Buscar:ti pi cal

Laurel Premo's latest solo work presents original and traditional music
voiced on finger-style electric guitar and lap steel
Perhaps by its most honest classification "roots guitar," the sonic vocabulary of
'Golden Loam' is informed by guitar's antecedents in American traditions - fiddle
and banjo, the rhythms, melody and intonation therein, as well as that music's
relationship to movement. Glowing, droning, tugging, scraping, revolving, Premo
bears renewed electric dirt, the golden loam layered by centuries of folk.
Following 'The Iron Trios' (2019), Premo's sophomore release builds on the dark
roots world she arranged, with seeking, untethered delivery and a masterful use
of space, on a dynamic wave of warm, gritty sustain. Laurel's vocals on two
pieces "Hop High" and "I Am A Pilgrim" are traditional calls beaconing the guitar's
response, and fold in timberly like additional instrumental lines sustaining the
drone. 'Golden Loam' was self produced and recorded during the pandemic
lockdown of summer/fall 2020. The majority of the record is solo performance,
but two featured collaborators are woven in to this embodied rhythmic collection.
Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss (Michigan) appears on tracks 5 & 9, and bones
player Eric Breton (Quebec) on track 3. Laurel Premo is a Michigan-based artist
who has been writing, arranging music and touring since 2009 with vocal and
instrumental roots acts. She is internationally known from her duo Red Tail Ring.

Heavy-duty Colombian salsa group The Latin Brothers were formed in 1974 by the Discos Fuentes A&R team as a sibling band of Fruko Y Sus Tesos in order to provide the local market with a trombone-heavy ensemble in the mode of the popular Nuyorican Willie Colón orchestra. The band was led by Julio "Fruko" Estrada on bass, featuring basically the same musicians as Los Tesos, minus the trumpets and highlighting the cutthroat trombone work of Gustavo "La Pantera" García. At the time Fruko's Tesos were going through a transition and his talented former lead vocalist, Píper Pimienta, left to sing lead in The Latin Brothers while Joe Arroyo and Wilson "Saoko" Manyoma took over vocal duties in Los Tesos. "El Picotero" was The Latin Brothers' debut album and remains to this day a favorite of salsa dura fans the world over. The album established The Latin Brothers as a bona fide contender in the crowded field of trombone-centric salsa bands taking over the airwaves and dance floors around Latin America. With this bold and brassy record The Latin Brothers would inspire future Colombian salsa orchestras as well as helping establish Medellín as a center of salsa almost as famous as Cali.

Rare Italo disco pop project Galvanica gets a beautiful re-issue! This is what the label writes about the release; "Galvanica, a voice with unusual qualities, refined, balanced, also high-pitched, sensual, embellished by an orgasmic inspiration with fluid and spaced solo's in hypnotic rhythms that often change scenery. 'Nightlights in Japan': an extraordinary piece of pure and profound creativity where each version seems to have been built apart and where the West meets the East. A splendid interpreter for a truly stunning piece, as fresh and far-sighted as the day it was recorded in Calenzano at Studio Emme by Marzio Benelli with the Yamaha DX7 synth and Linn 9000 drum sequencer that are at the base of the piece, made and re-interpreted in the four original versions, all sung in the Eastern Asian pentatonic scale. 'Nightlights in Japan' was also written by Massimiliano Orfei, at the time collaborator in the advertising projects from label Smash One Music of Pino Toma, the producer who drew new inspiration to venture into the record market which in 1987 became every day more difficult and this song was considered out of fashion, even if each version of this song was expertly arranged by the talented Giorgio Costantini. We've clarified as to whom Galvanica's velopendulus belongs, in order to be able to rightly consider this artist as a contributive voice of disco music, despite being part of the "second wave" of the Italo-Disco scene, has strongly contributed to it as Otero, Belen Thomas, Angelby and previously with the disco-project Plustwo creating 'Melody' (which after 40 years gets a new extraordinary success with over 134 million plays on TikTok and around 18 million streaming). However, it's clear as day that the gorgeous artist behind Galvanica was Antonella Bianchi and that Giorgio Costantini was not only her producer and composer - as in 1985 for 'I Know', a sweet synth-pop ballad sung with her stage name 'Angel', but above all her ... 'guardian angel'. For many artists using a stage name is a custom. The absolute record of pseudonyms as a true equalizer of identity is held by Stendhal having used 350 throughout his career. This multifaceted artist who, until now has never used so many 'a.k.a.', in a wonderful game of musical mirrors, has represented an opportunity to challenge the market, a trait of non-acceptance of the role that the discography attributes to certain artists. So also Galvanica was an invitation to reflect, with a pinch of provocation, a behavior that Antonella Bianchi has in the DNA of her family. Ultimately, Best Record is not at all worried about the modernization that surrounds it, sure that 'Nightlights in Japan' will be one of the most coveted vinyl reissues in the second half of 2022.

Reissue of the oud / viola virtuoso SIMON SHAHEEN's interpretations of pieces by one of the Middle East's most important 20th Century composers, MOHAMED ABDEL WAHAB. Produced by BILL LASWELL, remastered for vinyl at D&M Berlin.

MOHAMED ABDEL WAHAB (1902-1991) was "a giant in the world of Middle Eastern entertainment" (Al Jadid Magazine) - as singer, actor and composer – and is commonly considered "the father of modern Egyptian song". After a visit to Paris, he revolutionized the film industry by introducing the genre "musical film" to the Arabic world, the movie "The White Rose" in which he starred broke all records and to this day is frequently presented in Cairo's cinemas. But in 1950, WAHAB left the film industry to focus on singing and composing – he wrote over 1800 songs (among others for Umm Kalthoum, an iconic artist in the Arabic music in her own right) that were deeply rooted in classical Arabic music but also laid the foundation for a new era of Egyptian music as WAHAB was open to Western elements such as waltz rhythms or even rock'n'roll in Abdel Halim Hafez's song "Ya Albi Ya Khali". He also composed several national anthems (Tunisia, Oman, Libya, United Arabic Emirates) and re-composed the Egyptian national anthem "Belady Belady Belady", based on the original by Sayed Darwish. WAHAB received several decorations of Arabic states, and at his death in 1991, Egypt honored its famous son with a huge military funeral at the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, the six-horse carriage procession carrying his coffin was actually led by the prime and foreign ministers, followed by the ministers of defense, interior and culture!


