Cerca:third son

Baptized with a name derived from astrophysical theories about dark matter and black holes, THE HOLEUM was formed in 2014 in Alicante, Spain. Founded by former members of NahemaH, Demised, quantumXperience, Hela, Neptunian Sun, and Priest of Dawn, the quintet set out to push the boundaries of heavy music and to intensify the emotional impact of darkness in sound. Their concept is both cosmic and sonic: “THE HOLEUM is related to the dark matter that forms the black holes in the universe. THE HOLEUM is not a black hole, but black holes are formed by The Holeum. That is the idea from which we extract our concept – we are a sonic and cosmic vision of the sublime.” With their third album “Ensis” (2025), the band continues its journey through experimental metal, death doom, melodic metal, and post-metal. This work is more than a continuation – it is a condensation and expansion of their previous soundscape. “Ensis” reveals itself as finely nuanced, challenging, yet at the same time profoundly sensitive and multifaceted. The songs unfold like cosmic landscapes where heaviness and melancholy meet subtle emotionality. The intensity remains palpable, but it is complemented by a deeper sensitivity that draws the listener into a fragile balance between harshness and delicacy. “Ensis” is an album that demands and touches at once – a work that makes the complexity of human existence audible in the mirror of the universe.

Limited to 300 copies. Yellow Vinyl. Approaching Doom is the third album by Monsternaut, a darker and heavier representation of the band's established devotion to groovy riffs and to the point compositions. The songs took shape over several years, during which the arrival of a new drummer opened the door to more adventurous rhythms and riff ideas, pushing the band into new territory while staying true to their roots. Sonically, the album leans toward the grit and weight of early 90s metal rather than polished modern production, giving it a raw and immediate edge. Its lyrics and atmosphere follow a naturally darker direction as well, adding an extra layer of tension beneath the grooves. Recorded entirely the old fashioned way, straight to analog tape with no digital editing, it captures the band playing as they are, relying on performance, chemistry, and feel rather than correction. The result is a record that hits harder, feels more focused, and marks a confident new chapter in Monsternaut's evolution.

Nightfall marks Maoh's first release on The Third Room, channelling a sound distilled through years of deep exploration. Four tracks evoke natural forces and instinctive motion, reshaping the dancefloor into a psychedelic, collective yet deeply personal journey driven by a relentless, precise groove. Maoh commits to a tightly defined sonic language born from tribal percussion and restrained rhythmic dynamic, creating a physical and grounded listening experience. Deeply rooted in repetition and pulse, the release remains precise in its contemporary execution, serving as a bridge capable of uniting listeners in shared momentum. As the tool-driven composition unfolds into storylines, revealing vast and unfamiliar landscapes, sparse voices surface to complete the narrative like a final breath, reminding us of the human presence within the universal expanse that the release encapsulates. Ultimately, Nightfall traces a continuous line from early collective expression to a forward-facing, technological present. Rhythm functions here as ritual and joint movement, articulated with clarity and intent.

A companion piece to the album, Right Now!, this collection contains additional recordings from those sessions, as well as remixes and reimaginings of songs from Right Now! All songs, except for “Reap What You Sow,” have never been released. The psychedelic improv supergroup featuring Dave Alvin and Victor Krummenacher (Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker, Monks of Doom, Eyelids), David Immerglück (Counting Crows, John Hiatt, Monks of Doom, Camper Van Beethoven), drummer Michael Jerome (Richard Thompson, Better Than Ezra, John Cale), and singer/songwriter Jesse Sykes (Jesse Sykes & The Sweeter Hereafter) continues to defy expectations and genre on Spellbinder!

Laurel Halo returns with an album of original soundtrack music, composed for the film Midnight Zone by visual artist Julian Charrière. Following the path of a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it descends through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone — a remote abyssal plain in the Pacific Ocean, rich in rare metals and increasingly targeted for deep-sea mining — the film traces a descent into one of Earth’s last untouched ecosystems.


Charrière’s film reveals the deep not as void, but as a luminous biome teeming with fragile life: bioluminescent creatures, swirling schools of fish, and elusive predators. The suspended lens becomes an abyssal campfire, attracting species caught in the tides of uncertainty, their futures hanging in the balance.


Echoing this tension, Halo’s compositions evoke a sensory freefall, where gravity falters and light and sound flicker in uncertain rhythms. Midnight Zone is a sonic drift through the space between what we seek to extract, fail to understand, and must protect.


Halo’s score evokes the life that exists beyond our physical airbound capacity. The material features long, subtle passages of electro-acoustic ambient, drone and sound design, slowly flowing and unfolding with rich detail. The music, composed largely on a Montage 8 synthesizer and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano at the Yamaha studios in New York City, possesses an uncanny quality: that of synthetic waveforms being amplified and sung through the stringboard of the physical body of the TransAcoustic piano. Combined with stacks of violin and viol da gamba, the music on Midnight Zone possesses trace elements of a human hand in an otherwise sunken landscape. Patient, submerged, and alive. The album will be the third on Halo’s imprint, Awe.


The film is central to Charrière’s current solo exhibition Midnight Zone. The exhibition engages with underwater ecologies, exploring the complexity of water as an elemental medium affected by anthropogenic degradation. Reflecting upon its flow and materiality, profundity and politics, its mundane and sacral dimensions, the solo show acts as a kaleidoscope, inviting us to dive deep.

LA-based producer Real Bad Man and Detroit rapper Boldy James return with their third collaborative album, Conversational Pieces, out now via Real Bad Man Records. The project features the singles “Come Back Around” featuring DC polymath dreamcastmoe, and “It Factor” featuring El-P. Their creative chemistry has never been clearer: this new album sees the duo pushing into fresh sonic territory through an expanded production palette that Real Bad Man continues to evolve and experiment with.

Recorded immediately after their 2022 album Killing Nothing and revisited in 2023 following Boldy’s serious car accident, Conversational Pieces is a deliberate, reflective body of work. It captures two distinct periods in the artists’ lives—documenting their growth as musicians, fathers, and long-time collaborators. The album’s artwork, along with the accompanying single art, draws inspiration from Rorschach inkblot tests—abstract visuals that invite interpretation and spark conversation, mirroring the album’s introspective nature.

We are repressing Neil Young's 2004 Greatest Hits. The new pressing on 180g black 2LP vinyl will be available for a "release date" of 6th March for all retail accounts ex. Amazon.
Greatest Hits is the third hits compilation, and presents 16 of Neil Young's best-known songs, spanning his solo career from 1969-1992, including "Down By The River", "After The Gold Rush", "Old Man", "Heart Of Gold", and "Rockin In The Free World".
The original version of the LP came with an additional 7" which is excluded on this pressing.

