Suche:the solitude

Mute welcomes German synthesizer and producer duo Felsmann + Tiley to the roster with the release of their new album Protomensch. Out February 13, 2026 on limited edition black vinyl packaged in a special gatefold sleeve featuring a mirror foil lamination on the inner panel revealing a ‘self-portrait of the protomensch.’

On Protomensch (German for “proto-human”), Felsmann + Tiley blend shimmering synthwave, pounding trance, and introspective IDM with synth-pop-infused tracks featuring guest vocalists including London’s Pet Deaths and Australian artists The Kite String Tangle, Woodes, and Laius.

This juxtaposition between sentient beings and machines permeates the whole album – right from the duo’s manifesto introducing us the highly intelligent yet irrevocably shortsighted and downright tragic character of Protomensch – the cover artwork featuring turtleneck wearing chimpanzee, futuristic music videos, and stark social media aesthetics to seated, next-level live-shows involving collaboration with dozens of visual artists.

Despite their online ubiquity, sparked in part by their viral reinterpretation of label-mate M83’s “Solitude,” which has been used over 1 million times on TikTok and high-profile syncs on shows including Young Royals (season two), the BAFTA-winning crime thriller Top Boy (season three), and Amazon’s The Better Sister, Felsmann + Tiley have lingered largely on the periphery, their origins cloaked in quiet anonymity, until now. With the release of Protomensch, Felsmann + Tiley present their fully realized artistic vision and step into the spotlight.

Mourn The Light kehren mit einem beeindruckenden neuen Album zurück, das epischen Heavy Metal mit einer düsteren, doomlastigen Atmosphäre verbindet und mit gewaltigen Vocals, emotional aufgeladenen Melodien und massiven Riffs überzeugt.

„Sorrow Feeds the Silence“ hebt den charakteristischen Stil der Band mit dramatischem Songwriting, dynamischen Arrangements und einem Sound, der an die Glanzzeiten des klassischen Metal erinnert und gleichzeitig mit moderner Intensität voranschreitet, auf ein neues Niveau. Von herzlichen, langsameren Passagen bis hin zu triumphalen Metal-Hymnen ist dieses Album das stärkste und vollständigste Statement in der Karriere der Band.
Unverzichtbar für alle, die kraftvollen, melodischen und atmosphärischen Heavy Metal suchen.

Für Fans von Candlemass, Dio, Grand Magus, Solitude Aeturnus, Savatage.

Written during a period of geographic and artistic transition, Country Music traces Severin Black’s movement from London to Berlin, unfolding through cycles of isolation and adaptation. Composed on the city’s periphery, the album’s material was continually dismantled and reassembled, reflecting a process of both artistic and personal reconstruction. The album marks a shift in production methodology, moving away from the immediacy of summed live takes toward a more deliberate, stratified multitrack approach. Sparse yet hypnotic, the record distills layers of sound formed by constant relocation, recurrent solitude, and a recalibration of instinct. In many ways, it echoes the experience of exile, not in a political sense but in the quieter, more insidious form of displacement that alters one’s perception of time and self. The music drifts between structure and dissolution, a reflection of existing at the threshold of different spaces—both physically and sonically.

The shedding of the previously used Nape moniker signaled a decisive sonic transformation, informed by extended time spent in the Pyrenees and a renewed engagement with folkloric material. Severin began playing the clarinet while making this record, and though its presence is minimal, it reveals itself as an interest in acoustic simulation, particularly the digital approximations of classical instruments that emerged within 1990s synthesizer technology. This interrogation of authenticity and mediation parallels the album’s thematic engagement with memory, where recollection functions not as a retrieval of fixed experience but as an iterative process of distortion and reconstruction. The relocation to Berlin reignited an affinity for grime music, evident in the syncopated brass of Pilgrim Wine and the fractured vocal layers of March, while memories of childhood in rural Wales permeate the record’s atmospheric spaces. The album includes contributions from longtime collaborator Vanessa Bedoret and Berlin-based artist Pavel Milyakov (Buttechno).

Country Music situates itself within an unresolved dialogue—between past and speculative futures, between folk lineage and digital fragmentation, between place and its embodied and sonic traces. What emerges is not a fixed statement but a process, an ongoing negotiation between what is left behind and what is brought forward. Words by Chantal Michelle

Mastered by Owen Pratt / Design by Severin Black / Center label image by Nicky Kidd / Back cover text by Alya Kanıbelli

Générique unveils a rich musical world that brings French chanson, indie rock and electronic textures together. The five tracks, recorded at La Frette Studios in Paris, are brought to life by an ensemble of acclaimed Anglo-American musicians directed by Mercury Prize-winning producer James Ford and Loren Humphrey. Tinged with dark, mischievous poetry that glimmers with sensuality, Générique is a hymn to liberated women. A call to live and love freely.

Max In The World & Kroba is a collaboration between producer Max In The World and saxophonist Kroba.

