, was also penned, produced and arranged by the Page brothers. It failed to even get a commercial release in the U.S. although it was released in the U.K. and commands big money in today’s collectors market. Her final 45 for Capitol came in 1972 and was a credible version of the Sam Nesbit classic “Black Mother Goose”. Sadly, ill health, forced Patrice to step back from performing and she died before her time of a heart attack in 2006.
Patrice was also known as ‘Valerie’, singer with the animated girl-band Josie And The Pussycats produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired on CBS in 1971. She would beome the first black character to regularly appear on U.S. commercial TV.

*** Ltd. Edition 500 Copies on BLACK VINYL with insert!

These rare recordings were recorded as part of the legendary prescription label album series in the late 1990's that resulted in the album "Astral Disaster". Coil were invited to record at Sun Dial's studios beneath the London Bridge Hop Exchange. This studio was originally know as Samurai studios that was originally built and owned by Iron Maiden.

The premises in Victorian times was an old debtors prison which had three levels underground, and still had the original chains, manacles and wrought iron doors from the old prison. This caught the attention of John Balance and was very keen to record there.

At Gary Ramon's invitation, Coil spent a number of days recording at the studio during Halloween 1998 and they developed a number of tracks some of which resulted in the "Astral Disaster" album. For various reasons, some of the unissued material and mixes released on this album were omitted from the original Astral Disaster album, and so now is the opportunity to listen to the second volume of "The Astral Disaster sessions".

The album includes all previously unissued mixes and alternative versions, and includes "The Mothership" which was the first version that was later remade in the sessions as "The Mothership and the Fatherland".

Taken from the master tapes and remastered by Denis Blackham.

Musique Pour La Danse presents Roomservice, Dutchman Orlando Voorn's forgotten yet unforgettable IDM-leaning, home-listening electronica / techno album from 1994 under his Living Room alias, originally released on the producer's cult Night Vision label.

Praised unequivocally by those lucky enough to have heard it, this criminally underrated record nonetheless deserves pride of place when talking about forward-thinking electronic music from the early 90s.

While it is widely acknowledged that Orlando Voorn's productions are one of the most fascinating prisms through which to experience a European take on the Detroit sound, Roomservice is also a strong reminder that the paradigm shift from sweaty raves to enhanced home listening, championed by Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, early Rephlex releases, along with projects such as The Black Dog, Plaid or Autechre was in fact not only limited to British artists.

As its name indicates, The Living Room is not geared for warehouses but instead interested in a more intimate and domestic setting. As such, it does not contain over the top bangers, but it's hard to find any filler in this album where all the tracks are killer, catchy and memorable. All displaying a sophisticated yet immediate focus on warm melodies and grooves no heavier than a feather, these emotional cuts provide a wonderful and intricate soundscape for introspective listeners to explore, and they will surely find echoes of ideas developped by Manuel Gottsching, Steve Reich and Pat Metheny scattered accross the album.

While some tracks are rhythmic and would fill a dancefloor in a second with their four to the floor or broken beats, the album also gives room for more ambient excursions to occur and develop brilliantly. But once again, it's more likely you'll end up dancing on your couch rather than dozing off.

2020 might be the most difficult year in recent history for dancefloors worldwide, yet that's not going to stop Musique Pour La Danse from reissuing this gem of an album for listeners, dancers, and DJs of today and tomorrow.

Words by Ed Isar.

The original, the inspirational, the bombastic, the never bettered, the one.
'Don't make me wait' is all of the above and so much more. Classic to the core. Huge earth shattering record right here.
OK, so the scoop, for the uninitiated is this - the Peech Boys were Larry Levan's group, we're talking early 80's NYC here, 1982 to be precise, around the height of the Paradise Garage as Larry was making the transition from superstar DJ to producer. He brought a sparse, dubbed out, narcotic late night feel to the overall sound of this record. This was a short-lived project, but the influence is still felt today, the Peech Boys DNA is inside the veins of modern dance music, as is Larry's. There is no underestimating what an impact this record had. 7+ minutes of electronic bliss, trailblazing stuff, and don't get us started on the dub. Do yourself a favour, BUY this classic if you don't own it already, you'll keep coming back to it time and time again. Guaranteed. This essential 12" is repressed here in it's original 1979 glory, an essential classic that has stood the test of time for the last 30+ years & is now available again, remastered & repressed for 2017 in conjunction with West End Records, NYC.

This superb LP is widely regarded as one of the finest rock recordings ever to have emerged from Wales. Touching on pop, prog, glam rock and even country, it’s varied and expertly played but sank without trace upon its original release in early 1974. It makes a welcome return to vinyl here, together with an insert containing numerous rare images.