Sundays is the debut full length from Oakland-based Tanukichan, aka multi-instrumentalist Hannah van Loon. At surface level, the album sounds just how the title describes: hazy, dreamy, reflective, just like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Upon second and third listens, the dreamy music unveils a deeper world: an ever present sense of longing, an endless state of summer and a period of instability that plagues us all at one point or another in our lives.
Raised in San Francisco, van Loon started out making classical, bluegrass and jazz music as well as playing in numerous bands in the area before deciding to make something more personal. What started with a few unfocused demos, with van Loon playing all the instruments herself in her house, became a studio experience and viable collection of music after her friend Anthony Ferraro of Astronauts, Etc. introduced her to Company Records founder Chaz Bear (Toro Y Moi, Les Sins). After collaborating on her 2016 EP Radiolove, van Loon and Bear set out to make a much more sonically cohesive release, with both the producer and artist playing all the instruments on the record. The result is a slice of dream pop that could only come from the combination of the laid back atmosphere of California and the nostalgic and often difficult memories that are generally associated with coming of age.
To van Loon, the tracks of Sundays are a form of contemplation and approaching life’s issues from a different and less complicated perspective. “Sometimes for me, it feels easier to write songs about things than to talk. A lot of things in life are layered and paradoxical, but with songs it always seems simpler.”
Opening track “Lazy Love” sets the stage, sonically and lyrically, for the rest of the album, combining vulnerable lyrics with gorgeous, fuzzy tones. Above pummeling synths and guitar tones, van Loon sings “you know I'd do anything/don't you know I try my best/if I could wake up when the sun is rising” showing the album’s constant theme of balancing always wanting to be the best person you can be, while also feeling a low level joy at letting life play out as it wants to. “Natural” is a track that feels perfect for a road trip, a track that hums away with a driving beat, culminating in the sheer excitement of finally having a night alone with someone you’ve loved for a while, among many highs and lows: “a window too bright/it's natural sunlight/grey fades to white lie/kiss you tonight/it's natural delight/help me feel right.” The tracks collectively address a deep rooted sense of yearning for someone, something new, while also feeling content with your life; a realization that maybe the places you’ve always belonged aren’t where you should be anymore, that suddenly you might be looking for something completely different.
“I settled on the name Sundays as the title of the record because it encapsulated how the record felt to me,“ van Loon says. “I was thinking about the laziness, and dreamy clarity that you can feel after a late night, waking up having to face the world with a new perspective.” Sundays encapsulates this feeling, a nostalgic way of looking at the world, waking up feeling like a slightly different person than before, looking back on life, not sure if you can tackle what’s next, but doing your best, day in and day out

"deathcrash’s third album, Somersaults, glimmers with an everyday euphoria. The London-based slowcore/ post-rock quartet has always had an affinity for building worlds only to crush them. From their breakout EP, People thought my windows were stars (2021), through two critically acclaimed studio albums, Return (2022) and Less (2023), they have been both the architects and the destroyers, the creationists and the ones manning the flood barrier. But, recorded between Black Box Studio in the Loire Valley and Haggerston’s Holy Mountain, Somersaults is almost joyful.

Its ten tracks are more vocal heavy than any of the band’s catalogue – think Mark Linkous via The Kinks – but lyrically, Somersaults resists revelation. For all its abrasion, phrases appear half-swallowed, broken off at the edge of meaning, consumed by the smaller textures of living. “Thirty, no career, it fucking worries me / And doing the band doesn’t help,” Banks sings in ‘NYC’. But, “This life is the best life,” he finishes in ‘CMC’ on top of the ambient white noise of an office printer, thankful that the band is still there, “still making noise in the doorway.”

Their role as caretakers of Duster, Low and Codeine’s slowcore lineage is all across Somersaults – songs scud to a narcotic crawl, sound monolithic and inwards before spotlighting a crystalline nothing. Cathartic builds are muddied with tenderness, the bass a heavy grounding, the drums an exhausted heartbeat grasping for air. But more so than ever, even the silence feels collaborative – a gesture of communal trust – friends celebrating the room they’ve made for each other’s ghosts, and some of the biggest, brightest songs they’ve made to date."

Aspen Edities is pleased to present Aerial, the third album of the experimental quartet Oker.

Whereas their album debut Husene våre er museer (2018) and its follow-up Susurrus (2021) focused on collective and individual compositions, Aerial features two longform pieces of fully improvised music, sculpted from the recognizable acoustic sound palette that the quartet has developed across a decade of extensive touring. The titles, Aerial, Equinoctial Tide and Crepuscular Rays refer to meteorological and planetary phenomena, and in Oker’s interplay we hear light, wind, clouds, and tidal cycles transpire as shimmering, roaring, rubbing, coalescing and diverging environments of sound. The sonic stoicism and minimalism in their expression is challenged by frictioning micro-chaoses, combining to create calm, winding paths of musical detail and form. Echoing our planet and its meteorological reality, Aerial yields both consistency and perpetual change.

Bringing together some of the most compelling musicians from the Norwegian improvised music scene, Oker operates as an acoustic experimental quartet devoted to the amalgamation of improvised and composed modes of expression. Their music combines fine-tuned tonalities, deconstructed grooves, acoustic noise and other sonic events, taking their rather conventional instrumentation as a point of departure. Textures in gradual change coexisting with responsive and spontaneous gestures create a varied but coherent musical ecosystem which can be airy or dense, dry or blooming. A certain minimalist or stoic approach to sound production is an overarching and recurring element in all of Oker’s music, differentiating their sound from the majority of music in the field of improvised music or free jazz.

New Zealand–born, Melbourne-based guitarist, producer, songwriter, DJ and recording artist Lance Ferguson returns with a killer follow-up: two new 7" releases from his third instalment of the acclaimed Rare Groove Spectrum series, offering a fresh set of reimagined and reworked classics. From '70s Australian jazz-funk and Latin-fusion to big-band soul and golden-era funk, Ferguson blends crate-digger sensibilities with modern studio craft.

The "Dominoes / Cold Bear" 7" features the exclusive track "Cold Bear", a fiery reinterpretation of The Gaturs' New Orleans funk classic. Sitting alongside it is a fan favourite among modern funk and soul lovers: Jungle's "Dominoes", stripped back, amped up and played live with an unpolished, authentic feel that pays homage to the essence of the original.

A limited vinyl reissue of the third album of Dictaphone from 2012, with a new artwork.

Already formed in the late nineties in Berlin, Dictaphone was born by Brussels-bred multi-instrumentalist Oliver Doerell. In 2000 Oliver Doerell found a partner in Berlin's Roger Döring, who shares Doerell's love for the Brussels-based music of the eighties. In the following years the duo and several guest musicians (e.g. Stephan Wöhrmann (SWOD) , Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) & more) released the critically highly acclaimed "m.= addiction" (2002), the "Nacht" EP (2004) and "Vertigo II" (2006) via the City Centres Offices label of Thaddeus Herrmann and Shlom Sviri (Boomkat, Modern Love). In 2009 the violin player Alex Stolze joined the band. During their two decades of existence Dictaphone played shows in more than 20 countries with festival appearances at Mutek, Transmediale, Unsound, Benicassim & more. Their latest release "Poems from a rooftop" from 2012 came as a very limited edition through the Berlin-based boutique label Sonic Pieces. In 2017 the band released the long awaited third album "APR 70" on denovali. The label now also offers a reissue of the trio's past repertoire.

Dictaphone never make music for the sake of it, they always want to create something which was missing before. And they did.

West Mineral returns with lushly amorphous actions by Shiner, Pontiac Streator & Ben Bondy aka Shinetiac; together fused for an immersive flux of vapoured dub, chopped and droned Billie Eilish, and fidgety algorithmic jams.

There's not a single, specific sound you can peg to the West Mineral axis at this stage in the label’s evolution - it's rather a set of shared aesthetics that freely bend into various interconnected shapes. Shinetiac's contemptuous, critic-baiting gear is the ideal example; on their last album, 2023's 'Not All Who Wander Are Lost', skittery, ketamized IDM sparkled over Spice Girls samples and the Foo Fighters' 'Everlong' was transmuted into Sneaker Pimps-style trip-hop. 'Infiltrating Roku City' might be a little less blatant with its out-and-out poptimism, but it takes a similarly dim view of conservative "big ambient" snobbishness. Just a few minutes of 'Bluemosa' should be enough to let you know what's up; the overall character of the sound is hazed, with frozen pads and garbled, dubbed-out voices smudged into a mess of effects and samples. But it sups up different nuances as it wriggles, absorbing scampering breaks, dizzy acoustic guitar strums and half-heard wordless vocals, flipping in the third act to emerge from its shell as minimalist balearic folk-pop - something like Bon Iver doing 'Electric Counterpoint'.