The project began with the release of 2023’s Excursions on Bliss Point, a record that explored the space between club and home listening and became a favorite at many an early morning afters.

On Structures Of Feeling 1, the duo have conjured three cuts of dubby and expansive downtempo: dance music for dreaming, deep house for liminal states, body music awash in the feeling of living now, in these times, in these bodies.

Acoustic Bass: Nobuyoshi Ino
Acoustic Piccolo Bass: Isao Suzuki
Alto Saxophone: Sadao Watanabe
Arranged, Conducted, and Piano: Masahiko Satoh
Drums: Motohiko Hino
Guitar: Sadanori Nakamure

The beautiful new world that master bassist Isao Suzuki built with the support of a diverse group of musicians finally returns to life after nearly 50 years!

With his deep musical insight and collaboration among some of Japan’s finest jazz artists, Isao Suzuki created a work of timeless beauty that now resonates
once again in the modern era.

2026 Repress

Originally from Malaga but a Berlin resident for the past 13 years, Carlo is thrilled to unveil his first album released under his own record label, Bisiesto. This label stands out for its unique approach, releasing just one album every four years on leap day, February 29th. In contrast to his previous style, this album blends all his musical influences into a unique mixtape of instrumentals.

Reminiscent of Nightmares on Wax, Kid Loco, and Mushroom Jazz, this album offers a unique auditory experience. Lora Ute brings a hint of tangy mellowness to ‘Because’ balancing dreaminess with playful notes, while Jose Fernancaster, with his immaculate guitar skills, infuses ‘Todo Mal’ with sexy guitar riffs and wahs. Intr0beatz's hip-hop touch enhances ‘Lemon Haze’, while Black Loops, a percussionist at heart, collaborates on ‘Midnight Cruiser’ to encapsulate the solitude of night-time city cruising with a lo-fi sound. Piek rounds off ‘Esperanza’ with an empowering bassline, tying the track together with a golden ribbon.

London-based producer Tar Blanche, also known as a member of the dreampop band Yumi Zouma, unveils How to Dance Freely Without Social Anxiety, a 7-track journey through jazz-house, deep house, and chill-out lounge.
With a sound that resonates alongside artists like dublon, Table, and Berlioz, the English producer blends ambient textures, refined guitar riffs, and emotive productions, crafting an intimate yet hypnotic atmosphere. Signed to Délicieuse Records, Tar Blanche continues to push boundaries, cementing his place as one of the most exciting producers in modern electronic music.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

As the fifth chapter in the band's discography, " The Neonai" arrived at a critical juncture in Lake of Tears' career, marking both an end and a reluctant new beginning. Released in 2002, three years after the melancholic masterpiece Forever Autumn, the album came to life under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Despite the commercial and critical success of its predecessor (the band's best- selling album to date) Lake of Tears found themselves adrift, unsupported by their label at a time when the world expected them to rise higher than ever. Instead of world tours and deserved recognition, the band withdrew, disillusioned, and made the difficult decision to put all activities on hold. But one last obligation remained: to deliver a final album to Black Mark Productions. What could have been a soulless, contract- bound release turned out to be anything but. "The Neonai" pulses with haunting melodies, infectious refrains, and a deeper embrace of keyboards and electronic textures, without ever losing the emotional gravity and sorrowful beauty that define Lake of Tears.

If this album was truly written "in haste," then let us hope Daniel Brennare continues to compose under pressure, for rarely has urgency sounded so inspired. As with the previous vinyl releases, we do not single out any specific tracks. Each song, like every Lake of Tears album, carries its own unique charm, its own shade of shadow and light. "The Neonai" is not simply a continuation, it is a transformation, an echo from a band caught between endings and new beginnings. Another gem in the band's catalogue, a masterpiece where the doom/ gothic equation tilts gracefully in favor of the latter. A deeply cherished album, long adored by Lake of Tears' devoted followers, who have waited patiently for 23 years to finally see it released on vinyl. After all, every ending is but the beginning of something new. And as we've said before: The end for Lake of Tears has not yet come, and we truly hope it won't come for a long, long time.

It will expand your mind into the depths of psychedelic solitude and the haunting chambers of darkness within. If you so dare, mastermind Astral Shadow will be your guide through the untamed worlds of Black Metal and Darkwave. But beware, for if you choose to travel this path you may lose yourself and forever go mad

Äktaro stands for äkta (genuine) and ro (calm): music shaped by the simplicity and solitude of Swedish nature. This album was recorded during a winter week in a small family cabin in the Swedish woods, where cold days and a warm fireplace set the tone. The music sits between Scandinavian folk, jazz influences, ambient elements, and minimalist improvisation. Using analogue recording gear, traditional Swedish songs, and inspiration from Jan Johansson, it became a warm and personal collection in which place, time, and memory are clearly present. The music offers room for calm and reflection, much like the atmosphere during the recording week.