Hello Everybody,

I hope that you will have as much enjoyment from my music here as I had performing it!! I would like at this time to give you a little "History" of myself and as to how I came to love the music that I play! Coming from a "Musical Family"; my father was Tyree Glenn, Musical Director and Trombonist with Louis Armstrong and played with the likes of Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington among others and my brother, Roger Glenn, a very "Talented Musician" in his own right, it was not difficult for me to be "Influenced" and get into "Show Business" as a Musician and Entertainer! My early years in the "Fifties" were spent playing the Saxophone with my "Teenage Band" in New Jersey and later, after 4 years at Marietta College in Ohio, in the "New York City Area" in the "Sixties"! As the song goes: "IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THERE, YOU CAN MAKE IT ANY WHERE" which I did and it was in New York City where I got my "Musical Education" which would become a part of me for the rest of my life! In the "Mid-Sixties", I was offered a "Partnership" in a Night Club in the Algarve Portugal and readily accepted the chance to perform "In My Own Club"! Moving on to Lisbon after a few successful years in the Algarve, I performed in TV and recorded records there in Lisbon! By the way, I played Professional Basketball for "Benfica Lisboa" which was and remains to this day, my "Big Love for Basketball" and was to be a big part of my life! From Lisbon, I eventually went on to live and play in Italy in the early Seventies with Rocky Roberts. Returning to Lisbon in the mid-Seventies, I worked with my buddy from my "New York City Days", the very talented "Singer & Entertainer" Wayne Bartlett, and we formed the "Duo": "Wayne & Tyree" and performed in the Casinos in Portugal! We accepted an offer to perform our show in Germany and as things worked out, I have been living and playing my music here since 1976! I have enjoyed bringing my "R&B" to everyone and showing just a little bit of how it was performing "R&B" in NYC back in the "Sixties"! I hope that you will enjoy this Compilation of my work here in Germany from the past years and I would especially like to thank Tramp Records for making this record possible and being a "True R&B Fan" of Tyree Glenn Jr. and my Music!

Rivage was one of the records during my early days into Modern Soul I was desperate to get hold of, 'Strung Out On You're Love' is up there in my top ten and I managed to pick a copy of the 45 when in the USA in the Early 2000s for a decent price. I only found out there was a rarer LP with a longer version of the track around the same time, with the bonus of a pile of solid Funk, modern and sweet soul tracks. Fast-forward to 2019 and friend Angelo Angione hooked me up with the band who were excited to work with me on a reissue. Now those who know the LP will know it's rather odd cover, this was a marketing idea by someone at the Label, despite the band not wanting to use it that's the way it ended up. We decided to put things right and have reinstated the original cover shot of the band. This LP is simply one of the finest 70s LPs, it's mad that it has not been reissued before now…enjoy.

Something a little different from Athens of the North, Crisrail (Chris Rael) is an almost-LP of mad out there funky post punk from Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. Rated and played this out for some time but it has remained mostly under the radar due to scarcity. I could compare it to The Cure but it's so much more. 500 ONLY

"Playing instruments didn't come naturally to me, but I loved it so much I kept doing it and got better. When I started composing seriously in my early twenties, I didn't have much confidence in my voice or instrumental abilities, but my imagination was on fire and I was determined to create music that sounded like nothing else. I would find my place in the constellation of sound by carving a niche that was so unique, musical virtuosity wouldn't be a factor. I was inspired by Tom Scott of the Muffins, Maryland's legendary progressive jazz quartet, and owner of Black Pond Studios in Rockville, where Game of Music was recorded. It was my first solo release; I played everything except Tom's horn and flute parts. Lacking confidence to perform, I was very much a studio rat and became facile at overdubbing solo tracks. New music reviewers praised it at the time, but its distribution was limited and it's been out of print for decades. Listening now, it's more musically muscular than it felt to me at the time. It's incredibly gratifying that more people can hear it again, thanks to Athens of the North." - Chris Rael

For this project called 'the joint venture', Inner Shift are teaming up alongside Deep Explorer. This part on Inner Shift follows the first part which was released earlier this year on Deep Explorer. .Mahal. is a Japanese producer and dj with a history of playing music with previous releases on Rough House Rosie. The "Space Space Ep Part 2" contains 3 original tracks that dive into deep house with a more abstract edge. Red & Blue immediately captures your attention with original sensual guitar and vocal lines. Remix duties are courtesy of the Deep Explorers Above Smoke and Dubbyman taking Red & Blue into a broken beat downtempo space. On the B side Behind the Scene has a more abstract edge, and Mind Games with its driving acid bassline is complimented by lush chords keeping it warm and deep.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce a new solo album by Eiko Ishibashi, her first for the label, following on from the duo recording Ichida alongside bassist Darin Gray. Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) was produced for the ‘Japan Supernatural’ exhibition at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney focusing on ghost stories and folklore from the Edo period onwards. As with The Dream My Bones Dream (Drag City, 2018), the album is a response to troubling questions about Japanese history, and the influence of the past upon the present, but finds Ishibashi shifting further away from her earlier piano-led songwriting and showing a deepening interest in electronics and audio collaging.

The two sidelong parts of Hyakki Yagyō feature layered synthesisers, acoustic instrumentation, recited verse and field recordings, at times densely mixed but always with a subtle interplay of changing elements. The influence of European and American forerunners as diverse as Alvin Curran, David Behrman and Strafe Für Rebellion can be traced, yet at the same time Ishibashi evokes the flute and string sounds associated with Japanese storytelling, and draws directly on the subversive literary tradition of Kyoka (‘mad poetry’) with a verse by the 15th-century poet Ikkyū Sōjun repeated throughout the album. Revisiting what has gone before, re-thinking what is possible musically, as a way of articulating what else might be possible in the future.