Brooklyn's Shiner, Philly's Pontiac Streator and Berlin-based Ben Bondy navigate the labyrinthine streaming landscape, guided by their own private experiences of mindless doom-scrolling and cruising the darkest corners of YouTube. They formulated 'Infiltrating Roku City' while they were rehearsing last year and spent the winter stitching together various recordings and jams into a layered, dry-witted commentary on our algorithmic reality. Laden with inside jokes and refried memes, it's surprisingly elegant gear; handling the most unseemly elements like sonic recyclers, earnestly repurposing pop and nostalgia to create an atmospheric echo of contemporary reality.

Screwing Chief Keef's enduring 'Citgo', 'Clublyfe (hulu)' emphasises the original's AFX-pilled euphoria with Robert Miles-style piano hits, replacing Young Ravisu's brittle 128kbps trap rhythm with a glitchy rattle that picks up dembow spikes as it rolls. 'I Hate Being Sober' vaporises the Chicago drill pioneer's 'Hate Bein' Sober', blocking out his voice with glitchy, downsampled interference and elasticated Rhodes. The trio team up with Orange Milk's goo age on the sublime 'Crisis Angel', catching a ray of Malibu's sunshine in the process, and reduce Billie Eilish's voice to a Romance-does-Celine cinder on 'Billie', stretching it to fit next to gassed Future ad-libs and swooping 808 Mafia sub womps. And although the album takes a murky diversion on 'Roku Axes Ultra’, and a cloud-stepping centrepiece ‘Purelink’ in homage to the eponymous dubbed ambient dynamos, it's back on course with 'Jiafei (NETFLIX)', taking aim at TikTok bot videos and welding screams from Florida metal band Underoath to AI-strength vocal curlicues.

Carlo Troja, aka Don Carlos, from the Italian province of Varese, has been active as a DJ since the late 1970s. He
debuted as a producer in the late 1980s with the single "Alone" on Calypso Records (IRMA), which immediately became a cult hit on the global Deep House scene. His productions have always fused house rhythms with the sounds of
African-American jazz, sometimes bordering on disco, progressive, and electronic soul.
In 1992, his first album, "Mediterraneo," was released in the United States on IRMA USA, followed in 1993 by his
second, "Aqua," and several hit singles with the Montego Bay project with Stefano Tirone (Stone Inc.), all on IRMA
Records.
He reached the UK charts with Byron Stingley's production of the hit "You Make Me Feel," a remake of the classic
Sylvester song. He has performed in various European and American countries, as well as at the Ministry of Sound
and Turnmills in London.
In 2001, he released his third album, "Music in My Mind," featuring Kim Mazelle, Michelle Weeks, Taka Boom, and
Kevin Bryant.
A new album of re-edits of '90s-style songs, titled Livin' a Dream, was released in 2020, along with two compilation
volumes of Paradise House, both on IRMA Records.
With this new single, he continues to showcase his distinctive Soulful Paradise House sound, rooted in the
Mediterranean sound, as specified in the title.

21 songs are barely enough to show the "Many Faces of Memphis Electronic"! From less than a minute twisted psych pop and heartbreaking ballads to two minutes something fuzzy rockers, electronic r'n'r and sexy glam, you'll find all you need and much more in this incredible album! It takes at least 21 songs - and 30 Polaroids on the cover! - to show the "Many Faces of Memphis Electronic"! On the XYZ, Dum Dum Boys and NON! guitar player third solo album, entirely home recorded, you will find plenty of fuzzy bangers, trashy rockers, electronic r'n'r, lo fi disköpunk, sexy glam, twisted psych pop and heartbreaking ballads, 21 different faces on just 2 album sides! With the help of 60s fuzz pedals, analog synths, a wild organ, an out-of-space Theremin, raw drum machines and tons of delay, reverb and strange noises, all used to maximize the minimalism of the tracks, Memphis Electronic manages to create an orgy of arousing sounds, an overdose of aural pleasure, an irresistible avalanche of exciting songs, all ranging from 49 seconds snapshots to 2 minutes something instant classics!

Barabajagal is the seventh studio album, eighth album overall and most fascinatingly the third of our re-issue programme from British singer-songwriter extraordinaire Donovan. It was released in 1969 and again features production duties by Mickie Most.

Whilst remaining leftfield in spirit, there is a musical vulnerability to the latest iteration of Legss, and a newfound pop sensibility to their writing, which reflects a move to a more accessible sound. There is a security in inaccessibility, and shedding this cloak opens the band up to an earnestness at once exciting and nerve-wracking. Twinned with their signature world-building aesthetic, the new direction is reflected sonically by drummer Louis Grace, who co-produced the album with Balazs Altsach (Ugly, Katy J Pearson, Broadside Hacks) - set to be distributed by The state51 Conspiracy.

On the announcement of their debut album, Unreal, the band say:
“Unreal feels like the work of a lifetime. We can’t believe we’re still here to see it through, but we are and we couldn’t be prouder. The album is about miscommunication and feelings of unreality/the uncanny in everyday life; the tragic and the comic.”

ABOUT LEGSS
Merging intricate guitars, disquieting monologues and a rhythm section both technical and unruly, London’s Legss create a wholly unique sound.
After meeting and forming in London, Legss released their experimental, darkly satirical debut EP Writhing Comedy in 2019, which received heavy airplay on BBC 6 Music. A year later the band’s much-anticipated, genre-bending sophomore EP Doomswayers was released in the shadow of the pandemic, championed by BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders and BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq.

After the release of their single ‘Hollywood’, Legss signed to The state51 Conspiracy and released their third EP Fester in 2023, recorded at The Church, which saw critical acclaim from the likes of the Sunday Times, Quietus, Independent, Line of Best Fit, So Young Magazine, DORK, L&Q, and DIY.

In 2024 the band were included by Simon Reynolds in the afterword to a republished edition of Mark Fisher’s seminal Ghosts of My Life (Zero Books).

Legss are Louis Grace (drums, synth), Ned Green (vocals, guitar), Jake Martin (bass) and Max Oliver (guitar)

Buoyed by an ever-evolving collage of pop influences, Mumble Tide’s work has regularly swung between the sweet and savage, the grungy and glistening. But at its heart is the meeting of two minds; singer-songwriter Gina Leonard and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Rogers. Over the last few years they have honed their distinctive brand of kaleidoscopic indie, all anchored by Leonard’s crystalline, plaintive voice.

Now, following a series of acclaimed singles and EPs, they return with new single ‘Pea Soup’, the third to be previewed from their upcoming debut album ‘Might As Well Play Another One’, to be released on the 1st May via Breakfast Records. Produced by Stew Jackson (Massive Attack), it’s their most self-assured and compelling work to date, a sweeping, orchestral vision of struggle, sadness, and the beauty in between.

"Askew indie rock thrills, bubbling, synth-flecked and sitting at a perpendicular to the mundanity of the everyday" - Clash

London-based French chanteuse, multi-instrumentalist & composer Clémentine March shares her new single of entrancing avant-pop ‘After The Solstice’, from her upcoming new album ‘Powder Keg’.

Enriched by influences from jazz, folk and Brazilian music, ‘After The Solstice’ was initially inspired by a time spent touring the UK with acclaimed folk singer Naima Bock. For Clémentine, the song explores “the theme of memory and reminiscence” and employs an absorbing sense of cyclical repetition; a musical device used “to evoke the deja vu sensations we all experience in life”.

Out of life on the road, everyday recurrence and contemplative retrospection, Clémentine creates a profoundly hypnotic anthem on ‘After The Solstice’, both mellow and fervent. Evoking the likes of Stereolab, The Raincoats and Cate Le Bon, it’s a mesmeric singalong of graceful vocal lilts and poised musicianship, with every element moving in beautiful unison.