SIMON SHAHEEN (born 1955) is the perfect choice for WAHAB's compositions. Born into a family of gifted musicians, he learned playing the oud at the age of 5 and the violin shortly thereafter. He earned degrees in Arabic literature and music performance at the Tel Aviv University, and later pursued further studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and after his emigration to the USA (in 1980) at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University. SHAHEEN lives in New York where he founded the Near Eastern Music Ensemble and Qantara, a formation that blends traditional Arabic Music with elements of Jazz and classical music, and he also has been organizing the Annual Arab Festival of Arts called Mahrajan al-Fan since 1994. The same year he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts at the White House. Solo albums like Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP) or Taqasim (Lyrichord) underline his importance as one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. SHAHEEN has participated in many cross-cultural musical projects with artists as diverse as Henry Threadgill, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, or the Jewish klezmer ensemble The Klezmatics, contributed to the soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky and Malcolm X and composed the entire score for the United Nations sponsored documentary, For Everyone Everywhere, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Charter. SHAHEENS biggest success was the Qantara album Blue Flame (2001) which has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards.

Besides all his activities as performer, he dedicates a good part of his time to working with schools and universities, including Julliard, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, University of California in San Diego, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and many others.
The Music Of Mohamed Abdel Wahab was originally released in 1990 on Axiom, the record label curated by iconic producer and bass player Bill Laswell, and has been carefully remastered for this vinyl reissue at D&M, Berlin.


Press quotes:
"Master oud player and composer Simon Shaheen finds the perfect mix on this collection of Mohammed Abdel Wahab's pieces … seven wonderful interpretations sparkling with oud and strings interplay." Stephen Cook / AllMusic


"Shaheen's violin soars over a slicing string section and a bed of percolating percussion, while accordion, oud, finger cymbals and a chorus of singers weave in and out. Produced with sparkling clarity by Bill Laswell … this record opens a new world of harmonic and melodic possibilities to ears accustomed to Western pop." Greg Kot / Chicago Tribune


Musicians:
Simon Shaheen: Oud, Violin, Viola
Najib Shaheen: Oud
Sheikh Taha: Accordion
Anton Hajjar: Ney
Paula Bing: Flute
Ramzi Bisharat: Tabla
Hanna Mirhige: Mizhar
Michael Baklouk: Daff
Bobby Farah: Sagat
Ibrahim Salman: Quanoun
Artemis Theodos, Gabriel Palka, Nessim Dakwar, Kamil Shajrawi: Violin
Mike Richmond: Double Bass
Michael Finkel, Vladimir Greenberg: Cello
Laura Shaheen, Louise Salman, Maurice Chedid, Nermine Rawi,
Simon Shaheen, Youssef Kassab: Chorus

Black & Opaque Silver vinyl. ZZK Records Presents Uji's TIMEBEING. A prehistoric tribe dances around the fire. Young revelers lose themselves on a packed dancefloor. Explorers fly a rocket toward another galaxy. In the TIMEBEING universe, these things are all connected. From the earliest days of humanity, people have strived to expand their reality beyond the limitations of the here and now and have used technology to make it happen. Their methods and machines may have changed across the centuries, but the drive remains constant, vibrating through history and occupying a space where time loses all meaning. "The art of making music is the art of manipulating time," says Uji. "I have had experiences where time shifts dramatically; sometimes it slows down to a halt, while moments seemingly become infinite. This is where the magic happens. This is when the fabric of what we call reality begins to show its seams." An Argentinian electronic producer and ethnomusicologist, Uji has been navigating those seams for more than two decades, initially as one half of the pioneering duo Lulacruza, but more recently with his own solo work. TIMEBEING continues that lineage, but also elevates it, taking shape as a interdisciplinary multimedia journey that includes a new album, an accompanying short film, an immersive live show and the birth of a new decentralized community of like-minded artists, creators, seekers, and dreamers. Mesmerizing and deeply psychedelic, the TIMEBEING LP certainly reflects the rich sound palette of Latin America and its intersection with various strains of electronic music but Uji taps into traditions both musical and spiritual that can't be hemmed in by borders and boundaries. Transcendence is the goal, and the album moves through fantastical spaces that may or may not exist: a metallic jungle, a Balkan spaceship, a cloud that morphs into a tumultuous whirlpool. All the while, Uji criss-crosses history, consulting elders and futurists alike as he throws open the doors of perception and pens a new mythology about what it means to be human. Some of that mythology takes shape in the TIMEBEING film. Written by Uji himself, the eight-part opus has been brought to life by Jazmin Calcarami, who makes her directorial debut following years of working as an experimental make-up artist with the likes of Björk and Cirque de Soleil. On stage, the transportive TIMEBEING live show is set to premiere at the Artlab Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, where it will be debuted as a part of a weekly residency this spring. More than just a concert, it's a dazzling theatrical experience, complete with dancers, costume changes, arresting visuals and even an on-stage "ship" (shaped like mollusk) where Uji himself will perform. "What we see on the surface, is only that the surface," says Uji. "There is so much more. Music is the bridge and the possibilities are limitless." Track listing: 1. Mito 2. Oropo 3. Truenatruena 4. QuemaQuema (feat. Nyaruach) 5. Kinto 6. Lunay (feat. Zola Dubnikova) 7. Flechas 8. Sirios (feat. Kristine Barrett)

2022 limited edition of this Japanese no wave gem from 1982. With extended liner notes and interviews with band members about the recordings of the album, as well as unpublished photographs from 1981 by Jibiki Yuichi.

The Japanese punk rock movement known as Tokyo Rockers began in the summer of 1978. It incubated an independent music culture as well as a host of fascinating, individualistic musicians. One of the more striking units was the male-female duo Maria 023. NON played bass for them, and it was here that she first attracted attention. However, Maria 023 was short-lived, and NON would not reappear until the following year, August 1979, on stage at the legendary concert event "Drive to 80s". Her unbilled performance at the event consisted of several songs for solo bass and vocals, and her combination of intensity and a distinctly female emotionality made a striking impression. In the months that followed, NON continued to play solo and she became a pivotal presence among the female rockers on the scene at the time.