As Ishibashi’s liner notes make clear, the album reflects an attention to persistent dangers, myths and evasions in Japanese culture – as well as the lurking uncertainties that might threaten positive change. This would seem to be manifested in the emerging melodies soon met by dissonance, erratic collisions and near silence, as well as the eerie manipulation of the double-tracked vocals. Ishibashi’s underlying concerns ring true more widely of course. Hyakki Yagyō is a work of multiplicities, and mystery, a landscape where nothing is as it seems at first, and everything is vulnerable to sudden violent interruptions.

The album was produced with regular collaborators Jim O’Rourke (double bass) and Joe Talia (percussion), and features dancer and choreographer Ryuichi Fujimura performing Ikkyū’s satirical tanka. O’Rourke’s immersive mix creates a three-dimensional effect, with Ishibashi’s various sound sources enmeshing and interacting in captivating ways.

Pressed on coloured vinyl and presented in a deluxe package with an inner sleeve featuring and artist portrait and liner notes from Eiko Ishibashi. Cover and label design by Shuhei Abe.
Back cover design by Lasse Marhaug. Mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke.

key selling points:

- Black Truffle is pleased to announce a new solo album by Eiko Ishibashi, her first since her acclaimed 2018 Drag City release The Dream My Bones Dream.

- This album finds Ishibashi shifting further away from her earlier piano-led songwriting and showing a deepening interest in electronics and audio collaging.

- Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) was produced for the ‘Japan Supernatural’ exhibition at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney focusing on ghost stories and folklore from the Edo period onwards and is a response to troubling questions about Japanese history, and the influence of the past upon the present.

- Produced with regular collaborators Jim O’Rourke (double bass) and Joe Talia (percussion), O’Rourke’s immersive mix creates a three-dimensional effect, with Ishibashi’s various sound sources enmeshing and interacting in captivating ways.

- The two sidelong parts of Hyakki Yagyō feature layered synthesisers, acoustic instrumentation, recited verse and field recordings, at times densely mixed but always with a subtle interplay of changing elements, hinting at an influence of European and American forerunners as diverse as Alvin Curran, David Behrman and Strafe Für Rebellion.

- Pressed on coloured vinyl and presented in a deluxe package with an inner sleeve featuring an artist portrait and liner notes from Eiko Ishibashi. Mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke.

Jori Hulkkonen was born and raised in a small town named Kemi with a population of 20,000, in the north of Finland. Since the early 80s, his musical influences have been on the side of electronic music, quite eclectic style for a 10-year-old boy who grew up in this period still marked by the seal of the Cold War. At the end of the 1980s, Jori's passion for electronic music was reinforced when he discovered its most abstract and minimal part: techno from Detroit and House Music from Chicago. Excellent DJ, he played in the best clubs and festivals in Europe. Jori Hulkkonen is an artist well known and extremely respected in the Nordic countries for his pioneering status, with his love of music and his involvement in making it known.

Wu Hen is the sophomore album from Peckham visionary Kamaal Williams -- an invitation to elevate to a higher state Cinematic strings from Miguel-Atwood Ferguson and virtuoso saxophone from Quinn Mason are textural additions that make for a deeper, multi-layered experience than previous releases.



Bringing groove back to the forefront, Wu Hen oscillates between celestial jazz, funk, rap and r&b reinforced with the rugged beat-heavy attitude of grime, jungle, house and garage - a self-styled fusion Kamaal describes as Wu Funk.



New players on this record include LA’s Greg Paul on drums (of Kalayst Collective), Rick Leon James on bass, Quinn Mason on saxophone alongside vocal features from cult rapper Mach-Hommy and Kaytranada collaborator Lauren Faith. Multi-talented renaissance musician Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (who has worked with Ray Charles, Flying Lotus, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, and Seu Jorge) contributes signature strings, which add vivid colour and rich depth, evoking vintage David Axelrod.



Kamaal rose to prominence with the hugely acclaimed Yussef Kamaal alongside drummer Yussef Dayes and a catalogue of 12”s for imprints such as MCDE, Eglo, and Rhythm Section as Henry Wu that became essential DJ tools. In 2018 he launched Black Focus Records with the Kamaal Williams debut The Return, which charted in the UK and saw sold out shows and festival appearances across Europe, North America and Asia.

One of the best record ever. No waste... all tunes are greats and incredible legends... They are engrave in all early memories... Here is a 2020 remastered version, with a full 45 RPM cut and a loud bloody dynamics !!! FAT !

Repress
180g


A 16B classic from the early nineties gets a repress and re release on 16B's own aLOLa records.

Time for some magic as longtime friends Guti and Djebali present their debut collaborative LP ‘Almost Finished’. The two artists decided to get together in Djebali’s Paris studio when Guti was in the French capital in April. With no real plan besides the chance to have a jam together they ended up locked into a four-day session, producing six tracks. In the months that followed, both men roadtested the music around the world, receiving positive feedback everywhere they played. Feeling they’d created something special, the decision was made to arrange a second session at the end of the summer.They found themselves fully immersed in another intensive recording session, where the idea was to make more music based on the existing tracks to create a cohesive body of work that would form an album. Guti and Djebali composed an intro, an outro, interludes and new tracks that complemented those they’d made earlier in the year. Artwork has been specially commissioned from Mister Piro, a protégé of world-famous Madrid-based artist Okuda. The result is a dancefloor-focused collection of 8 tracks (plus a digital bonus) and stunning artwork, which comprise the ‘Almost’ Finished LP

Finnish multi-dimensional artist Jimi Tenor is back with a new 7" on Philophon to announce the upcoming album Aulos, which is going to be released in October.On Sugar And Spice he reunited with Ghanaian drummer Ekow Alabi and German producer Max Weissenfeldt.