Recorded & arranged with Ollie Chapman (bass) & Sophie Lowe (drums), and featuring vocal contributions from Naima Bock, Sophie Jamieson, Katy J Pearson, MF Tomlinson, Marika Tyler-Clark, Robyn's Rocket and Alabaster DePlume, ‘After The Solstice’ is the first glimpse of Clémentine’s third album ‘Powder Keg’, following the rich international eclecticism of her debut album ‘Le Continent’, and the beguiling intimacies of her second LP ‘Songs of Resilience’.

Un-easy listening from »anti-singer« and improviser Sofia Jernberg, a celebration of the voice in its rawest, most malleable form. Jernberg was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Vietnam and Sweden, so one can only imagine these diverse languages opened up a wealth of phonetic possibilities before she entered academia to study jazz and composition. If you dive into her catalogue you’ll clock her startling range – working as a jazz soprano and as an improviser, collaborating with everyone from Stefan Schneider to Mats Gustafsson, as well as appearances on the stage and screen, most notably in Matthew Barney, Erna Ómarsdóttir, and Valdimar Jóhannsson’s »Union of the North«.

On »Voice«, Jernberg provides a ground-level entry point to her work, meticulously running through a litany of unconventional techniques (non-verbal vocalisation, split tones, toneless singing, and distortion) without any effects, just pure batshit sonics designed to show off the voice’s scope as an experimental instrument. On »Mouth Synthesizer« she purses her lips to make ratcheting pops like some analog oscillator, hoarsely mimicking the sort of blustery, Merzbow-coded distortions you might get if you patched a RAT pedal into a broken guitar amp. It isn’t an act of caricature, it’s Jernberg’s way of demonstrating that expensive modular rigs aren’t an essential tool for experimental music, before throwing a side-eye to the field recording industrial complex on »Birds«, transforming her vocal chords into a nightmare aviary. But it’s Jernberg’s startling »multiphonic« experiments that hit hardest. The album opens on »Multiphonic I«, and it’s difficult to tell that you’re listening to a human voice at first – you could just as well be on Colin Stetson’s overblown sax airstreams. Jernberg creates a captivating spiral of crooked, phased tones and hoarse, guttural croaks that she develops over three movements. On »Multiphonic II«, her voice is turned into a storm of pained shrieks, and on the third and final segment, it almost resembles Arve Henriksen or Jon Hassell’s muted brass curlicues. Each track pulls a different musical muscle, whether it’s »One Pitch« with its unsettling yodel-like quivering drones or »Gurgle«, sounding like a close mic-ed recording of a small pot gently simmering.

Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working from the UK and across Europe. A childhood obsession with his parents’ record collection led him to both create his own music and build his own synthesizer equipment throughout his teenage years. After studying audio engineering, he was invited to become in-house engineer for the Moog Sound Lab UK, leading to collaborations with acts as diverse as Suicide, Charlemagne Palestine, The Grid and Mica Levi & Eliza McCarthy, both in live and studio environments. In 2017, Finlay began recording a series of monthly “Housediet'' releases - all improvised and captured at home utilising drum machines, modular synthesis and processed vocals. After several encounters with Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego, a compilation of the Housediet tracks was drawn up by Rehberg and Shakespeare, culminating in the release of “Domestic Economy” in early 2019. “Solemnities' ', a second album for Editions Mego appeared the following year. In the period since Rehberg’s untimely passing, Finlay has recorded for Superpang, Modulisme and his own GOTO Records imprint. “Illusion + Memory”, meanwhile, continues on from where “Solemnities” left off, with Finlay once again aiming to work at the fringes of electronic pop. Alter is proud to present “Illusion + Memory”, the third full length physical LP of Shakespeare’s utterly unique and sophisticated output. Shakespeare’s obsession and knowledge of late 70’s and early 80’s electronic pop music is once again at the forefront of this intense and dynamic release. Alas, this is not some retro throwback. Shakespeare’s deep understanding of his machines breathes new life into a genre of music once defunct. Supporting the likes of Blancmange bolstered his reputation for sublime synth hooks and dark lyrical content. Building on his previous work in the field “Illusion + Memory” is an unabashed pop record, as joyous as it is intense, moving from the brooding opening ballad “Your Side of the River” through the punchy “Theresa” which could be read as a love song to Throbbing Gristle’s United. Elsewhere “Climb” unleashes the opportunity to the dancefloor as wild electronics snake into all manner of schizophrenic shapes. There is a romantic side to this music. In its homage to electronic pop of the late 70’s and early 80’s but also in the emotional punch Shakespeare injects into every second of every track. Shakespeare’s reboot of these musical forms is technically impressive, one rich in feeling and deep in emotion, atmospherically and vocally. The two come together to create a unique visceral sonic experience… today!

“Tubby did three original dub albums, ‘Dub From The Roots’. ‘The Roots of Dub’ and the third is ‘Brass Rockers’ with Tommy McCook ‘pon the flying cymbals. Where he mixed it with the horn going in and out in a dub way and one named ‘Shalom Dub’ you can call Tubby’s too because he mixed the versions as they were off forty fives’’

Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee

King Tubby and Producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee are intertwined in the birth of Dub Music. After discovering a mistake that made a ‘serious joke’ (more of which later...) they went on to release the first pressings of this new musical genre namely ‘Dub Music’. Tubby’s vast knowledge of electronics and Bunny’s vast catalogue of rhythms would lay the foundations of what today is taken as a standard... the Remix / Version cuts to an existing vocal tune.

Osbourne ‘King Tubby’ Ruddock was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 28th January 1941 and grew up in the High Holborn Street area of downtown Kingston. He studied electronics at Kingston’s National Technical College and also on two correspondence courses from the U.S.A... When he had qualified Tubby began repairing radios and other electrical appliances in a shack in the back yard of his mother’s home. His work in the early days included winding transformers and building amplifiers for Kingston’s Sound Systems. Tubby built his first Sound System in 1957 playing jazz and Rhythm & Blues at local weddings and birthday parties. His reputation as a man who knew and understood both electronics and music grew steadily and as the sixties drew to a close. Tubby
purchased his own basic two track equipment. He installed this alongside his dub cutting machine, a home-made mixing console, and his impressive collection of jazz albums in the back bedroom of his home at 18 Dromilly Avenue which he christened his music room.

Tubby and Striker were at Treasure Isle Studio’s one day while Ruddy from Spanish Town was working with the engineer Byron Smith....

“Tubby and myself was talking when Ruddy was cutting some dub but Smithy (engineer) made a mistake through we were talking and forgot to put in the voice. It was two track recording in those days. Ruddy said ‘No Man! Make it stay! and so they cut the rhythm. When I went over to Ruddy’s that Saturday night a dance was in progress and when they played the vocal to the tune... then he said we’re going to play ‘Part Two’. They never called it ‘Version’..and then he played the rhythm track. The song was a catchy song and everybody started to sing along and the deejay started to toast so everything went down well. On Monday morning I went up and I said ‘Tubbs the mistake we made was a serious joke.It mash up Spanish Town! The people went wild. So you have to start to do that now ‘cause when the man put on the ‘Part Two’ everyone start singing this song. It played about twenty times. I said you try Tubbs!’...Well the next Saturday night now when Tubby strung up down the farm U Roy said he’s going to play ‘Part Two’ but Tubby did it different now. He started with the voice then dropped it out and let the rhythm run and then he brought in the voice in the middle and from there Tubby started to get really popular.’’
Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee

Dynamic Sounds upgraded to sixteen track recording in 1972 and Tubby purchased, again with the help of a deal brokered by Bunny Lee. The old four track equipment and the MCI console from their Studio B. The four tracks now gave him far wider scope to work with and he began to create a new musical form where the bass and drum parts were brought up while the faders allowed Tubby to ease the vocal and rhythm in and out of the mix. It was only a matter of time before Tubby’s dub plate experiments began to make it on to vinyl and the first ever long-playing King Tubby releases would feature a collection of his mixes to a selection of Strikers rhythms. So please sit back and enjoy this historic set of sounds. Lovingly restored and with a few extra gems added to the CD Editions. These releases were the first to carry the name of King Tubby and the first to credit the great musicians that contributed so much to the rhythms that made these albums possible.