Finally she shifted from solo to group performance, and formed NON BAND. After several member changes, the line-up stabilized into a unique trio with Kinosuke Yamagishi on violin and clarinet, and Mitsuru Tamagaki on drums. It was with this line-up that the group reached a musical peak. At the same time, the Japanese punk and new wave rock scene was moving in a new direction, as a second generation of artists appeared and mushrooming independent labels began to play an increasingly important role. I myself started a label called Telegraph Records in 1981 and worked hard on record releases and building a distribution network.

Since starting the label, I had wanted to release a record by NON BAND. There were many vicissitudes before it could happen, but in February 1982 NON BAND's first album was released as a 10-inch LP on Telegraph Records, the label's fifth release. In the early Japanese indies scene, if a release sold 1000 copies it was counted as a significant success. The NON BAND album went through several repressing and sold 2000 copies. The album was a hit and the band's critical reception and popularity suddenly took off.

The shows that followed the release of the album were given a boost by the addition of two female rockers, the guitarist Kummy and keyboard player Mitsuwa. The group was reaching a real musical peak and everyone expected more great developments, but just six months after the release of the album the group would grind to a halt. Members quit the band one after another, and with no possible replacements to be found, NON herself faded away from the scene.

NON BAND's career in the early Japanese indies scene was thus short-lived. But their sole album was reissued twice on CD, and remained popular with listeners. However, the group's history was to have a second chapter.

NON ended up returning to her hometown, snowy Hirosaki in the far northern prefecture Aomori. There she raised two children and took over the running of the family business, an arts supplies store. Her thoughts turned once again towards music, and in 1999 she took up her bass again and began to sing. She invited two fabulous musicians, Keiji Haino and Tatsuya Yoshida, to Hirosaki, and performed together with them as well as solo. This marked the beginning of a new phase for her, and she played live in Tokyo and released a solo album, "ie". She got back in touch with Yamagishi and Tamagaki and reformed NON BAND. They added Emi Sasaki on accordion and began to play a handful of gigs each year, bringing a mature depth to their undiminished power and dazzling a new generation of fans. In 2012 the group released an album of recent live performances entitled " NON BAND Liven' 2009-2012". I released the album on the newly reanimated Telegraph Records.

NON still lives in the north, in Hirosaki. The city is famous for its summer Neputa festival. The first track on this album, "Duncan Dancin'" is almost a theme song for NON BAND, but its rhythm is taken from the ohayashi music that is performed in this festival, as large floats and troupes of dancers wind their way through the streets. The title refers to the legendary dancer, Isadora Duncan. The image perfectly represents NON herself: Isadora Duncan dancing to the earthy rhythms bubbling up out of the north land.

Nov 9, 2016 Jibiky Yuichi (Telegraph Factory)

In order to achieve a meticulous sound quality the reissue version is cut on 12" vinyl instead of the original 10" format. The original cover artwork has been reproduced and there are liner notes by Jibiky Yuichi with unpublished photos of NON BAND.

Don't let the prestigious acting career fool you, Caleb Landry Jones is a bonafide musical maverick. And on hisforthcoming release Gadzooks Vol. 2 he places himself in a lineage of outsider artists, many with only a thin thread tethering them to this reality, who are capable of reaching into the cosmic realms of imagination and bringing back a musical masterpiece. And while most artists don't save some of the best music of their career for an album with Vol. 2 in the title, Jones is an artist for whom chronology is a slippery substance.

The album was recorded with Nic Jodoin in the famed Valentine Recording Studios simultaneous with the mixing of his debut album The Mother Stone. The team invited a slew of heavy hitting musicians to the studio to contribute to the magic. The resulting album sounds a bit like pink elephants in cowboy hats making asmr... at least for the first 20 seconds before it seamlessly changes entirely.

Don't let the prestigious acting career fool you, Caleb Landry Jones is a bonafide musical maverick. And on hisforthcoming release Gadzooks Vol. 2 he places himself in a lineage of outsider artists, many with only a thin thread tethering them to this reality, who are capable of reaching into the cosmic realms of imagination and bringing back a musical masterpiece. And while most artists don't save some of the best music of their career for an album with Vol. 2 in the title, Jones is an artist for whom chronology is a slippery substance.

The album was recorded with Nic Jodoin in the famed Valentine Recording Studios simultaneous with the mixing of his debut album The Mother Stone. The team invited a slew of heavy hitting musicians to the studio to contribute to the magic. The resulting album sounds a bit like pink elephants in cowboy hats making asmr... at least for the first 20 seconds before it seamlessly changes entirely.

From the moment that German producer, Fejká, burst onto the scene at the age of 17, he has captivated listeners with an unrivaled ability to sit comfortably at the intersection of expression and introspection. Where night and day, dreaming and dancing, the fast and the slow, might naturally diverge, he is able to balance them delicately, creating sounds which are, in the same moment, wonderfully ethereal, but also thrillingly dynamic.
His new single Hiræth, meaning ‘long gone’, offers a soundscape full of warmth and calm, enhanced by the unique soothing quality of Kim van Loo’s distinctive vocals – a sound which Fejká accidentally discovered during their time as roommates in lockdown. The track describes a certain sense of nostalgia for a place that might never be reached, or a place that might never be returned to, with an overarching feeling of longing throughout. Working from his studio in
Stuttgart, Fejká processed synths, pads and piano with a tape machine to heighten the nostalgic ambience and, through grainy imperfections, establish a more intimate relationship with the listener. The track is restrained and subtle, yet it cycles through the ups
and downs of an ever-changing landscape keeping listeners on their toes, “Like the feeling of being taken on a journey for the last time“, says Fejká Delving into a vast range of emotions and musical approaches, Fejká’s most recent album,
Reunion, cemented the young producer’s position in the downtempo electronic scene. The album’s single, Svanur, has been streamed over 15 million times with Fejká having recently performed sold-out shows at EartH London, Cross Club Prag, Kater Blau, and Klein Istanbul.