Sugar And Spice is the perfect summer hit for Jazz, Boogie, Soul and Afro-Beat lovers. A bouncy bass with hip chords, some sharp horns and a sweet voice are driven forward by Ekow's rolling beat. On Lover's Bridge Jimi creates some reminissence to the classic Sun Ra compositions from the 50s and early 60s. A singing organ calls some heroic horns, carried away by a rhythm section, which practice the power of repetition formula par excellence.

Night Gaunt Recordings is pleased to announce “Ambitions of Guilt”, the newest offering from Brighton, UK based producer L/F/D/M. L/F/D/M is Richard Smith who first emerged in 2013 and has been steadily cranking out the hits ever since. Following his stellar release on Cititrax titled “Dream Bleeds”, Richard Smith is back with a new batch of misshapen heaters. A master of blending fucked up rhythms with chiseled body music that’s both danceable yet also makes you question humanity. Every track crafted to hit deep in the bowels of any warehouse, “Ambitions of Guilt” seeps with acid, techno, noise, and anything in between. With sleazy dance hitters that bring to mind midwest acid/techno, such as Gene Hunt, and also taking from British and Japanese industrialists by the likes early Richard H. Kirk and Sympathy Nervous, Smith creates a feeling that’s both familiar yet still wildly unnerving. L/F/D/M consistently seems to know how to explore emotions in this sphere of cold, repetitive machines, creating an exciting soundtrack to a contorted world.

Brigitte Barbu's Muzak pour ascenseurs en panne (Muzak for broken lifts) marked a bold new addition to the Circus Company repertoire. In a gilded haze of resonant tones conjured by traditional and non-traditional methods, Brigitte Barbu created an inviting sound world brimming with life and doffing its cap to 1970s signal processing. Out of such sonic research and development comes a wealth of material for other artists to sink their teeth into, and so we proudly present an accompanying remix EP that takes Brigitte Barbu's distinctive stamp into new territory.

Roman Flügel makes a first appearance Circus Company with two versions of "Dae-Boj DeMoya" that showcase this constantly versatile lynchpin of European techno. First up is his "kraut remix", which unsurprisingly channels the grainy beauty of Neu! and early Kraftwerk, before his "synth remix" dials back the drums and diverts our attention towards an expansive arrangement of melodious flourishes from classic synthesisers.

John Tejada and Reggie Watts reunite as Wajatta following their triumphant LP Don't Let Get You Down on Brainfeeder to deliver a particularly inventive, soul-stirring vocal techno version of "Couvre chef en peau de taupe". Watts soars over the signature warmth of Tejada's production, while Brigitte Barbu's mysterious tones linger in every fold of the mix.

Matthew Herbert offers up a "Butter Dub" version of the album interlude serie "Trou Vert" that pits his signature stark sampling methods against Brigitte Barbu's material and creates a fruitful dialogue of crooked 4/4 mechanics with all the playful curiosity of the original and a strong dose of Herbert's inimitable musical personality.

‘Back At It’ is TapesJamaican’s second EP, and follows 2018’s ‘Zero Seagull’. Like the debut, the Dublin act deliver three sublime techno soul tracks from the deepest end of the spectrum.

Early DJ support from: Moxie (NTS); Damo B (Outta Limits); Perseus Traxx (Bunker); Owain K (Innate)

Back in February Risk Assessment hit the headlines via a high-profile outing on Glitterbox Recordings that proved the fast-rising artist's ability to create fresh and funky revivalist disco-boogie jams. This four-track missive on Midnight Riot showcases the producer's re-edit skills.

No messing around, "Bad Times" is an '80s wonder dripping with sleazed up synthwork. Yam Who? straps it to a rocket and fires it into the stratosphere with those punchy basslines and beefed up percussive hits that knock you straight for six.

On the B side "You Must Be The Girl" powers through, with Risk Assessment turning a colourful early '80s synth-disco jam into an attractive, tooled-up disco-house romp. "Bionic Lover" closes out proceedings with a house style revision of another low-slung, guitar-laden chunk of disco-rock funkiness.

One of the biggest selling hits by T. Rex from late spring/early summer 1971. These bare alternative versions were recorded in London during January 1971. 500 copies pressed on red vinyl in T.REX House Bags, 500 copies pressed as picture discs. All royalties go to The Light of Love Foundation (These recordings and many more were amongst the tapes stolen from Marc & Gloria’s home in 1977, some of this material was returned to The Light of Love Foundation last year). This year sees T. Rex inducted into the U.S Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in May and has already seen the profile of T.Rex heightened.