The Collaboration - Having toured together over the years, Lattimore and Barwick now join forces to co-write and record this full-length album. Their creative synergy brings together harp, voice, and analog synths in a deeply emotional, immersive sound journey. The album was recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House). This album continues a unique series of collaborations between the label and the Musée de la Musique, featuring historical instruments in contemporary composition. Since 2017, InFiné and the Philharmonie de Paris have co-developed a series of albums designed to highlight the extraordinary instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique. Following the albums InBach by Arandel (2020) and Saturn 63 by Seb Martel (2022), this third release is a meeting of two iconic contemporary ambient voices: Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick. The project offers the artists full access to the museum’s playable instruments for recording, sound conservation, and creative reinterpretation.



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Tragic Magic brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music’s most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit – intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic – and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations.

Co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), Tragic Magic was created in just nine days, a testament to the “musical telepathy” that has developed between Barwick and Lattimore over years of touring and friendship. Arriving in Paris from Los Angeles shortly after the 2025 wildfires, their sessions combined improvisation with the emotions and experiences they carried, in a setting both inspiring and deeply supportive. Lattimore selected harps tracing the instrument’s evolution from 1728 to 1873, while Barwick chose several iconic analog synthesizers, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5. In freeform dialogue between voice and instrument, they create a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience.

The duo, often joined by Spencer, also explored the city, sharing meals and visiting museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on their next session. The experience allowed them to work intimately with rare instruments, blending their personal sensibilities with centuries of history, resulting in music that honors the past while remaining a deeply authentic expression of the present.
Throughout Tragic Magic, Barwick and Lattimore find something beyond themselves: a sense that while everything may not be okay, beauty persists. Their approach – transforming life into music, observing, feeling, and creating – continues a lineage of creative expression and visionary invention, embodied in the very instruments they employed for this project.

The Meth Lab returns for its third instalment with “Meth Lab Season 3: The Rehab,” a sharp, hard-hitting chapter that cements Method Man’s place as one of hip-hop’s most consistent and enduring voices. Executive produced by longtime collaborator Handz On, this project finds the Wu-Tang legend in rare form—polished, precise, and laser-focused.

“The Rehab” pulls listeners back into the world Meth has been building since the first Meth Lab sessions: a mixtape-style showcase blending razor-sharp lyricism with streetwise storytelling, packed with energy and attitude. Method Man’s flow remains timeless, weaving between gritty boom-bap, polished modern production, and the unmistakable Wu-Tang aesthetic. A strong lineup of guests brings extra fire to the set—Cappadonna, RJ Payne, Redman, KRS-One, JoJo Pellegrino, Jadakiss, Carlton Fisk, Hanz On, Intell, Iron Mic, 5th Pxwer, Chunk Bizza, Eddie I, Cortez, and more—each stepping into Meth’s world with their own hard-edged energy. Behind the boards, producers like P. Version, Rockwilder, Eric Sermon, Adam McLeer, Daniel C. Wells, Darnell Norman McConnell, and Joshua D. Zimmerman craft a gritty yet refined sonic framework that elevates every performance.

More than just another chapter, Season 3: The Rehab feels like a victory lap: a culmination of decades of craft, a celebration of the Staten Island movement, and a reminder that Method Man still out-rhymes rappers half his age. It’s a must-own for Wu-Tang fans, East Coast purists, and anyone who appreciates sharp writing and decades-deep mastery.

Explicit isolation is the third album by the international collective E/I, led by composer and percussionist Szymon Pimpon Gąsiorek. The group’s seven core members came together while studying at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. For this latest release, they are joined by Slovenian musicians Samo Kutin (hurdy-gurdy) and Kaja Draksler (organ), alongside Danish tuba player Rasmus Svale.

The three compositions distill sound down to its essential elements, drifting freely through space. The material is minimal, moving in the geological rhythm of endless cycles of tension and release, formation and dissolution, density and lightness. Pimpon acts here more as a guide than a creator with a master plan. He is a navigator, leading us to the most crucial moments where sonic emissions merge into vibrating drones, building to an inevitable leap—an explosion after which the particles rearrange themselves once again. It feels like futuristic temple music infused with intergalactic spiritual jazz, the extensions of drone music, and acoustic ambient textures, all highlighted by the jolly grin of the navigator.

“I wrote the scores and asked each of the musicians to record their parts individually. What’s interesting for me about doing it this way is that it removes the element of immediate interaction and introduces a factor of randomness. I then edited and mixed it myself, also adding my own parts. Previously, it was strictly acoustic music, and the recordings were ‘live,’ meaning they were captured in one room at the same time, with no subsequent edits.” Pimpon has also incorporated electronics, which make the album even more airy and organically complement the sounds of the hurdy-gurdy and organ, recorded in Trboje, the small Slovenian village.

When you listen to birds, they usually talk about food, sex/family, or anxiety. If they knew about the true nature of humanity's cruel and exploitative relationship with birds, they would be discussing rebellion. Humanity's current trajectory about birds is to cause the extinction of one-third of all bird species by the end of this century.

This record crystallises the borders between memory, beauty, and anxiety. At the core is an amalgam of all the birds we have met and heard, their sounds synthesised from a blend of memories. Esthetically it simulates the qualities of bird sounds, hitting similar frequential sweet spots. There is a great variety of birds captured here, from high to low frequencies, from solo voices to groups, from birds standing on their own to complex world-building, where the bird voices are part of an ecosystem, becoming one of the instruments.

You could stop there, enjoying this record on a musical level, but it invites us to do one step further, to consider reconfiguring our relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. To question our impact, and to ask why we need synthetic bird music. Is it just a visionary endeavour or is it because we are failing at fostering a world in which organic birds and other creatures can thrive?

32 artists from the whole world, including our favourite artists from Eastern Europe, have contributed to this compilation both with new and previously released music. Their music is ordered from dawn to dusk and into the night. For many of the artists it's their first time on mappa, but some have previously released an album with us.

BLACK SWAN Return with Third Album “Paralyzed” — A Masterclass in Melodic Hard Rock Robin McAuley (McAuley Schenker Group), Reb Beach (Winger, Whitesnake), Jeff Pilson (Foreigner, The End Machine, ex-Dokken), and Matt Starr (Ace Frehley, Mr. Big) — collectively known as BLACK SWAN — are back with their explosive third album, Paralyzed. Following the critical acclaim of their previous releases, the supergroup once again delivers a powerful statement in modern hard rock. With all songs written and composed by McAuley, Pilson, and Beach, and expertly produced by Pilson, Paralyzed showcases Black Swan at their peak performance — offering a dynamic mix of towering vocals, razor-sharp riffs, and hook-laden melodies. The band’s chemistry continues to shine, elevating their songwriting and musical delivery to new heights.

Tracked at Pilson’s Los Angeles studio, the album reflects the tight-knit synergy among its members. McAuley’s commanding vocals remain as ageless, while the instrumentalists deliver with precision and fire. Much like its predecessors, the new record is a testament to the individual and collective talents of these seasoned musicians. Far from being a patchwork of their previous bands, BLACK SWAN has firmly carved out its own identity. Paralyzed is fresh, heavy, and melodically rich — a cohesive and compelling album that feels both classic and contemporary. Building upon the blueprint laid by their debut, Shake the World, the band expands their sonic universe. The result is a record that not only meets but surpasses expectations, cementing BLACK SWAN as a formidable force in the modern hard rock scene. Whether you’ve followed these legendary musicians since the heyday of '80s rock or you’re just now discovering their magic, Paralyzed is essential listening — a masterclass in melodic hard rock delivered by artists who continue to defy time and expectations.