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

Tape

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

After a year of releases exploring recent musics from the USA, Europe and the southern hemisphere the Horn of Plenty presents a survey of archival private, demo, and live tapes from local avant-anarcho-punks The Apostles. The tapes were (poorly) recorded in Islington & Hackney squats between 1981-1983 and they capture the fledgling band exploring various line-up’s, styles & techniques with limited means and ability. In 1983 The Apostles released their first vinyl EP and switched mainly to a more straight-ahead anarcho-punk style. They gained a strong following then called it a day in 1989. Their vinyl output is still regarded highly by fans and collectors and their ‘official’ demo tapes have become highly sought-after, particularly since being namechecked by Ty Segall in a 2014 interview. In a 2009 article charting the band’s history (frontman) Andy Martin gives these early tapes a mere footnote and states that, in his opinion, they are ‘Best Forgotten’. With respect Andy, I beg to differ. Best Forgotten shows the band grappling with the political, racial and cultural tensions of the time whilst exploring radical politics and issues around homosexuality and mental health. Their sympathies with The Angry Brigade’s ‘direct action’ ethos extended to their involvement with the squatted Centro Iberico and The Wapping Autonomy Centre where they worked closely with Crass, Poison Girls, Flux of Pink Indians and The Mob among others. Viewed retrospectively, it’s easy to draw comparisons with early Fall records, The Door and The Window etc… but also at their melodic best they echo 60’s beat groups and even 70’s blues-rock. A keen interest in tape collage (supplied here by Ian Rawes who later became established with his London Sound Survey project) and the avant garde also inform the mix. Highlights include a bleak reworking of Lemon Kittens’ Chalet D’Amour and a live version of Simon & Garfunkel's I Am A Rock segueing into their take on Alternative TV’s Splitting In Two recorded at The Recession Club in Ponsford Street, Hackney. The short-lived Recession Club, which The Apostles co-ran and where Andy Martin worked the door, also hosted the first ever Coil concert. On that night he refused entry to Death In June on account of their ‘inappropriate attire’. Best Forgotten comes in a hand stamped, stickered and assembled edition of 500 copies and includes an A3 poster and 32 page A4 zine collecting archival photos and images from The Apostles tapes & zines along with liner notes and reflections on the tracks written by Steve Underwood (Harbinger Sound), Chris Low (former Apostles drummer) and The Apostles frontman Andy Martin, who thought this whole thing was daft.

repress

Levon Vincent returns with his fourth full-length studio album Silent Cities a striking departure from his previous records. This, his first release experimenting with the cassette format, Silent Cities is a kind of mixtape through more private moods and personal pitches (literally given Levon’s non-standard tunings).

While Levon has always pro
duced dance floor jams with the intention of raising people’s heart rates, Silent Cities began with 72 bpm: his average resting heart rate, and the concept of tuning the music he was making to his own body rather than increasing anything. This brought the tempos down to 72 bpm or even half of that, at 36bpm. Programming the record during the empty cityscape of Berlin lockdowns, this is the first time Levon’s created an album for the home stereo or for headphone listening whilst navigating through a city. A mixtape specialist in his youth; he was always wanted to play with the cassette format. The results are sure to delight any listener, with the ever-present ambient, krautrock, shoegaze, hip-hop and electro influences coming to the foreground on this work.

“I was expanding further along the lines of a surprise favourite from my previous LP, a song called She Likes To Wave To Passing Boats which was not a 4 on-the-floor piece to play in clubs but a more impressionistic piece of music that I wrote to expound some emotions one day” says Levon. “It was a song written using just intonation. I really love how warm the pure 4ths sound, so when working on the new LP Silent Cities I decided to use my own tunings”.

Historically, the use of just intonation has meant that such instruments could sound "in tune" in one key but at the expense of more dissonance in the other keys. None of the songs on Silent Cities use standard Western equal temperament, Levon created his own scale designs coupled with the ancient ratios found in just intonation.

Born in Houston in 1975, Levon’s life changed dramatically when his parents moved their family to New York in 1981, uprooted from what he knew, the shock, the change from Houston to New York at 6 years old, is referred to constantly in Levon’s Musical output over the years. Levon's family moved houses in and around NYC from 1981 -2010, never more than a mile or two from the WTC. He lived on the Lower East Side during his teenage years and early 20s. This time period and this locale are also a big theme recurrent in his music as he tries to convey how the "downtown" lifestyle and culture-melding affected him so much at a tender age. He cut his teeth working in record shops around lower Manhattan, and while working at the Halcyon Record shop in Brooklyn he (alongside DJ Jus-Ed) was instrumental in creating the wave that came to be known as the "NYC House Renaissance" circa 2010. During the Y2K years he studied 20th C post-minimalism at Purchase college of New York under James McElwaine (who tangentially produced Man Parrish’s Self-Titled proto-hip-hop debt LP). Levon was fortunate to study theory with avant-garde composer Dary John Mizelle and orchestration under conductor Joel Thome. He undertook masterclasses with Philip Glass and also served as intern for John Kilgore, engineer for Steve Reich, where he was present for notable mix sessions such as “Violin Phase.”

Post-minimalism clearly remains an influence not to mention the early sampler stars of 80s freestyle and synth pop. Mixing such far-reaching influences is something Levon executes tremendously well. The first track Everlasting Joy moves at a head nodding 96 BPM tempo, reflecting formative influences like Paul Hardcastle’s Rainforest or Art Of Noise’s Moments in Love. “Those types of songs were a big eye opener for me as a youth, because it was where I realised songs in popular culture didn’t have to be kept to just 3 minutes, and they didn’t require vocals either. So, Everlasting Joy is a song with that intention, one that might be radio-friendly, despite the long arrangement and without vocals. You could say it was inspired by 107.5 in NY because that was a station I listened to a lot in the 1980’s.”

The majority of demos on Silent Cities were recorded before Covid-19 hit the world - when Levon had found a studio space outside of home in his adopted city of Berlin. It was a career first - working on music outside the bedroom. This riding the train or bicycling ‘going to work’ in Berlin opened up a new mood in his music, using the time back and forth to be inspired - commuting as an NYC transplant who still feels as a tourist in Berlin, with a pair of headphones, looking out the window on the train, or stopping on bridges and parking his bike to enjoy Berlin's skyline and horizon. Then, the pandemic struck and “work” came to a halt. Levon had recorded so much material during that year in the studio out of house it seemed like an inflection point for him to lighten the burden of the possessions he was carrying.