Strut kick off a brand new deal with the seminal independent black jazz and soul label Black Fire in May with 'African Rhythms 1970-1982', a comprehensive 2CD / 3LP compilation of Oneness Of Juju, led by Plunky J. Branch. Tracing their career from the band's earliest work in 1970 with South African exiled jazzman Ndikho Xaba in San Francisco, the compilation covers the band's journey to New York's loft jazz scene, forming Juju and releasing two landmark albums of hard-hitting percussive jazz on Strata-East. "I saw myself as a cultural warrior," explains Plunky. "We studied about Africa and tried to infuse our music with an African spirit." Moving back to his hometown of Richmond, Virginia during the mid-'70s, Plunky drew in a superb new group of musicians and vocalists and created the band's new incarnation, Oneness Of Juju, retaining the African influence but fusing his sound with funk and R'n'B on the classic 'African Rhythms' album. "We realised that, if we put a backbeat to the Afro-Cuban rhythms, people in Richmond and Washington D.C. could be drawn into it; it didn't change anything about our message." The change would lead to a series of enduring soul-jazz classics on Jimmy Gray's Black Fire label, including 'River Luv Rite', 'Plastic' and 'Don't Give Up' and their biggest crossover international hit, 'Every Way But Loose' in 1982, later famously remixed by Larry Levan. The band received renewed interest in their music during the mid-'80s as Washington D.C.'s go-go innovators cited the band as a major influence and rare groove DJs revived their albums for London dancefloors.

Waxtime Boxset Series Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - The Essential Albums ‘Ella & Louis’ and ‘Ella & Louis Again’ Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald were capable of producing magic that few jazz singers could match.

Their infrequent studio collaborations yielded true masterpieces. After cutting several sides backed by big bands for Decca in the late forties and early fifties, Ella and Louis were summoned by producer Norman Granz in 1956-57 to make three albums that would become legendary jazz classics. This 3-LP set compiles their two complete small group albums, Ella & Louis (Verve MGV4003) and the 2LP set Ella & Louis Again (Verve MGV4006-2).

Ella & Louis *****Down Beat “Ella & Louis is one of the very, very few albums to have been issued in this era of the LP flood that is sure to endure for decades.” (Nat Hentoff) Voted number 636 in Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums

Ella & Louis Again (2lp Set) ***** Down Beat “This set is more relaxed and more successful than their previous cooperative venture. It can hardly fail to break sales records for them both.” (Leonard Feather)

The 1986 self-titled Aretha Franklin album was a successful one, notable for containing five R&B hits, including the number 1 hit “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” and “If You Need My Love Tonight”. Aretha herself says in the liner notes that this is one of her favorite albums, and it’s easy to see why. She sings her head off on this album, and sounds like she’s having so much fun on each and every song. The album is noteworthy for the cover, which was Andy Warhol’s final work before his death in early 1987.

Aretha is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on translucent green vinyl. The package includes an insert.

Black Vinyl Edition

The Log and the Leeway follows a 6 year journey of personal exploration and drastic change for Bram Bosteels and his singular Kaboom Karavan universe. What entails is a sound-curiosity of rare format, following a metamorphosis that goes beyond the musical.

Early in the process, Bram was struck by the word/concept of a Leeway : the gradual departure from an intented course due to external influences. Following a boyish fascination for explorers travel journals, logbooks and the far fetched corners of the world, he could not have forseen how fitting of a title he had chosen. Drastically all of a sudden one day, completely unexpectedly, Bram experienced his own father dying in front of him from a rare disease. Shocked and confused by this intense encounter, his perspectives and musical course departed from its original path. But at the same time it was an enlightenment and a necessary influence for him to realise the initial idea and finish this album, started over half a decade before.

The ones familiar with Kaboom Karavan already know that nothing really sounds quite like it. Bram’s musical (and non-musical) universe is of the rare breed that seems to be entirely his own. Self-contained, but never opaque. Quite the opposite actually. Bram never pushes us away, instead, by listening to his music we are given view to a synesthetic wunderkammer of images, places, objects and possibilities. Distant but magnetic, alien but intimately familiar, Kaboom is folk music from another dimension. Listening to The Log and the Leeway is like waking up next to a bonfire in the middle of a swamp wearing somebody else’s clothes: You may not know how you got here, but whatever is happening seems to very directly involve YOU. What will happen?

Note from Erik K Skodvin (Miasmah): All the sounds, fabrics, instrumentation and stories that binds The Log and the Leeway together go far beyond what can be touched up in this simple writeup. As someone who have followed this journey since the beginning, and seen it shift from lighthearted fun to the most crepuscular personal experience, heard the stories behind (almost) every field recording and gone through boundless amounts of clips, visual details, notes, and inspirations – I can only say that it is with great pleasure and certain nostalgia I can present this record in full through Miasmah and close this quite extraordinary chapter. Bram is without doubt the most fascinating person I know. Like I told him in April 2020 during a trying time: “If everything fails, we´ll open a Kaboom Karavan museum” - an idea that might not be as far-fetched as it sounds.

Featuring: Cover painting by John Lurie. 16 page booklet of Musical illustration / collagés by Walter Dhoogh & Erik K Skodvin that more or less connects (or confuses) the dots between the music and stories behind. Mastered by Lupo at Loop-O

Searching for new languages beyond the bitter and nihilist dialect of punk, bands like Gaz Nevada, Litfiba, CCCP, Diaframma, Neon, and many others, began spreading their message all along the Italian peninsula during the early eighties and many of the members of these bands are now some of the best musicians/producers in the Italian independent music panorama (Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, Piero Pelù/Litfiba, Bisca, etc.). 16 tracks by 16 Italian underground bands from 1982-1984: bands who faded into oblivion before ever releasing anything of their own on vinyl. It should, however, be stated that if these sixteen bands had been found on an album, EP or single, they certainly would not have lowered the average quality of albums in that genre…not even in terms of sound quality, which has actually been improved upon here (considering that the original tapes had been lying around collecting dust for at least a quarter of a century) by careful restoration.