"Huntress" by She Spread Sorrow (Alice Kundalini) is the story of a huntress and her morbid and psychotic relationship with her prey. The protagonist is Blue, a girl whose existence is marked by obsession with another woman of the same age and by nightmares that leave her without peace. Between love and psychosis, a tragic story is consumed, which vibrates in the stomach, like the music that accompanies it - dark and hypnotic death industrial, with moments of dark ambient, power electronics and noise.Inspired by Kundalini’s nightmares and her fervent world of dreams, "Huntress" was born after 3 years of intense recordings. It pursues the need to whisper secret, forbidden tales and to stimulate the deepest shadows of the human being, exploring the boundaries between the delicate and the violent; between love and obsession; between fantasy and madness."Huntress" is the soundtrack of a tragic game between opposites in a reality of total solitude.

Naked Lunch - Songs for the Exhausted (Reissue) 2004 markierte für Naked Lunch einen radikalen Neuanfang. Nach dem kometenhaften Aufstieg in den 90ern, geplatzten Major-Deals und finanziellen Katastrophen stand die österreichische Band vor dem Aus. Doch statt aufzugeben, zog sich das Quartett mit Produzent Olaf Opal (u.a. The Notwist) in ein Studio zurück und schuf über drei Jahre hinweg ein Werk, das als "nicht für möglich gehaltenes Meisterwerk" (Der Standard) gilt. Songs for the Exhausted ist kein leichtes Album: dunkel, intensiv, sperrig - und dennoch tröstend. Es erzählt von Müdigkeit und Wiedergeburt, von kompromissloser Kunst fernab des Pop-Business. 22 Jahre später erscheint dieses Kultalbum erstmals als Vinyl-Reissue bei Tapete Records - ein Muss für Liebhaber anspruchsvoller Indie-Musik.

It’s the first long play, and the third major release from this melodramatic astronaut. The album captures fragments of bitter sweet memories - unrelated separately, but tells a story of one’s search for comfort in solitude when put together.

Nine years forward Sublee returns to Metereze with an album that echoes a
life lived in sound.
Crafted like a sonic memoir, “Youmanity” traces the emotional arc from the
energy of packed dancefloors to the introspective solitude on the road and the run
back home.
His signature hypnotic strips of the genres, acid flashbacks and immersive ambient
landscapes are stitched together with raw field recordings from airports, sleepless
backstage corridors and the stillness of nature as the world drifts by.
Intimate yet expansive, Youmanity is a journey through the rhythm and
connection of nightlife and the quiet reflective spaces in between.

American ambient powerhouse zake is back with a meditation on stillness, memory and the quiet power of seasonal change. Rooted in the Midwestern winter that inspires much of his work, his latest album Cantus for Winter in Six Parts unfolds in slow-moving analogue drones, soft hiss and faint environmental textures that are both intimate and expansive and true to his signature style. Each piece drifts gently into the next, evoking cracked wood, falling snow, distant strings and the eerie calm of frozen landscapes. By the time the 19-minute finale arrives, you are lost in a world of solitude and reflecting deeply on many things that will ultimately leave you feeling restored.

On her fourth full-length album as Shedir, Sardinian sound artist Martina Betti offers a profound meditation on what it means to be human on the threshold of uncertainty.

We Are All Strangers is a series of ambient tapes-tries shaped by duality and introspection, where sound becomes a space to explore the tension between identity and ambiguity, presence and disappearance, connection and solitude. Inspired by the idea that we are all strangers, however, first and foremost to ourselves, Betti crafts seven fluid, slow-burn compositions that inhabit a sociological liminal zone—what she comments as an “inner elsewhere.”

These aren’t songs in the traditional sense, but evolving sonic environments that feel like emotional states made audible. Environmental textures, submerged electronics, and deep low-end pulses coalesce into a dreamlike architecture of sound: immersive, fragile, and quietly transformative.

Rather than offering answers or closure, the album invites us to live in radical openness—to stop trying to define everything we see and feel, and instead bathe in what remains unnamed. In this sense, We Are All Strangers is an invitation: to sit with uncertainty, to embrace the unfinished, and to find resonance even in our collective disconnection.

For listeners drawn to the introspective frequencies of Rafael Anton Irisarri, Félicia Atkinson, or Lawrence English, Betti’s music offers a similarly haunting and immersive experience—one where strangeness is not a flaw, but a starting point. In her hands, ambient music becomes a kind of reflective shelter: a place to brush against each other in the dark and begin to learn, as she puts it, “the difficult art of closeness.”

His fourth album, City Music works as a counterpart to Morby’s acclaimed 2016 release Singing Saw, an autobiographical set that reflected the solitude and landscape in which it was recorded. Saw was imagined as “an old bookshelf with a young Bob and Joni staring back at me, blank and timeless. They live here, in this left side of my brain, smoking cigarettes and playing acoustic guitars while lying on an unmade bed.” And now follows City Music, the yang to its yin, the heads to its tails. It is a collection crafted using the other side of its creator’s brain, the jumping off point perhaps best once again encapsulated by an image. “Here, Lou Reed and Patti Smith stare out at the listener,” explains Morby. “Stretched out on a living room floor they are somewhere in mid-70s Manhattan, also smoking cigarettes.” It finds Morby exploring similar themes of solitude, but this time framed by a window of an uptown apartment that looks down upon an international urban landscape “exposed like a giant bleeding wound.”