KIK is the new project of two core strategists of sonic enigma HHY & The Macumbas: Jonathan Uliel Saldanha & João Pais Filipe. Ditching acoustic instruments in favour of drum synthetics & tightly controlled sound design, the duo's debut album NIGHTSHIFT focuses on off-kilter club tracks that thwart 4-on-the-floor flavours whilst maintaining trance-inducing extended cycles. If the devil is in the details, this is all about the spectromophology of the details.
Beginning with moving morse code blips in an odd time signature We Can't Dance announces the characteristic unlife of the album's pulse. Once the kick enters, syncopations progressively accumulate into a weave of interacting rhythmic lines. Smoke Machine's groove is reminiscent of the riddims Saldanha explores in his HHY & The Kampala Unit, adding scintillating pads and snippets of blitzed out laughter.

The album's third track, Proff, hearkens back to the initial pulse, displaced and pitched down in register. Here's a more meditative temperament on display, where the regular geometries of the club have been moved into higher-order structures. Segments rise & fall into earshot. Deepening the meditative mood, Back Room explores a short melodic leitmotif anchoring the track's wander- lust.

The rhythmic assault continues in Tactical Gear, bringing further experiments into polyrhythmic contours exacerbated by preci- sion movements of echo & delay. Limping can be heard as a what-if sonic fiction taking Autechre-inspired abstractions through Durbanoid Gqom terrains. The album closes with its longest track, Night Shift, that segments into shifting sound worlds.

Drawing from industrial grit, cybernetic percussion and the eerie fluorescence of after-hours energy, NIGHTSHIFT exists in the liminal space between body music and abstraction——a soundtrack for phantom warehouses and malfunctioning machines. This isn’t just music; it’s an immersive sonic environment, a journey into the heart of deconstructed dancefloors.
For fans of Rian Treanor, Proc Fiskal, Jlin and Lorenzo Senni.

Most recently, HHY has been collaborating with Nyege Nyege through projects such as Kampala Unit and Arsenal Mikebe, performing live with the ensemble alongside Valentina Magaletti, and producing records for artists like Fulu Miziki, as well as collaborations with Phelimucasi, Rey Sapiens, Kingdom Choir and others. He also released Camouflage Vector: Edits From Live Actions 2017–2019 on the label, a live album featuring two tracks with Adrian Sherwood.

Previous collaborations include Tunnel Vision with Badawi (released on Tzadik), the HHY & The Macumbas album Beheaded Totem on House of Mythology, and Fujako (Wordsound, with MC Sensational), along with double-bill shows with acts such as Clipping and Death Grips.

Temple Balls, the high-octane hard rock band from Finland, is back with a brand-new self-titled album. Over the past few years, the band has kept busy both in the studio and on the road, solidifying their reputation as one of the most exciting live acts in the genre. Having opened for legendary acts such as Sonata Arctica, Queen, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep, Temple Balls have proven they can command any stage—whether it’s a massive festival or an intimate club. Their live shows are explosive, turning skeptics into die-hard fans with their raw energy and undeniable charisma. The journey began with their official debut single, “Hell and Feelin’ Fine,” released in September 2016, which gained heavy rotation on Finnish Radio Rock. Their debut album, recorded in May 2016 at Karma Sound Studios in Thailand, was released on February 24, 2017. Produced by Tobias Lindell (Europe, Mustasch, H.E.A.T.), the album marked the band’s bold entrance into the international rock scene. In the fall of 2017, Temple Balls embarked on a sold-out Finnish tour with Battle Beast, made their live debut in Japan, and completed a five-day tour across Ukraine. Their popularity soared in Japan, where readers of the country’s biggest rock magazine Burrn! voted them the “Second Brightest Hope,” and they were named “Newcomer of the Year” on Masa Ito’s Rock TV. Their sophomore effort, Untamed, released on March 8, 2019, received rave reviews from major music outlets including Soundi and Burrn!. A European tour alongside Sonata Arctica further cemented their reputation as a world-class live band. Their third album, Pyromide, marked their debut with Frontiers Records and was a melodic hard rock tour de force produced by Jona Tee (H.E.A.T.), packed with powerful riffs, massive hooks, and arena-sized choruses. In May 2022, Temple Balls toured Europe with Swedish melodic metal giants H.E.A.T., followed by a busy summer festival season across Finland. The lead single from their fourth album, Strike Like a Cobra, was released in March 2022 to widespread acclaim. That same year, they completed work on their next full-length, Avalanche, released in fall 2023, featuring the single “No Reason,” which dropped globally on June 22. Now, with their new self-titled album, Temple Balls continue the sonic evolution started with Avalanche, delivering an even more personal and refined sound.

Stoop Kid is the jangly indie rock project of Diest-born Jens Rubens. After Camp Careful (2021) and Mount Cope (2023), Stoop Kid returns with his third full-length album Office Overdue, a ten-song collection that captures the quiet fatigue, flickering humor, and
fragile hope of keeping it together in a world that won't slow down.

'Office Overdue' is a collection of songs Jens made at home in his modest home studio. For this album, he wanted to let go of pressure and expectations more than ever, and only work on music when he genuinely felt like it.No fancy studio, no producer, just walking upstairs and messing around. The result doesn't always sound perfectly polished: the drums are sometimes clumsily programmed and more than a few wrong notes made it onto the record. The guitars were allowed to hit a bit harder this time, with the '90s slacker vibes coming through more prominently. The result is a record that feels raw and honest, and above all, was made purely out of enthusiasm.

Office Overdue explores the attempt to keep functioning in everyday life while the world around us feels on the verge of collapse. The songs move between mental exhaustion and self-reflection, carried by a dry, sometimes bitter humour that helps lighten the weight. The album focuses on repetition and routine, and on the tension between wanting to care for others and being trapped inside one's own head. Themes of anxiety, guilt and dissociation recur throughout, but are always accompanied by small moments of connection, gentle resistance and acceptance. Office Overdue embraces the mess, the doubt and the false notes, without drawing grand conclusions. Not everything is resolved, but the persistence remains.

Wigwam's previously unreleased rare live recording from 1976 out in February via Svart Records In the summer of 1976, Wigwam performed not only in Finland but also in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. However, the pace slowed down afterward. The early autumn tours planned for European countries were cancelled, and even the replacement shows in Finland had to be postponed due to bassist Måns “Måsse” Groundstroem's sick leave. In October 1976 an opening appeared in the schedule for a studio session, during which Jim Pembroke’s third solo album, Corporal Cauliflower’s Mental Function, was recorded. After that, Wigwam played five gigs in Denmark at the end of November, followed by an equal number in Sweden. No exact information has survived about the concert setlists, but the band was in a stable phase, and certain songs had become staples in their live repertoire. Albums from Wigwam's deep-pop era, which began in autumn 1974, as well as Pembroke’s first solo records had already been released, and rehearsals were underway for what would become the Dark Album, released in 1977. It can be said that this concert, recorded for Danish Radio, is a strong representation of the band’s era at the time. The recording took place in northern Denmark, in a district called Lundtofte in Lyngby. Before this, Wigwam had performed in Køge and Århus, and after Lundtofte, gigs in Ballerup and Copenhagen awaited. Lundtofte was home to the Danish Technical University (DTU), where a student venue called “Studenterhuset” (Building 101) hosted a one- to two-day music events known as Polyjoint during the 1970’s. The events typically featured Danish bands, but also visiting acts like Wigwam. Most importantly, Danish Radio was sometimes present at these events. Wigwam had performed a studio concert for Danish Radio the previous year, but this particular recording is considered the more energetic of the two. Details have faded with time — for example, the identity of the second act at the concert is unknown. In any case, both guitarist Pekka “Rekku” Rechardt and keyboardist Pedro Hietanen remember the band being in high spirits, in top form, and highly motivated.