Decha’s Hielo Boca LP was released in early 2019 and quickly was embraced by many as an exceptional experi- mental yet very personal and soulful piece of art. Artist Viktoria Wehrmeister (half of renowned duo Toresch along- side fellow Düsseldorfian Tolouse Low Trax) is already working constantly on her sophomore album for Malka Tuti that will come some time in the near future. In the meantime, longtime fans of Viktoria, many friends of the label asked to participate in the remix project that fol- lowed Hielo Boca. On this record we will present 4 remixes that are as imag- intive, inspirational and clever as the original composition. Tapan, Eva Geist, Khidja & Philipp Otterbach took upon themselves to reconstruct Viktoria’s ideas in very surpris- ing, intriguing and “out of the box” ways.

Like many electronic artists, Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles spent his early years experimenting with IDM, glitch and dance, but one consistent element in his musical journey has been his desire to create a more organic, humanised sound. Through these experimentations he has found a process of producing electronic music that feels close to this urge. Restricting himself to a small selection of analogue equipment, West engages his hands directly with instruments and is very selective about what he then records into the computer. He reduces musical parts even further, leaving enough space around the sound for it to breath.

‘Odyssey’ is a reflection of West’s quest to create atmosphere and space from minimal arrangements. ‘I don’t like music to sound overly laboured, so I restrict how much is going on. I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of reduction.’ The new 5-track EP was mastered by Naweed and will be released worldwide on October 21 in the form of a 12" Vinyl and Download via Erased Tapes.

‘Odyssey’ and ‘Voyager’ are both incredibly stripped down and have a great sense of space throughout them. It's all about using the right ingredients at the right points in time. A lot of these ingredients are short recordings, such as ice cracking, mechanical clicks, clicks from synth errors, sounds of debris, guitar plucks etc., which interact with the simple arrangements and create little hints of rhythm. I also love the technique of swelling in music, but I realised that hardly anyone has done that in electronic music. So when I first got the synth to swell in and out with the opening chords of ‘Philip’, it was a great moment. Because it creates a human mood in a matter of seconds, which is very difficult to do with electronic sounds. That track is very important to me, and I think it will influence how I make music in the future.’ – Ryan Lee West

West will perform alongside his contemporary composer mates Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm for a special electronic Erased Tapes night as part of London’s The Hydra series on October 18. The same day will also see a special in-store event at Phonica Records, where West will showcase the ‘Odyssey’ EP amongst other tracks on his beloved analogue gear, joined by South London artist Supermundane creating a live art piece in the shop window.

"On this seven track album we hear MinaeMinae (alias Bastian Epple) playfully scurry through his dense soundscapes on a tightrope. The sounds lying somewhere on the crossroads of psychedelic trance, exotica, ambient and melodic dance music – veering further off orbit with nontypical rhythms and dystopian percussive patterns.

MinaeMinae understands musical material similar to documentary footage which he would cut up, repitch, and rearrange freely. Most of his tracks are a mix of analog, synthetic sounds and recordings of ethnic percussion and guitar. Recently Bastian began experimenting with modular synthesis and self made tape echoes - seeking a more reduced and minimal composition style compared to his earlier quite whimsical tunes.

Growing up in a small village in southern Germany, Bastian was never interested in kitschy folk sounds that everyone would mindlessly clap and sing along to, rather he took solace in the time he would spend delving into patterns and repetitions that pleased him. His guitar strumming and what sounded to his mother like a young Philip Glass on a cheap Casio keyboard encouraged little Epple to continue on this self-taught path of developing his musical language. He then started to experiment with a tape recorder and layering sounds with non-musical samples, which his former village friends found too weird – then to eventually working with a small freeware DAW. Bastian went on to study Media Art at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe – initially enrolled in music but the frustration and doubt of not being able to produce the music he wanted led him into film and documentary media. During his studies, Bastian was living with Florian Meyers (Don’t DJ) for several years where they would philosophize life and music into the wee hours – he encouraged Bastian to start sharing what he’s been quietly working on all these years and slowly emerge from this anonymity which eventually led to his first release on Human Pitch last fall.

Disproportionate forms, color changes, backdrops weaved into the foreground, all lay the dense earth for Gestrüpp through Benjamin Kilchhofer’s artwork."

We all go through phases. We don’t always feel the way we felt yesterday. Despite all these phases, we’re always drawn to music. It accompanies, touches and feeds us. This debut album is the story of Austrian Apparel and their journey up to this day. “AAplus” stands for inclusion - it takes paths into the openness of sound. It shows two sides. light and dark. While the light side features tracks outside of the four-to-the-floor realm, the dark side showcases their club oriented material. Never leaving behind their signature sound forged from their expertise on stage and in the studio. In coherence with their previous work, Austrian Apparel continue to explore an unconventional approach with their audio equipment, departing from a habitual studio process and emerging with a carefully condensed sonic episode of their journey.