Inhale. Exhale. Remember to breathe. In that rhythm lies the pulse of being - the ancient echo of stars from which we are made. Breathing is the bridge between the inner cosmos and the outer void. When you breathe, you testify to existence itself: "I am." The Moonrover - a child of reason - abandoned on the cold, dead Moon. It does not feel time, know fear, or comprehend solitude. But a human, in its place, would understand: Silence is not emptiness. It is a mirror. And in that mirror arises the question: "If I am alone, and silence is infinite - who hears my breath?" The answer lies in the breath. Each inhale is resistance against entropy. Each exhale is an act of remembrance. To breathe is to remember that you are not just part of the Universe - you are its awakened part. And just as the Moonrover crawls across grey lunar plains, driven by an unknown purpose, so do you move through life, led by an inner light, until you realize: breath is not just life. It is a prayer sent into silence. And if you can hear it - you are alive.

In 2019, a brutal epileptic seizure changed my life - the first of more to come. I was forced into solitude, and in that quiet, music became my lifeline. In the following years, I poured everything I had into creating between you and me: a raw, DIY album that is a distillation of my lived experience during this time. The album explores emotional authenticity, freedom of expression, and acceptance: not as abstract concepts, but through visceral experiences that have fundamentally reshaped my art and my sense of self. As a listener, I invite you to explore your vulnerability by joining me in mine. This album is truly between you and me.

Ozzy Jones is a Dutch-Australian interdisciplinary artist whose music blends electronica with indie. Drawing from personal struggles and raw emotion after his seizures started, his debut album between you and me explores vulnerability, male identity, and authentic self-expression. Rooted in Amsterdam's vibrant creative scene, Ozzy's work fuses sound, visuals, and storytelling to create a deeply immersive and honest artistic experience.

From the depths of Greyscale’s acclaimed Mood Series, a new chapter rises to the surface: Deemkeyne – Ending Dynasty.

Across four immersive cuts, Deemkeyne sculpts a sound world rooted in the foundations of dub techno yet unafraid to push into fresh territories. Each track is built with raw textures and spatial awareness, weaving hypnotic patterns that echo through space like sonic architecture. Sub-bass pulses anchor the body while hazy chords and shifting atmospheres guide the mind into a deeper state.

This is dub techno and house at its most essential- music for true heads who understand the beauty in restraint, the subtle power of repetition, and the art of detail. Whether in the intimacy of a late-night set or the solitude of a headphone journey, Ending Dynasty unfolds with timeless weight and precision.

Pressed with care and presented on vinyl for the first time, this release is not just another record, it’s an invitation to step inside Deemkeyne’s world of shadows, echoes, and infinite space. A must-have addition to the shelves of anyone dedicated to the underground continuum.

2025 Repress

We're glad to share another vinyl relic by adept veteran Feral. 'Woodland' takes us on a trip through his immaculate craftsmanship and inimitable sound, lacing contemporary minimalist deep dub techno with tribal psychedelia.

Feral consistently carries a thread of spirituality throughout his work. Embodying the sound of deep techno through his passion for audio engineering, hardware experimentation and fascination for percussive instruments, as well as an affinity for the shamanic becomes apparent when we swirl in tribal timbres and rhythms.

Finding comfort in the solitude of his studio; the sounds of Feral unearth the path of his multidimensional world, transporting the listener to a haunting, yet grounding refuge within.

The record will be pressed in two color alternatives and come sheathed inside our custom cut hansaboard sleeves, printed in full color with an oil painting by Gabriella Holmstrom.

Embrace The Abandon is the new project by THE MON, the solo vision of Urlo, vocalist, bassist, and founding member of the Italian heavy-psych veterans Ufomammut.

Structured in two complementary chapters — Songs of Abandon (November 7th, 2025) and Songs of Embrace (March 6th, 2026) — the project tells a journey of duality: loss and surrender on one side, acceptance and rebirth on the other.
The first chapter, Songs of Abandon, is perhaps the most intimate and vulnerable work Urlo has ever created.
Born in a moment of solitude and personal darkness, the album originated from a radical exercise: writing one song a day, for nine consecutive days, using only acoustic guitar and voice.
A collection of stripped-down, emotionally raw ballads. Rooted in acoustic textures and intimate songwriting, these songs explore loss, vulnerability, and the quiet spaces left behind — a personal exorcism of what could have been but never was.
Later, these sketches were shaped into fully realized tracks, with lyrics and subtle layers of sound — not to overwhelm, but to underline the fragile, raw atmosphere that pervades them. The result is a stripped-down, emotionally charged collection that embodies an inner search: the power of music as a tool to face abandonment, to dig into oneself, and ultimately to glimpse the possibility of an embrace.
With Embrace The Abandon, THE MON reaffirms itself as one of the most personal and uncompromising projects.
It is a body of work that fuses vulnerability and strength, speaking directly to the listener with sincerity, leading them through shadow towards light.
An intimate yet powerful sound experience, intertwining the minimalism of acoustic folk with the dark, visionary tension that has always defined Urlo’s artistic path.