Wigwam's previously unreleased rare live recording from 1976 out in February via Svart Records In the summer of 1976, Wigwam performed not only in Finland but also in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. However, the pace slowed down afterward. The early autumn tours planned for European countries were cancelled, and even the replacement shows in Finland had to be postponed due to bassist Måns “Måsse” Groundstroem's sick leave. In October 1976 an opening appeared in the schedule for a studio session, during which Jim Pembroke’s third solo album, Corporal Cauliflower’s Mental Function, was recorded. After that, Wigwam played five gigs in Denmark at the end of November, followed by an equal number in Sweden. No exact information has survived about the concert setlists, but the band was in a stable phase, and certain songs had become staples in their live repertoire. Albums from Wigwam's deep-pop era, which began in autumn 1974, as well as Pembroke’s first solo records had already been released, and rehearsals were underway for what would become the Dark Album, released in 1977. It can be said that this concert, recorded for Danish Radio, is a strong representation of the band’s era at the time. The recording took place in northern Denmark, in a district called Lundtofte in Lyngby. Before this, Wigwam had performed in Køge and Århus, and after Lundtofte, gigs in Ballerup and Copenhagen awaited. Lundtofte was home to the Danish Technical University (DTU), where a student venue called “Studenterhuset” (Building 101) hosted a one- to two-day music events known as Polyjoint during the 1970’s. The events typically featured Danish bands, but also visiting acts like Wigwam. Most importantly, Danish Radio was sometimes present at these events. Wigwam had performed a studio concert for Danish Radio the previous year, but this particular recording is considered the more energetic of the two. Details have faded with time — for example, the identity of the second act at the concert is unknown. In any case, both guitarist Pekka “Rekku” Rechardt and keyboardist Pedro Hietanen remember the band being in high spirits, in top form, and highly motivated.

Ushering in a new era, Berlin based, New Zealand heavy psych duo Earth Tongue lower the castle gates on their third album Dungeon Vision, a trove of fuzz-drenched anthems produced by garage rock luminary Ty Segall in Los Angeles. Guitarist Gussie Larkin and drummer Ezra Simons spent the Berlin winter of 2025 refining the album’s twelve tracks in their self-described “windowless cave” rehearsal space, crafting a record that channels both isolation and the duo’s live intensity. With the songs finally taking shape and a studio deadline looming, they flew to Los Angeles to turn their hard-won ideas into the real thing. Once there, the band and Ty captured lightning in a bottle, recording and mixing Dungeon Vision in just ten days at Altamira Sound. Tracked live to tape, Dungeon Vision pulses with human energy, fuzz guitars, bone-battering drums, and hauntingly tuneful vocals. Ty Segall’s influence is all over the record with Ty choosing the best takes based on feel rather than technical perfection. The “king of fuzzy guitar tones” pushed the duo to find new sonic textures while championing their raw chemistry. “Ty’s been a big driving force,” says Ezra. “We supported him in New Zealand back in 2023, and he’s backed us ever since even bringing us on tour through Europe and the UK in 2024.” Since their emergence in 2016, Earth Tongue’s world-building, visuals, and relentless touring have earned them global attention and a cult-like following. Their 2024 album Great Haunting, also released on In The Red Records, received a Taite Music Prize nomination and saw them win Best Group at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards. They’ve toured extensively, sharing stages with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, IDLES, Acid King, Brant Bjork and Kikagaku Moyo. With Dungeon Vision, Earth Tongue deliver their most immersive work yet, a richly human, fuzz-soaked journey that bottles the magic of their live show and cements their reputation as one of the most exciting psych rock acts on the planet.

From the opening notes – arriving as if in mid-air – to its final, cheerful burblings, Sean Mac Erlaine and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh’s Old Segotia is an album about friendship: both musical and human, the product of two distinctive musicians visiting each other’s worlds with a sense of veneration, and a sense of joyful wonder.
Here, Mac Erlaine (This is How We Fly, Quiet Music Ensemble) and Ó Raghallaigh (The Gloaming, This is How We Fly) meet on common ground developed over 20 years of playing together, with Mac Erlaine’s musical language rooted in jazz and sonic experimentation, and Ó Raghallaigh emerging from an Irish traditional music that he has shaped and reshaped in a deeply personal way.
In this place, Mac Erlaine and Ó Raghallaigh’s music is profoundly integrated and emotionally textured: at times bursting with explosive energy, at times almost sighing into life, but always searching. Here are the touching unison duets of ‘Cantandor’, the lyrical wanderings of ‘Swallow Dive’, or the flirtations with finding a groove in ‘Reverse Burst’.
The palette of instruments speaks to the album’s feeling of abundance, with Mac Erlaine performing on clarinets, chalumeau d’amore, three different flutes, car hooter, percussion, live electronics, Wurlitzer, synthesiser, vocals and alto saxophone; and with Ó Raghallaigh bringing his signature hardanger d’amore sound plus a turn on the flute and live electronics, too.
With the title echoing a well-worn Dublinese expression for “friend”, Old Segotia plays out with ‘Oiche Crua Sna Sleibhte’ (A Hard Night in the Mountains), with ornithologist Seán Ronayne’s field recordings of birdsong rising out of the musicians’ playful explorations, offering a taste of life echoing music, echoing life.

ATA Records are proud to present the new release by Work Money Death, A Portal to Here. This album continues WMD’s exploration of Spiritual Jazz and the sounds and styles that evolved out of the 60s New Thing, particularly the recordings of

Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders. The first WMD album released since the tragic death of ATA guitarist Chris Earl Dawkins in early 2025, all four tracks reference the journey that band members and the studio have been on – in many ways this record is a testament and tribute to Chris, his musicality and creativity.

Featuring WMD stalwarts Tony Burkill, Neil Innes, Sam Hobbs, and Sam Bell, the album introduces Sorcererskeyboardist Johnny Richards to the WMD sound. Richards brings a fresh new take to the piano role here, drawing on what is clearly a broad knowledge of jazz history and channelling that through his own unique 21st century musical perspective.

The album also features contributions from Alice Roberts on harp, bringing the spirit of Alice Coltrane, Ben Powling on baritone saxophone, Richard Ormrod on woodwind, and Kev Holbrough & Steve Parry on brass. Those Sun Ra-esque horn sections lift the mood whenever they appear.Standout tracks are the second, Dance of the Spirits, with a strong core of Baptism and The Blues and some lovely playing by Richards, and the third track, Brother Earl, which begins with Tony on flute over rhythms that are directly reminiscent of open-hearted, late-60s spirituality. Tony later moves to tenor and, as on all four tracks here, eventually builds to the peaks of shattering emotional intensity that fans of Work Money Death - and spiritual jazz in general - love.

Haf is the third album from Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18 in little over a year, no mean feat in and of itself but especially considering Carwyn’s work with other artists (including Edwyn Collins and the North Mississippi Allstars) this year too.

The album picks up where their last (Fontana Rosa) left off, with around half the album being recorded analog to tape at Gizzard Studios in London, with one last tune remaining from their sessions at the legendary (but now closed) Toerag Studios.