“People close to me have watched me give away synths and hardware regularly and I have given away my record collection every few years for my whole life. As a struggling artist in my 20s who had worked in record stores that whole time, I learned that moving constantly with 12k records just wasn't the way to live. So, in light of the pandemic, I set up a shop online, and sold all my music equipment. I also created a separate shop for all my sneakers and clothes. Easy come, Easy go. This provided me with a slow drip type of income that carried me quite well through the pandemic and it allowed me to focus on my own art and music. Getting rid of all my possessions felt like a weight being lifted from my shoulders and I was able to stay the course and remain committed to the music. I needed a further 2 years to mix and arrange the LP. If it weren’t for the pandemic, I would not been able to make this type of LP, so in light of everything, I was able to turn a depressing time in to something lasting and musically very positive.”

You can hear how his approach to a cassette release retains the "Medium is the Message." ethos. Silent Cities is a spooling, warm piece about life memories and embodiment.

Repressed finally. Sometimes a single is released that reaches such dizzying heights of success that it becomes a pinnacle of the decade they're indelibly tied to. "Groove Is In The Heart" by dance-house trio Deee-Lite is one such single. The infectiously quirky, and eminently danceable track is prominently based around samples of "Bring Down The Birds" by Herbie Hancock, and "Get Up" by Vernon Burch, among many others, (Courtesy of dual producers DJs Dmitry and Towa Tei) paired with top-tier guest contributions from JB's veterans Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, background vocals from Parliament-Funkadelic's own Bootsy Collins, and even a guest rap from Q-Tip, not to mention frontwoman Lady Miss Kier's own siren-like vocals. All disparate and disconnected elements, but ones that would come together to form dancehall greatness, and chart-topping success worldwide for Deee-Lite. "Groove Is In The Heart" managed to reach #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but excelled at its best on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, where it reached to the #1 spot. On top of its success in America it was a smash internationally, climbing the heights of the charts in the UK, Canada, Australia, and a variety of other countries. It remained in heavy rotation for much of 1990 on MTV as well. As the decades went on, "Groove Is In The Heart" would be ranked among the greatest dance tracks of all time, as well as one of the greatest songs of the 1990s by VH1, Pitchfork, Buzzfeed, and many more. "Groove Is In The Heart" was a potent single for Deee-Lite to lead with, but the album bearing it was nothing to slouch at either. The group's debut record, 1990's World Clique was released to major commercial and critical success, owing just as much to its addictive hybrid of seductive retro aesthetics, modern dancefloor flair, and esoteric, socially conscious messaging, on the back of celebratory club staples like "Power Of Love", "Good Beat", "E.S.P.", and of course "Groove Is In The Heart." World Clique would reach top 20 charts in the US, UK, and Canada in sales, as well as earn rave reviews from NME, Chicago Sun-Times, Rolling Stone, and Slant Magazine, who called it an "essential pop album." A1. Good Beat A2. Power Of Love A3. Try Me On…I’m Very You A4. Smile On A5. What Is Love? B1. World Clique B2. E.S.P. B3. Groove Is In The Heart B4. Who Was That? B5. Deep Ending

Freedom is both an integral and multi-layered topic for improvised music, describing its mechanics, aesthetics, and values and often an underlying political dimension as well. In the case of free jazz specifically, the word carries additional weight given the music's deep connection to the black liberation movement of the 1960's and 70's.

The passionate and unclassifiable work of Calgary-based improviser Jairus Sharif embraces each of these definitions of freedom and others, albeit strictly on its own personal and idiosyncratic terms. Since early 2020, the 34 year-old autodidact has been generating a steady stream of homespun solo recordings that forge unprecedented connections between hip-hop abstraction, cosmic skronk, outsider jazz, and staunch post-punk DIY ethos.

Leading up to the pandemic, Sharif's immersion in spiritual and exploratory jazz had culminated in him deciding to purchase an alto saxophone. Unbeknownst to him this instrument would be a catalyst for him to discover his own ardently individualistic artistic voice.

Prior to that point, he had always been somewhat of a solitary musical traveler. In 2002, he acquired his first instrument—a pair of Technics 1200s — but struggled to find local collaborators that had equal investment in hip hop culture. Ultimately, Sharif picked up the guitar, turning to the resilient local punk community, that had also nurtured both of his mothers some time earlier.

As Black Lives Matter gained momentum in the wake of George Floyd's murder, Sharif was suddenly flooded with an acute awareness of his own identity. It compelled him to zealously plunge headlong into open-ended spontaneous solo creation. Water & Tools, his strange and stirring debut for Toronto's Telephone Explosion Records (home to full-lengths from the likes of Brodie West's Eucalyptus, Mas Aya, and Joseph Shabason), offers a glimpse into this ongoing hermetic journey.

As Sharif dedicated himself to uncovering his own deeper musical truths, he assembled a home studio in his basement, cobbling together a drum kit from bits his bandmate had left at his house pre-pandemic, chaining effects together and outfitting the entire space with microphones. Somewhere between the chaos of child's treehouse and the tidy import of a shrine, this space (pictured on the album's back cover) consecrated his own imagination. He laid it out to maximize access to any and every tool in his arsenal, providing him a freedom to explore that he had never permitted himself to consummate before.

Within this cozy private universe, his recent purchase—the saxophone—assumed new meaning. It furnished a tangible connection to the black radicalism that mobilized free jazz, but also something far more personal. From a technical standpoint, the instrument was completely unfamiliar to him, yet rather than this being a hindrance to Sharif, his inexperience opened fruitful path forward, unencumbered by preconceptions. Resolving to shirk formal training, convention, and build his own understanding of it from scratch, allowed him to access his most raw, fundamental creative impulses. The Saxophone's inseverable bond with breath compounded this effect, echoing revelatory discoveries he had been making about breathing through yoga, research, and psychotherapy. Of course, the parallels with BLM's harrowing rallying cry—“I can't breathe”—were not lost on him either.

Water & Tools is a dense, contradictory statement with a blustery surface that shelters a soulful heart. It's generous music, exuding profound vulnerability—grappling with the loss of one his mothers, Lisa—all the while brimming with electric wide-eyed wonder. Almost every one of the nine pieces seems to carry some semblance of a groove, while remaining completely untethered from pulse. For Sharif, this collection is an expression of newfound lucidity, however for the listener his sonic concoctions act as powerful psychotropics. At points, there's a timelessness that's conveyed through the music's processional, ritualistic tenor, and yet there's an endless amount of wild, futuristic detail waiting to unspool at any given moment. Similarly, while this recording emerges from Sharif's private pilgrimage and personal emancipation, he also leaves room for collaboration. Woven throughout Sharif's one-man-ensemble textures, one finds Maxmilian Turnbull (of Badge Epoque, U.S. Girls, and Cosmic Range infamy) providing sundry keyboards and treatments, as well as his mixing skills.