Repress!

200 COPIES ONLY

Nils Frahm has unexpectedly confirmed details of a new collection of solo piano music, his first album since 2022’s three-hour Music For Animals. Day will be released by LEITER on March 1st, 2024, and it will be available on limited edition vinyl as well as via all digital platforms. Recorded in the summer of 2022 in complete solitude and away from his studio at Berlin’s famed Funkhaus complex, it is preceded by a single, ‘Butter Notes’, out on January 19. Day may come as a surprise to those who, over the last decade, have watched Frahm shift slowly away from the piano compositions with which he first made his name in favour of a nonetheless still-distinctive approach that’s considerably more instrumentally complex and intricately arranged. In addition, in 2021, having spent the early part of the pandemic arranging his archives, he released the 80 minute, 23-track Old Friends New Friends, a compilation of previously unreleased piano music intended to enable him to ”start over” with a clean slate. Judging from the extended, ambient nature of Music For Animals, it proved a successful gambit, but Frahm has never been able to resist returning to his first love, and those who enjoyed earlier acclaimed albums like The Bells, Felt and Screws will once again revel in Day’s familiar, personal style. Day, which contains six tracks, three over the six-minute mark, is the first in a pair of albums Frahm has lined up for 2024. In keeping with their nature, however, he won’t be making a song and dance about the release. Instead, he’ll resume his ongoing world tour, which has already included fifteen sold-out dates at Berlin’s Funkhaus as well as a show at Athen’s Acropolis. It will continue with shows all over the world, among them several sold-out dates at London’s Barbican in July 2024, where he previously curated a weekend of music, film and art, Possibly Colliding, in 2016. The album is best enjoyed in the manner in which it was recorded, in the intimacy of a peaceful, cosy room. There are muffled pedal creaks on the cyclical, quietly jazzy ‘You Name It’ and, during the palliative ripples of ‘Butter Notes’’ arpeggios, the sound of dogs barking in the streets outside. The compassionate, hesitant ‘Tuesdays’ and emotionally ambiguous ‘Towards Zero’ linger with the poignant persistence of Harold Budd’s earliest work, while ‘Hands On’ is a sometimes brighter, airier tune that sets its own, deliberate pace, and, as he has on occasions before, ‘Changes’ sees Frahm employing elements of his instrument’s construction in a ‘prepared piano’ fashion. Characterised by its confidential mood, Day confirms that, while Frahm is arguably now best known for elaborate, celebratory concerts calling upon an arsenal of pianos, organs, keyboards, synths, even a glass harmonica, he’s still a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance.

Hekura are a Barcelona-based duo that create expansive soundscapes anchored in ritual minimalism. With influences ranging from the ethereal mysticism of Alice Coltrane to the hypnotic pulse of Steve Reich, their music explores the boundary between introspection and bold sonic exploration. Inspired by ethnographic traditions and the raw energy of Julius Eastman, their compositions fuse scattered percussion, shimmering textures, and hypnotic saxophone rhythms for moments of solitude and profound reflection. Hekura's work invites listeners to immerse themselves into a spectral world where tradition meets the avant-garde, offering a unique and evocative listening experience. Ernest and Edu met during their jazz studies at Taller de Musics in Barcelona. Their first conversation was about Charlie Haden Liberation Orchestra's "free jazz" version of the South African anthem, Nkosi Sikelele. That bond quickly translated into a shared world of listening, respect, experimentation, and sound that crystallized in Hekura. Edu Pons is a saxophonist and a music teacher at Taller de Mùsics in Barcelona. His music ranges from jazz to folk or from classical to free improvisation yet with his own distinctive voice. Ernest Pipó is a guitarist and composer from a small town in La Garrotxa. Currently based in Barcelona, he primarily focuses on music production and soundtrack composition. His influences range from jazz, electronica, noise, pop, and, although he dares to admit it, also ambient. For fans of: John Tchicai (with strings), Steve Reich, Arv & Miljö (Discreet Music, 2024)