There are echoes here of their first album, Joia! - the recordings were once again instigated by the great Brazilian producer and multi-instrumentalist who happened to be visiting London earlier in the year. He suggested doing something.... so they did. And there is a return to more definite Brazilian influences too - Tonnau Ar Tonnau is an homage to ‘Onda’ by Cassiano, Keep On Smiling has a distinct samba / chorro feel. Gwenyn y Gwanwyn (about helping a bee out if you see it struggling) is very much a nod to the psychedelic samba funk of Antonio Carlos e Jocafi. But other Latin styles still loom large: on the sultry salsa of Bella Estrella or the melancholic Andean ballad, Lagrimas Frias.

Anglo-Brazilian singer Nina Miranda features on the Lalo Schifrin goes samba Shades of Red, while new addition to the Rio 18 family (at least on record), Miriam Isaac adds a real RnB edge to the record, along with some beautiful duets: the Salsoul banger Como Te Amo and the gorgeous Whistling Sands (about a beach in North Wales) are standouts.

In reverse to how Carwyn made the first two Rio 18 albums, Haf was recorded in London
and Wales and mixed over five hectic days in Rio. Three days later, it was mastered and at
the pressing plant. Time doesn’t wait for Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18!!

Finally, the song ‘Haf’ and the album itself are dedicated to Haf Morris, Carwyn’s late music teacher - he says, “her focus, guidance and patience shaped me like no other. I hope she’s enjoyed my musical journey, from wherever she’s watching. Diolch, Haf”.

Fiat Lux return with Desire & Belief, their third album of new material this millennium, following their acclaimed comeback LPs Saved Symmetry and Twisted Culture. The trio—Steve Wright, Will Howard, and David P Crickmore—combine modern production with vintage synths and instruments rooted in their Polydor-era beginnings to craft ten tracks that span cinematic atmospheres, synth-pop anthems, and moody electronica. Tracks like "Clear Sky " and "Turn Me Around" offer hook-laden synth-pop, while "Summer Solstice " and "Am I Dreaming " delve into ambient and darker tones. Desire & Belief is a natural progression for Fiat Lux—retaining the spirit of their 1980s Northern roots in synth, goth, and indie, yet confidently stepping into new sonic territory for long-time fans and new listeners alike. RIYL: Blancmange, OMD, Scary Thieves, Tears For Fears

Formerly one third of the much-loved trio Black Box Recorder, alongside The Auteurs’ Luke Haines and Jesus and Mary Chain guitarist John Moore, the British singer-songwriter Sarah Nixey has steadily gained acclaim as a solo artist who makes savvy, sophisticated and poised pop.

Delivering vocals with a detached elegance over opulent tracks, any perceived nonchalance in Nixey’s luxe, cut glass voice belies her empathy, where social commentary serves as protest, both explicit and implied. Like Billy Bragg deepfaked as prime Julie Andrews, this strange but effective juxtaposition radiates soft power. ‘Lies of the Land’ depicts a corrupt post-Brexit and Covid-19 world where inequality and division flourish. ‘England's On Fire’ delves into the nuanced concepts of patriotism and nationalism, and ‘Pleasure Bay’ narrates the story of a love affair with a deprived yet beautiful English seaside town, written after Nixey left London, drawn back to the Dorset coast.
More than just a political record though, Nixey was drawn to the poetic elements of living too, telling stories of life and death, love and loss, conflicts and symmetry, in an intimate and close-up way, as if whispering secrets to her listeners.

“Sea Fever explores the bittersweet beauty of human life amid a volatile world of changing seasons and brutal elements,” says Nixey. “These are songs of deep sorrow, remembrance, birth, and change, set against a backdrop of the sensuous natural world.”
‘Rolling Waves’ explores profound grief following her beloved grandmother's death, while ‘Spring Equinox’ celebrates the joy and awe of life after welcoming her first grandchild. ‘At the Edge of the Forest’ is a poignant story of someone losing their memory, and ‘On This Wide Night’ recounts the early hours return home of a teenage runaway.

Loaded with tension and anchored by bold textural and stylistic contrasts, Sam Slater’s third solo full-length finds the British sound artist, composer, and engineer grappling with his creative contradictions head-on.

Having spent a life time in bands and producing records, Sam transitioned somewhat by accident through his work with Johan Johansson into working as a composer on high profile projects such as his collaboration with Hildur Guðnadóttir on the Grammy Award-winning Joker and Chernobyl, and with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mstyslav Chernov on the soundtrack to the lauded 2000 Meters to Andriivka. Having a vast set of interests and influences is an asset when helping realise a directors vision for a soundtrack, but one's own musical voice can end up being constrained. In Lunng, Slater has gone back to his wildly divergent range of influences and rather than shy away from the extremes, he's used them to create a singular vision.

Take the opening track “Heatsick”: Slater imagines an extravagant fusion of 2000s drone metal and vintage British brass, welding ear-splitting overdriven drones and blown-out choral vocals to stirring trombone swells from veteran player Hilary Jeffery. On paper, it’s hard to imagine—but Slater’s intentionality conducts these polarizing elements into a surreal blur of sonic extremes, with the guitars’ relative harshness softened by Jeffery’s eerily nostalgic colliery echoes.

His last solo album, I do not wish to be known as a Vandal (Bedroom Community, 2022), showcased this breadth by assembling a team of collaborators including Sam Dunscombe and Yair Elazar Glotman. On this record he’s linking up with acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Maria W. Horn, idiosyncratic sax virtuoso Bendik Giske, versatile percussionist Adam Betts, and the aforementioned Jeffery, Slater ushers these players toward a lattice of calculated confutations.

Working to explore the tension between the divergent practices of his collaborators—Lunng was meant to be challenging. On “Praya”, Giske’s familiar overblown horn phrases are almost vaporized, vanishing among Slater’s weightless synths and Horn’s chillingly hoarse vocals. There are traces of Horn’s Funeral Folk project, but Slater shifts the emphasis, letting her voice brush past the other elements like a hallucination.

Slater’s use of extremes isn’t just in the micro; dynamics drive the album’s overall flow. “Praya” sets the stage for the record’s heaviest, most prickly moment: “Passengers”. Here, Horn’s voice cracks, rasps, and gurgles over serrated synths and Betts’ ritualistic drums. Slater turns an industrial symphony into a folk opera—dark, dramatic, and strangely beautiful—etched with Giske’s fluttering phrases.

But the mood soon shifts. Slater careens toward chaos, unleashing double-time rhythms and piercing textures familiar to anyone with a soft spot for classic black metal. These grotesque incongruities are deliberate; Slater surveys years of musical conflict and leans in, using dissent as fuel to build kinetic energy.

The weight of sentimentality bears down on “Black Metal Rewind (Night Drive Astra, 2006)”, melting teenage memories into hypnagogic ambience—shoegaze dreams whirled with angelic choral delusions. On “Death by Nostalgia, 1688”, he ventures further into polarizing territory, distorting AutoTuned voices with cryptic strings and medieval tonalities, unsettling any stable sense of past or present.

In this record Slater focuses on pure energy, color, and mood. Lunng distills years of listening into a bracing brew—boiling each sound down to its essence, then serving it with unflinching intent.

John Twells, 2025

Purple vinyl. With Abyss Calls to Abyss, their third full-length album, Skulld bring to completion a path that began in 2019, a journey through old-school death metal, esoteric mysticism, and radical punk-rooted activism. Written and recorded in 2025, the album unfolds as an eight-track odyssey exploring the furthest edges of human and spiritual experience through a feminist, pagan, and anti-authoritarian lens. The abyss evoked by the album is not only an external, cosmic void, but also an inner, personal, and collective chasm, the place where death and rebirth collide, where wounds and healing, desire and destruction intertwine. Each song delves deep into the essence of being, merging ancestral ritualism, female mythology, social critique, and archetypal symbolism into a single, cohesive vision.