Sought-after eponymous Indonesian album by the Yanti Bersaudara (which means the Yanti sisters: Yani, Tina & Lin Hardjakusumah), released in 1971 and reissued for the first time. It is a very spiritual and magical Sunda album with haunting vibes based on a unique,
creative and strong Sundanese cultural heritage.

Active only for less than a decade (from the 1960s until the early 1970s), the three sisters originally from Bandung (West Java) sang traditional Sundanese songs with beautiful voices & harmonies, creating a trippy oriental exotic psychedelic sound.

For their sophomore album, Chemical Reaction, Galaxians have stripped back the music and pumped up the vocals. Emma Mason's unstoppable voice elevates the group to a fully-formed musical act. This new LP is all about her voice.

Mason's powerhouse vocal on the West End Records-inspired Chemical Reaction beckons you onto the dancefloor. Jed Skinner's bright and breezy synth melodies allow the song to really breathe, whilst Sam Bell's front-and-centre conga groove (straight out of Double Exposure's My Love Is Free) and Matt Woodward's intricate rolls ramp up the track's energy and momentum. The shorter Mama Ghetto Vogue Edit is brought to life by Darren Pritchard, vogue dancer and mother of Manchester's House of Ghetto, who meets a neon wonderland in the electrifying video.

Elsewhere on the album, Heartbreaker champions female empowerment and personal freedom over a pounding boogie groove. It's a tight arrangement which drops into a delay-drenched Levanesque drum break before crescendoing back into a final chorus via one of Skinner's trademark JX-3P synth solos.

On the proto-house funk of Fight For Love, where Emma flexes her vocal chords to jaw-dropping effect, a failing relationship is thrust into the spotlight over a punchy Linn Drum groove. On the silky shuffle of after-hours jam Work It Out, which brings to mind the classic Sly & Robbie Compass Point productions, Emma croons about a lover, her voice cast in a softer, more subdued glow. Heat of the City sizzles with the essence of an urban summer, and is peppered with heart-stopping hand claps.

Third single Horizon sees the band in more reflective low-key mode, and could be their minor hit of the summer. There's some neat drum programming here, intertwined with Woodward's intricate fills and hi-hat playing.

On Not The Money, Mason's vocal shifts to a lower register in the mid-section, bringing to mind Grace Jones at her most commanding.

All in all it's a life-affirming experience, one born out of a sense of community and collaboration. Seven years on from their early explorations Chemical Reaction sees Galaxians retain sight of the principles that make their output, and dance music as a whole, so vital - commonality of experience, singular moments shared by a crowd, and rhythm as the best medicine.

Following January’s acclaimed vinyl debut from Exterior and summer’s much-loved Kota Motomura EP, Edinburgh’s Hobbes Music label ends 2019 with its first album release, also a debut, from GAMING, a fresh new braindance electronica project straight outta Glasgow, from producer and musician Alan Bryden.

GAMING is a new solo outing that brings together a lifelong love of music and technology and creating left field, rhythmic electronica. It’s the sound of IDM, nineties techno and mensch maschine computer music that is as spontaneous as it is programmed.

“Scenes From A Deserted City is a collection of tracks that started as a set of riffs, loops, rhythms and grooves and unfurled around a sense of growing unease about the future of the urban environment around me.
It’s an album that started out as sound…and ended up as a way of telling stories about the age of anxiety we live in, how our world is changing, and how we find a way through that.
This is DIY electronica from Glasgow – it was made on a growing collection of digital and analogue synths and FX units, including a bunch of modular racks, each with its own idiosyncrasies and character that belies the assumption of the binary.
The studio where it was recorded – an abandoned, and often very cold, school building reclaimed by the community some twenty years ago – offered up stories of resilience, even when all seems lost. (I’m not sure what the mice contributed but they definitely climbed in and out of some synths).
This album is ultimately about my changing relationship with Glasgow, a city I’ve lived in for more than 25 years. It’s about how I feel now about the increasing sense of urban decay and how the city can be a very isolating place. It’s about how I reflect on my younger creative self trying to find a direction but mainly feeling a sense of dislocation and not fitting in. And it’s about the questions I have about how that relationship is changing, how it will be forced to move forward.
The result is a soundtrack for walking home on your own, in that headphone bubble when it’s just you focusing on that music that makes sense to you alone. It’s for early in the morning, after the night before, or going to work with the memories of that slipping and sliding inside your head. It’s about how it feels to be both elated and lonely, to be lost in the familiar, despairingly hopeful.”
ALAN BRYDEN (Glasgow, August ‘19)

Seven years after its inception, Eaux is proud to announce the first solo release by an artist other than Rrose. As a member of the Sandwell District collective, David Sumner aka Function was instrumental incultivating the Rrose project. After releasing the first three EPs and album by Rrose between 2012 and 2013, Sandwell District terminated their mission abruptly, prompting Rrose to start a new label (Eaux) for solo projects andcollaborations. This EP brings history full circle.



Following closely on the heels of Function's mammoth 3LP/17 track album "Existenz" for Tresor Records, this EP takes similar themes as a departure point, but moves into more mysterious, yet also heavily dancefloor-focused terrain. "Binaural" encapsulates the timeless essence of the Function sound with menacing bleeps, cavernous stabs, and a sense that it could go on forever without losing its grip on the listener. "Desire and Memory" is a broken beat track drenched in modulated drones that feels like an infinite spiral, moving simultaneously forward and backward in time. Function's early Sandwell District records defined the "hypnotic" techno sound that has influenced countless artists (including Rrose), and this release plants those roots in new, fertile ground.