Unlike anything we have heard from her before, Okkyung Lee returns to Shelter Press with "Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music For Your Mundane Activities", a deeply intimate body of recordings at the juncture of ambient music, minimalism, and the baroque, that stands as radical intervention with what experimental music can be, and the place that organisations of sound occupy in our lives. For more than two decades, Okkyung Lee has stood at the forefront of the most radical trajectories of experimental music: a virtuosic cellist and improviser, renowned for her creative rigour and emotive depth. Particularly noteworthy for her range, dexterity, and adaptability, over the last five years Lee's output has revealed unexpected shifts and developments that move far afield from the realms of free improvisation for which she is most well known. 2020's "Yeo - Neun", a heart-wrenching, ambient chamber work - drawing inspiration from the Korean popular music of her youth - was issued by Shelter Press to great critical response, followed closely by "Teum (The Silvery Slit)" - one of a series engrossing electroacoustic works created at Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris - on Portraits GRM, and then "Na-Reul" in 2021, regarded by Lee as a closing statement of more than two decades living in New York, which set the precedent of her allowing her emotions to fully occupy the forefront of the music for the first time. Marking her return to Shelter press, "Just Like Any Other Day": Background Music For Your Mundane Activities", encounters Lee upturning the apple cart once again, weaving a profoundly intimate artistic statement on completely unexpected terms. Like its three aforementioned predecessors, "Just Like Any Other Day" belongs to broadening shift in Lee's approach to composing that roughly aligns with her return to her native South Korea, having lived in the United States since her late teens. Infused with a deep reengagement with her own culture and relationship to memory, it is equally a response to those critical challenges and questions provoked by significant life change. Worked on in isolation, and continuously returned to, over the course of four years, the album's nine pieces began with a simple recognition that experimental music is not always what we imagine it to be. It is a practice and a pursuit - a music for which, at its inception, the outcome is unknown - rather than an idiom defined by certain syntaxes, approaches, and qualities of structure and sound. From this departure point, Lee began to inquire after the utility of music itself: what is it for, what does it do, and what place does it (or can it) occupy in our lives? This solitary and durational journey, each composition gradually moving through different phases and evolutions over years, led Lee toward uncharted ground: a music that is not only playful, introspective, and seductive, but also intended to provoke a relationship to experimental music beyond its normative expectations. Rather active or deep listening, it pursues passive listening. Rather than a grand statement, it is discreet. Rather than virtuosity, it embraces the elegant and direct. Even more strikingly, for the first time, the music of "Just Like Any Other Day" encounters Lee leaving the cello entirely behind. Created at home on keyboard, computer, and an inexpensive cassette recorder, "Just Like Any Other Day" presents a remarkable form of ambient music - organisations of sound that become their own environment, to be occupied - intended, as the album's subheading infers, as Background Music For Your Mundane Activities. An expansion of the creative pathways opened by the Korean pop imbued compositions of Yeo - Neun, aspects of electronic process explored by "Teum (The Silvery Slit)", and the emotive foregrounding of "Na-Reul", each of the pieces presented across the two sides of "Just Like Any Other Day" implies something far greater than the limits of its own temporarily: a mood, provocations of memory and place, mirrors for the solitude within which it was made, and palpable emotion lingering just out of grasp. For Lee, each of the album's compositions could be continued or looped for an indeterminate duration: straddling a ground between the minimal and the baroque, enveloping the listener in endless cycles of appreciating, repetitive and rhythmical notes, flirting with the melodic and implying a disembodied imagism that borders on the profound. Remarkably beautiful and direct, Okkyung Lee's "Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music For Your Mundane Activities" - issued by Shelter Press on vinyl - represents a radical reconfiguration of experiential music, stripped to its bare essence in defiance of the widely presumed aesthetic signifiers. Unlike anything we've heard from her before, this immersive body of intimate recordings not only reveals new dimensions of Lee's striking range as an artist, but also of how we might regard and occupy music itself: an ambience to lived and felt like a second skin.

37 years after the release of her multi-million selling debut album "Ancient Heart" Tanita Tikaram will release the sequel entitled "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)". The long-awaited new album reveals the emotional and societal differences between the woman Tanita was at just 18 when she made "Ancient Heart" to the woman she is today, taking in four decades of life experience. Her first album in almost a decade, "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)" is an album of haunting beauty and exquisite musicianship underplaying her unique voice that tells a masterful story of emotional, political and personal truths. When it was released in 1988, the multi-million selling "Ancient Heart" was the story of an uncertain 18-year-old brown gay woman living in middle England feeling like a stranger in her own home. Almost 40 years later that same woman, now feeling like a stranger in her own country as politics and society become more divisive. "LIAR (Love Is A Right)" is a full circle moment: a comment on community and its importance for all our futures and the perfect accompaniment to her classic breakthrough.

37 years after the release of her multi-million selling debut album "Ancient Heart" Tanita Tikaram will release the sequel entitled "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)". The long-awaited new album reveals the emotional and societal differences between the woman Tanita was at just 18 when she made "Ancient Heart" to the woman she is today, taking in four decades of life experience. Her first album in almost a decade, "LIAR (Love Isn"t A Right)" is an album of haunting beauty and exquisite musicianship underplaying her unique voice that tells a masterful story of emotional, political and personal truths. When it was released in 1988, the multi-million selling "Ancient Heart" was the story of an uncertain 18-year-old brown gay woman living in middle England feeling like a stranger in her own home. Almost 40 years later that same woman, now feeling like a stranger in her own country as politics and society become more divisive. "LIAR (Love Is A Right)" is a full circle moment: a comment on community and its importance for all our futures and the perfect accompaniment to her classic breakthrough.