Whether conjuring effusive psychedelia or plumbing introspective depths, the music that Jairus Sharif produces is singular, visceral, and wondrously unpredictable. Water & Tools sketches a raw, firsthand account of his nascent explorations within his own unbridled imagination.

If you ever wondered what ambient music of the 21st century could sound like, then you should explore the musical spheres of "ifsonever". This colorful debut-album draws a blueprint of an urban ambient club record of a parallel universe. A collage of beautifully improvised pieces, strictly recorded in "one takes". A gripping fusion that brings together the warm analog textures of classic vintage synthesizers and electronic urban ambiences.

Trying to appreciate the recent times of silence and deceleration, Daniel Helmer aka ifsonever has quickly developed a tonal language as a solo artist. With a non-compromising approach he would visit his studio, a cozy garden shed, to record one new track a day in strictly analog fashion as "one takes". His aim for this project was to capture the innocence and instinctive creative energy of the present moment. These 9 timeless pieces invite the listener to explore hypnotic and meditative atmospheres such as on the opener "transpose" or on "jonesy dreams of birds", as well as gloomy and almost mystical sounding tracks such as "total global" or "an unexpected error has occurred". ifsonever is a wonderful amalgamation of organic, laid-back sounds and electronic, club oriented elements.

Recorded at a time when social contact was forbidden and culture was at a standstill, many professional musicians felt challenged not to feel useless when performances and sessions in public were cancelled, while the need for expression, participation and communication persisted. What happens when you've read all your books, when you're tired of looking at screens, and when you're digitally saturated? Then the unbearable lightness of being will begin. Daniel Helmer decided to let his creativity flow into a picture depicting that moment in time. He gave himself the opportunity to reflect this period through the creation of music. Not always an easy thing to do when the only social interactions would be cats passing by or the sound of children playing nearby. However that can be exactly the perfect tranquil surrounding to ground oneself in the here and now and draw inspiration from the inside. This self titled album reflects a peaceful journey from start to finish.

Two old friends have been invited to contribute overdubs in hindsight. MillianX is a film composer and noise artist, a colleague from the viennese filmacademy. Both worked together on the film score for the science fiction movie "Rubikon" while the album was in its final stages. So a collaboration was an obvious choice. The creamy arpeggiated synthline created for "jonesy dreams of birds"' was extended by Millianx with some field recordings and a big cloudy synthwave that dips into a vast sea of noise.

Guido Spannocchi is a london based jazz musician. Both knew each other for several years but never had the chance to work together. When Daniel Helmer wrote "an unknown error has occured" he imagined a saxophone layer to accompany the existing synthline. But when the two musicians finally got together to record in the legendary jazz club "Porgy & Bess", Guido just let his creativity flow and jammed freely to the track with a totally unique jazz vibe.

Between film, music & sound Daniel Helmer is continuously searching for a spot to call his own. Expanding boundaries, pursuing the unheard and breaking genre definitions are byproducts of his curiosity and his drive to avoid repetition. Daniel Helmer resides in Vienna where he studied at the local film academy. He became one of the founding members of the techno-punk band "Gudrun von Laxenburg" with album releases on the legendary Skint label, collaborated with Sam Irl on "International Major Label" as the production duo "Mantra Mantra" and released an album as "Yogtze" on Gerd Janson's imprint "Running Back Incantations", together with Feater. At the moment he is focusing on his work as a film composer and is currently working on two feature films in Austria.

"ifsonever" offers a timeless ambience to help you slow down, reflect and enjoy the beauty of nothingness. It might help us to learn and accept a state of being unutilized without feeling futile and benefit from this rare silence.

The cover artwork is a collaboration between Jazz & Milk graphic designer Tim Schmitt and photographer Frank Hulsbömer. A scan of the artist's head, hand and foot was 3D printed, photographed and transformed into an otherworldly scenery that visualizes the musical atmosphere.

Storyville Records is proud to present Michel Petrucciani – Solo in
Denmark

This album features French piano prodigy Michel Petrucciani in a solo recording
from Silkeborg Church, 1990. MP was one of the most popular pianists in the
1990’s due to his extraordinary technique, his astounding musical outlook and
extremely dynamic playing style. His music is simply timeless and magical,
seemingly coming straight from his soul. As he is often quoted: “I’m not playing
to your head, but to your soul. When I play, I’m like a bird flying over the landscape,
and I can land anywhere.” Recorded on June 23, 1990 at the Riverboat Jazz
Festival in Silkeborg, Denmark, this album is a tour de force that leads the listener
through a series of the most iconic motifs in jazz, all of which are deconstructed
and transformed by an outstanding craftsman and embellished along the way by
a true master. And he also allows himself to insert unexpected twists and turns
that are guaranteed to make the listener smile. Pay special attention to his small
rhythmic and melodic tags, little hints for the well- trained ear. They reveal a
musician who never grows complacent or takes himself too seriously. Here, the
totality of MP’s talents are exhibited in an intimate setting, where he stuns the
crowd with his inventive and blindingly rapid playing. The music emanating from
the man simply grabs everybody’s attention. Arrangements by jazz legends like
Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis gets the cheeky Petrucciani
treatment with his rather audacious approach to ‘established’ jazz standards. MP
had the ability to effortlessly travel through the history of jazz on his piano,
fascinating his audience in the process. This church concert clearly displays why
MP quickly developed into a truly exceptional member of the international jazz
scene. For MP, joyful playing with the music was a necessity of life. He lived and
breathed for the opportunity to show it his love and respect. And all we have to do
is open our ears, mind and soul and accept the gems from a musical individualist,
who has made an indelible impression on millions of jazz listeners around the
world. Solo in Denmark is simply another chapter in the remarkable story of a
man, who perceived himself as a servant of the music. BIOGRAPHY Michel
Petrucciani was a highly charismatic and high- spirited character, despite being
hindered by a genetic disease called osteogenesis imperfecta or brittle bone
disease. He was extremely short, standing at three feet. Luckily, his hands were
perfectly normal, but he had special modifications to reach the piano’s pedals. He
started playing in the family band with his guitarist father and bassist brother. At
the age of 15, he had the opportunity to play with Kenny Clarke and Clark Terry,
and at 17 he made his first recording. MP moved to the US in 1982, where he
convinced Charles Lloyd to get out on the road again, and tour with his quartet.
Behind the grand piano, MP was a giant with h