Recorded at Inanimate Objects, Berlin

Mixed by Tobias Freund at Non-Standard Studios

Mastered by Beau at Ten Eight Seven

DRUMIRA features four heavyweight tracks by Stefan Schneider, ghanaian drummer Nicholas Addo Nettey and percussionist Sven Kacirek (Hamburg).

Nicholas Addo-Nettey was a former percussionist with Fela Kuti and his famous Africa 70 band during the most legendary years of his career. He has left band in 1979 in Berlin where he has been living ever since. His early solo album PAX NICHOLAS from 1971 has gained fame through a reissue in 2009.

It is interesting to note that DRUMIRA was first released anonymously in 2011 in a minuscule private pressing edition which only had a Spiegelmotiv hand stamp on the sleeve. Due to legal issues in 2009 with some of the mapstation releases, Stefan Schneider decided to put his project on hold until things got cleared. After nine years the record finally finds a place in the mapstation catalogue and gives full credit to all musicians involved. The EP comes with a luxurious hand assembled sleeve in a small edition.

Music-wise this EP is most distinguished by the combination of slow paced dark electronics and inimitable percussion patterns by Nicholas Addo-Nettey.

Nicholas Addo-Nettey: Percussion
Stefan Schneider: Electronics
Sven Kacirek: additional percussion

Repressed in 2023, limited!


Hull/Leeds based five-piece bdrmm release their much anticipated debut Bedroom on July 3, via Sonic Cathedral. The 10-track album was recorded late last year at The Nave studio in Leeds by Alex Greaves (Working Mens Club, Bo Ningen) and mastered in Brooklyn by Heba Kadry (Slowdive, Beach House). It's a hugely accomplished debut and a real step up both sonically and lyrically from their early singles, which were rounded up on last year's If Not, When? EP. Musically, there are nods to The Cure's Disintegration, Deerhunter and DIIV, while the band reference RIDE and Radiohead. There are also echoes of krautrock and post-punk, from The Chameleons to Protomartyr, plus the proto shoegaze of the Pale Saints' The Comforts Of Madness, not least in the cross fading of some tracks, meaning the album is an almost seamless listen. As a result, Bedroom becomes an unexpected and unintentional concept album, running through the different stages of a break-up set against the backdrop of the ups and downs of your early twenties. "The subject matter spans mental health, alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, drugs_ basically every cliché topic that you could think of," reveals frontman Ryan Smith. "But that doesn't mean they ever stop being relevant. It's a fucker growing up, but I'm lucky enough to have been able to project my feelings in the form of this band, surrounded by four of the best people I've ever met." And that band name, in case it needs explaining, is pronounced the same way as the album title. "I never thought I'd get to the stage where I would have to explain it so much," says Ryan. "We have been pronounced as Boredom, Bdum and my old boss thought we were a ska band called Bad Riddim. We're all sarcastic cunts, so Bedroom spelt correctly seemed like the perfect title." He's right. The perfect title for the perfect debut album.

Kenton Slash Demon return to Tartelet Records with Zstring + remixes by Urulu and Kasper Marott + 12' comes in vintage Tartelet sleeves circa 2009-2010. Limited Edition 400 copies. It's been ten years since Kenton Slash Demon landed on Tartelet with their debut EP Khattabi followed by the much-celebrated The Schwarzschild Trilogy singles - Sun, Matter and Daemon all released 2009-2011.Ten years have passed since our first release on Tartelet and with this record it feels like we've gone full circle. It's a beautiful thing.'Zstring marks their return to Tartelet - but it's also a precursor for things to come within the next year. With talks of a full-length album, the KSD project is now being given the attention it deserves.
Kenton Slash Demon have always had an affinity for uplifting melancholic tunes - and Zstring cements their ability to create just that. The track oozes with dance-floor euphoria, offering up a distorted arpeggio bassline, lush pads and layered melodies, all built around a tight and ever- changing groove. There are clear references to Italo disco, early techno and trance, but it's hard to pin down the exact style - if that even matters.On remix duties, man of the moment and label collaborator, Urulu, delivers a fresh take in his signature early 90s style, while local hero and close friend Kasper Marott of Monkeytown fame comes through with an obscure melodic techno workout of the finest sorts.
To further advance the concept of 'full circle,' the 12' comes in vintage Tartelet sleeves circa 2009-2010, salvaged from three different releases - which have been in storage since being produced.Zstring will be available April 12 th 2019 on vinyl and April 26th on all digital platforms.

Mono Han are brothers Alessandro and Davide, who collectively have a deep and long understanding of electronic music. Davide is a co-founder of N.O.I.A, one of Italy’s first electronic live acts to perform and record with drum machines and synths as early as 1978. He was also behind seminal Italo outfit Klein + M.B.O and proto-house hit “Dirty Talk”. Alessandro, following in his brother’s footsteps was inevitable and he too became hooked on the incredible new sound palette emanating from the early electronic machines.

Since then they have released under an array of aliases, have clocked up numerous club hits and this project brings them back to their 80’s roots.