Konami Digital Entertainment und Laced Records tauchen in den Nebel, um den fesselnden und eindringlichen Soundtrack von SILENT HILL 2 (2024) auf Vinyl zu bringen.

Diese Doppel-LP enthält die wichtigsten Stücke des Soundtracks, sorgfältig arrangiert vom langjährigen Komponisten der Serie, Akira Yamaoka.

Yamaoka hat den Soundtrack für das von der Kritik gefeierte Remake von Bloober Team komplett überarbeitet. Brandneue, neu eingespielte Cues für SILENT HILL 2 aus dem Jahr 2024 fangen die unheimliche Atmosphäre der titelgebenden Stadt perfekt ein, indem sie Elemente von Trip-Hop und Industrial Rock mit düsterer Atmosphäre und Musique Concrète verbinden. Für Fans der beliebten Survival-Horror-Serie ist der neue Soundtrack vertraut und neu zugleich.

Der Score führt Yamaokas unnachahmliches Sounddesign und seine ätherischen Arrangements zu neuen Höhen und zeigt seine kreative Entwicklung seit der Veröffentlichung des Originalspiels im Jahr 2001. Die Musik geht über die funktionale Rolle eines Videospiel-Scores hinaus und ist sowohl ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Atmosphäre der SILENT HILL-Spiele als auch ein eigenständiges Werk, das eine Reise durch die dunklen Tiefen der menschlichen Psyche unternimmt.

Though Toronto rockers Hot Garbage’s signature tinge of moody, heavy psychedelia remains present on Precious Dream, their forthcoming sophomore album careens at high speeds into a darker world of searing post-punk riffs, grappling with themes of dread, loss, the resilience of the human spirit and the highs and lows of solitude. From the onset, elegant yet brutalist sonic architectures provide the scenery for an escape route, while cryptic poetic spurts act as surreal signage. By the end of the journey, we are left with a strangely pleasant void, but also with an uncontrollable urge to backtrack into the outfit’s beautiful 36-minute musical trap. True to form, prolific producer Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck, No Joy, !!!, etc.) – with whom, Hot Garbage recorded their critically-acclaimed debut full-length, RIDE – does right by the band, masterfully harnessing the four-piece’s unique brand of rock & roll, setting in motion a parallel universe where phones are not what they seem, lobotomy has its merits, lower is actually better, and tunnels stretch the very fabric of spacetime. Fans of Sonic Youth, Frankie and the Witch Fingers or Joy Division should welcome a confused stroll down this romantic if dystopian opus, for a cathartic and tender sense of resolution awaits.

”The Birth of Bop” kann ab heute hier vorbestellt werden und erscheint am 31. März in verschiedenen Formaten, darunter ein Vinyl-Boxset mit fünf 10-Zoll-LPs, ein 2-CD-Format und digitale Editionen. Jeder Titel der Sammlung wurde von Joe Tarantino bei Joe Tarantino Mastering frisch restauriert und neu gemastert, während die physischen Formate neue, ausführliche Liner Notes des GRAMMY-gekrönten Autors und Moderators Neil Tesser sowie alte Fotos aus dieser Zeit enthalten. Es ist eine unverzichtbare Einführung in
diese wichtige Periode der Jazzmusik: The Savoy 10-Inch LP Collection enthält 30 ausgewählte Aufnahmen von vielen der Pioniere des Genres, darunter Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Allen Eager, Fats Navarro und viele mehr.
Diese bahnbrechenden Aufnahmen aus den Jahren 1944 bis 1949
trugen maßgeblich zur Entwicklung des modernen Jazz bei und brachten junge Künstler dazu, die Grenzen des Genres in einer Zeit zu erforschen, in der Swingmusik der vorherrschende Sound war und Big Bands den Äther beherrschten.

The "THEE 30TH" project, launched to commemorate the 30th anniversary of THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT's debut, is re-releasing the vinyl version
of their 6th album "Rodeo Tandem Beat Specter."
Released as a 2-disc set on 180g heavyweight vinyl cut from the latest remaster.

"Astral Americana hymns hovering somewhere between the dirt and the stars" Pitchfork

"Mood music for moments of solitude, best experienced without distraction" The Times

"Overwhelmingly effective and ravishingly beautiful" The Wire

American Dust is an ode to the beauty of the American Southwest, where vast desert landscapes hold stories both stark and tender. Eve Adams’ characteristic folk noir weaves a vivid tapestry of love, sacrifice and quiet revelation, conjuring images of dust storms, stray dogs and far off trains.