A gonzo crew of shaved-headed, sax-blowing, reverb-stomping maniacs,
the fivesome tore it up on the stages of unsuspecting West Coast teen
haunts and hit the big screen via the 1964 B-Movie Bikini Beach
The album features Penetration, one of the undisputed all-time surf cornerstones!
Back in the 1960s, when surf music was burning up and down the beaches of the
Southern California coastline, it was often a gimmick that made one band stand
out from the others. The Surfaris had the laugh at the beginning of "Wipe Out."
The Chantays had the great guitar run at the beginning of "Pipeline." The
Tornadoes tried Shootin' Beavers ; The Pyramids simply had great surf music and
bald heads.
Their big hit, Penetration, stayed in the top ten (Billboard) for 13 weeks reaching
as high as #4 nationally. Only The Beatles kept the song from going higher. The
Pyramids appeared on American Bandstand (twice), The Bob Eubanks Show,
Shebang, Dave Hull's Hullabaloo, and The Lloyd Thaxton Show. The band went on
to record a handful of killer singles and one album before splitting up in 1965.
Now back in print after 25 years, the Pyramids are back in action and ready to
rock!

XAM Duo – the Yorkshire-based pairing of Matthew Benn and Christopher Duffin – follow-up their The A-side features a reworking of the album’s closing track, ‘Cold Stones’, by legendary electronic artist and DJ, James Holden. In one of his first remixes for a number of years, he has taken the original’s calming, comedown energy and transformed it into an epic, 11-and-a-half-minute journey, which somewhere around the five-minute mark comes right back up. “It didn't turn out quite how I expected, but as they say the sculpture is already in the stone, we just have to find it,” says Holden. “It's like the most rave thing I’ve done for ages and also not rave at all, like a blurry dream about a rave?” Whatever it is, it’s incredible, as are the two further reworkings on the B-side. The Early Years resurface after another lengthy hiatus and reframe ‘LGOC’ as a divine astral jazz / krautrock crossover, while Richard Pike (of PVT and Deep Learning, among others) turns ‘Blue Comet’ into a glitchy and discordant soundtrack to the best 1980s computer game you never played. “It’s lovely to hear three different interpretations of songs that we already tend to keep quite loose and elastic,“ says Matthew Benn. “These remixes feel like a natural extension of the music on the album, like they're from the same world, but perhaps in a different language.” Praise for XAM Duo II: “Thirty minutes of top-quality retro techno ambience and high-tech jazz” – MOJO “An elegant swirl of MIDI exotica, digital wind chimes and health-spa tones... threading saxophone through Boards Of Canada-style funk” – Uncut “Simultaneously more eclectic and more concise, the album expands, refines and folds down the twosome’s electro-organic explorations” – Concrete Islands “XAM Duo’s layered electronics pivot between the meditative and the assertive” – Clash “Made up of sweet synths, precise beats and some piano and sax, they create an atmosphere that feels as if it’s designed to accompany times of concentration and calm” – Loud And Quiet A1 - Cold Stones (James Holden Remix) B1 - LGOC (The Early Years Remix)
B2 - Blue Comet (Richard Pike Remix)

First time in - stockfind from great 2020 release! 300 copies pressed

After a fifteen year hiatus from music making, Pedro Tenreiro, Porto’s veteran and legendary DJ, former A&R, producer and re-edit pioneer behind projects such as Mr. Spock, Illmatic+Phaser and Dancin’ Days, joins Hugo Passos, a key player of the city’s early Hip Hop scene, to form Bonfim.

In the last couple of years they met once a week to have some fun exploring Pedro’s record collection through Hugo’s MPC.
The result is a six track EP of sample based music that draws its inspiration from soulful and, so called, classic golden age Hip Hop, 90s House and leftfield jazzy sounds that reflects the duo’s eclectic tastes.

We love nothing more than belated success, from the Nightingales' rise to top cult band, to the string of five marvelous Blue Orchids LPs in six years (as much as Martin Bramah had managed in the previous four decades) . . . so give us more. Like David Westlake. The release of NME's C86 cassette heralded a new generation of artists who'd emerged since the preceding C81 assembled a set of acts who'd coaxed new dialects out of punk, rhythms, reggae and the avant-garde. Though variable, C86 became a phenomenon, making a bigger splash and enduring longer than anyone could have predicted. The evolution by 1986 of "independent" or "alternative" music into "indie" brought a modified focus. From C81's post-punk negotiations of politics and cross-cultural influence to C86's compact blasts of, on the one hand, effervescent melodic pop and, on the other, jagged Beefheart-esque racket. Tiny Global Productions has proudly presented already one of the best from C86. The Wolfhounds' leader David Callahan's talent evolved masterfully into Moonshake, and more recently to a strain of blistering raga-folk psychedelia which deals with sociopolitical issues in brilliantly idiosyncratic fashion. And what of another of the best from C86 - the Servants, David Westlake's band? Ambivalent about the invitation to be on C86, Westlake gave the NME a wrong-footing b-side, before keeping a distance from the noise around the compilation. Subsequent releases from Westlake and The Servants and Westlake attracted fine reviews but settled quietly into relative obscurity, despite musical involvement from various Housemartins, Go-Betweens and Triffids, a quest by Stuart from Belle & Sebastian to find Westlake and form a band; not to mention Luke Haines' own five-year presence in the Servants before forming The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder. Westlake went first into the law, then spent years in literary academia. Now the surprise arrival of My Beautiful England. The album is a masterpiece of concept, composition and performance, a conceptual work of truths and reflections of difficult but deft and unflinching expression. "It is not only fashionable now to denigrate England and its past; it is heresy to recognise good in it. The place that made me is disappearing. Its values and traditions. Among them: good manners, humility and clemency, resilience and perseverance, good humour. History is being refashioned – in spirit and material fact – by ideologues unshakeably certain they are in the right, and people are being distanced from their pasts. Some find themselves forced into passive acceptance of new distortions of the past, out of imitativeness or cowardice. I resist. This album is a memorial. Intentionally, a museum piece. It is a personal tribute to the England I knew."