The high desert of California is a vast and confounding place. Equally inspiring as it is punishing, it’s a landscape that carries magic in its deep dark nights, holding stories both tender and stark in the coarse layer of dust that settles upon everything. It’s long been a source of inspiration for musicians, writers, and painters, each of them adding to the same current, carried forward over time, through hope and hardship and the passing years.

Somewhere out there in that broad and boundless landscape, Eve Adams has been living her own desert life, quietly writing the follow-up to 2021’s Metal Bird LP. Where that album sang of liminal space, the dream-like turbulence of Hollywood’s golden age, American Dust is far more rooted in traditional storytelling; a eulogy for the American Dream channeled through that sweeping part of the country that holds such power and mystery. Slipping into different and varied costumes throughout its ten songs, it finds Eve not just observing the people around her but stepping into their shoes and peeling back the layers of their quiet lives.

Adams writes from within. A few years ago she moved out there, to “the middle of nowhere”, finding a slowness that didn’t exist in the city, and she knows only too well about the mystical nature of the land and those who live within it. Weaving together themes of grit and romance, American Dust holds its focus on the bittersweet poetry of lives lived in solitude, most notably the women who sustain life at the center of it all. “There’s something very radical about domestic life,” Adams says of this thread. “So many women live their entire lives behind closed doors, completely in the shadows. Within those lives is such sacrifice, devotion, and love. I wanted to honor that: the poetry in the mundane, the longing in the repetition. The way love survives boredom and dust and time.”

Eve is joined on American Dust by Canadian musician Bryce Cloghesy, aka Military Genius of Crack Cloud, who plays throughout and also helped produce the album. Musically bold and vivid, it’s an ambitious and detailed stride forward from what’s come before, the scope of the LP’s narrative reflected in the radiant sweep of the playing. On top of gentle piano and guitar, gorgeous strings drift through the album, lending the songs a woozy sense of romanticism; a collaboration with Gamaliel Traynor (Cello) and Caroline’s Oliver Hamilton (Violin).

For all the drama that’s coiled around these songs, it’s the recurring notion of love and hope fighting against everything that holds true throughout American Dust. Musically it’s lush and vibrant, intimate and cinematic side by side, and always bursting with warmth. But it’s what it holds in its weary bones that elevates it to something truly special, something more than just a collection of songs penned in the heart of the desert. The characters it speaks of, and from, feel shadowed but wholly real, like they’re bursting to share their stories that have remained hidden for years and years and they allow Eve Adams to grow as a songwriter right in front of our eyes.

“The same swirling dust that clung to the covered wagons of my ancestors as they crossed the Great American Desert is the same dust my great-great-grandmother swept off her porch during the Dust Bowl of 1936 in Oklahoma, is the same dust that blows in through the cracks in my windows here in the desert, carrying stories from a time long gone,” Eve says, reflecting on the personal narrative that runs through her new album.

“It’s not just dust—it’s American Dust, the kind that settles into the bones of a family and never leaves. I think about that dust as a symbol of the passage of time. I hope this album will be part of that same current, carrying forward for the next generations of my family to find. I’ve been lucky enough to have journals and poetry from my ancestors that documents their lives during times of pure hope and pure hardship. I’d like to think of this album as a contribution to that family history.”

Brenda (Hudson Whitlock of Surprise Chef / Karate Boogaloo / The Pro-Teens) presents new album 'Bath Time', a suite of heartbreaking, cinematic indie-soul ballads from the hotbed of Melbourne, Australia.



Brenda encompasses the left-field soul sensibilities for which Whitlock has come to be recognised in cult instrumental groups Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo and The Pro-Teens, alongside heartfelt, introspective lyricism delivered in a sincere, delicate falsetto. Stylistically, lines can be drawn to the 1960s sweet soul ballads of The Delfonics, Jean-Claude Vannier's vivid arrangements for Serge Gainsbourg, and, of course, the unmistakable flavour of Melbourne's cinematic soul movement à la other Whitlock exploits Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo.



'Bath Time' contains ten entrancingly melancholic ballads that earnestly express Whitlock's dramatic indie-soul sensibilities; encompassing the classically introspective nature of the poetic lyricist and the idiosyncratic use of soulful instrumental arrangements. The songs encompass themes of old romantic habits dying hard, familial rifts and unrequited love.



True to his modest vagabond nature, Whitlock has 'released' six Brenda albums to date, each uploaded exclusively to bandcamp, gladly resigning the music to the underground. Whilst he created theses albums in solitude, playing each instrument himself, 'Bath Time' sees Whitlock relinquishes the isolationism of previous works in favour of including his trusted inner circle of friends and collaborators: Surprise Chef's Lachlan Stuckey and Jethro Curtin on guitar and keyboard respectively, Karate Boogaloo's Darvid Thor on bass, and production from Henry Jenkins (Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo, Frollen Music Library).

AVAILABLE IN BLACK ICE WITH ORANGE AND BLUE SPLATTER (COK015WW)