Gelb's semi-surreal observations lace things together perfectly.” UNCUT. Filled with loud and lucky abandon; heady steady and direct singalongs for the heart in constant turmoil. Giant Sand’s esoteric journey to ‘Heartbreak Pass’ is an exotic journey through hails of Youngian guitars, off-the-cuff jazz piano rounds and beautiful alt-country yearning. While containing only new songs for this album, this feels like a greatest hits and as such is a perfect entry point for Giant Sand neophytes. Fire Records give ‘Heartbreak Pass’ a long overdue repress on white vinyl, with new liner notes and updated artwork. There’s a roll of the tongue, a couplet and some convolution underpinning Giant Sand’s 2015 opus ‘Heartbreak Pass’. So the story goes, so legend has it, a mere 30 years into their career, almost ten years ago, Giant Sand were regrouped and, for a fleeting second, someone made sense of it all (the words, the genre swapping sound, the roll call of friends and accomplices, the majesty of polar opposites attracting). On ‘Heartbreak Pass’ the result from this lengthy travelogue is a memoir filled with trinkets exchanged along the way. Sure, the Arizona desert is there, gritty and unforgiving but Howe's one-man-band is joined by a throng of well-wishers, this time around including Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Grant-Lee Phillips and Ilse DeLange (Common Linnets), The Voices Of Praise Choir, oft-time collaborator John Parish, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Maggie Bjorklund on pedal steel, Italian singer/songwriter Vinicio Capossela and many more. It’s an album that travels far and shows its road weariness in places but it’s a celebration in all its ragged glory. In his original sleevenotes Howe pondered the fact that “The album is roughly broken into three volumes - loud and lucky abandon; heady steady and direct (Gelb's vision of Americana); and the heart in constant turmoil and something about a transponder.” He summarised: “I can't recommend it, nor do I regret it. It's been one life split into two.”


Tracks: A1 Heaventually A2 Texting Feist A3 Hurtin' Habit A4 Transponder A5 Song So Wrong A6 Every Now And Then A7 Man On A String B1 Home Sweat Home B2 Eye Opening B3 Pen To Paper B4 House In Order B5 Gypsy Candle B6 Done

Chris Crack is back with a brand new album called Growthfully Developed. Fans and critics alike are already calling it the Westside Chicago native’s best album in the last few years. Pitchfork said “Crack’s latest album is a delicate balance of fresh and familiar from one of the funniest and most thoughtful rappers working today.” With song titles like “Pussy Better When You Eat It First” and “Shitting With The Door Open,” it’s no wonder why he’s said to have the best song titles in the game. Whether it’s heavy hitting 808’s, soul loops or head nodding boom bap Chris laces up the variety of beats with style and finesse. Praised by media outlets such as Billboard and Rolling Stone as well as by iconic hip hop artists such as Earl Sweatshirt and Madlib. Like the album title suggests, Chris has fully grown and developed to reach this point in his career and critics will believe that Growthfully Developed be looked back upon as a pivotal album in his prolific career. The 18 track effort is set to drop on vinyl this fall via Chong Wizard Records in partnership with Fat Beats. TRACKLIST: 1. I The Buck They Couldn’t Break 2. Chicago Don’t Make Industry Plants 3. Therapy Don’t Work, Try Drugs 4. Jordan Never Did That Move 5. Pussy Better When You Eat it First 6. Whoa Dair 7. Celebrate Everything Until Further Notice 8. Uknowwhereihadderat 9. Ate Ball in My Sock 10. Illuminati Phone Numbers 11. Shitting with the Door Open 12. Nine 2 Fives Make You Fake 13. Beer Just Bread in a Can 14. A Blunt Forced This Trauma 15. That Hate Us Because We’re Magic 16. Air Mattresses and Machine Guns 17. Weed is an Expensive Habit 18 . No Shortcut to Enlightenment

2022 repress.

Vickie Chérie and Leo Bear Creek, aka The Pirouettes, need no introduction: after two albums (Carrément Carrément, 2016, and Monopolis, 2018), incessant tours in France and abroad (culminating in triumphant concerts at the Cigale and the Olympia), and numerous collaborations, the duo has become one of the most striking and endearing figures in French pop today.

But after the announcement of their separation in love, one could fear the end of the musical adventure. Not at all, the Pirouettes are back with a new album whose title, Equilibre, is not insignificant.

"Equilibre tu es un rêve inatteignable" says the eponymous song. And yet, balance is the goal that Vickie and Leo have set for themselves in order to continue working together: an ideal of wisdom to which to turn, in the midst of the turmoil, and which has guided the Pirouettes, both as artists and as human beings, during the writing and composition of this new album. They had to relearn how to work together, put aside conflicts and mood swings, and find resources of calm and empathy. But their common will to write a new chapter, to continue to tell their story, for themselves as well as for the fans, resulted in a result as generous as it was touching.

This new album, balance obliges, takes more into consideration the desires of each one and gives more voice to personal expression. No more unison, everyone can now take turns expressing their point of view and asserting their personality. From this point of view, the idea of the double album is quite symbolic: to produce two equal sets and put 9 songs on each side of the scale.

The third and most seasoned Drugdealer album, Hiding In Plain Sight, almost didn't happen at all. Frustrated and insecure with his own singing voice prior to the pandemic, Drugdealer founder and primary songwriter Michael Collins was nearly ready to throw in the towel. Due to a frequent impulse to hand over the microphone to friends and collaborators like Weyes Blood, Jackson MacIntosh, and his trusty musical companion Sasha Winn, Collins became increasingly unsure of himself as a singer. While attending Mexican Summer's annual Marfa Myths festival, a chance encounter with artist and composer Annette Peacock changed his outlook. Collins says, "I was so inspired by Annette. But similarly to all these other vocalists I'd worked with, I didn't feel like I had it in me." he recalls. "I told her my plight, then I played her a song, and she told me I wasn't singing high enough for my speaking voice. When I returned to LA, I started coming up with new progressions, which I'd modulate up three half steps. It forced me to find a new way to sing." "Madison," is the first song Collins wrote singing in this suggested range. His newfound confidence as a yarn-spinning vocalist in the gruff tenor tradition of Nick Lowe, or even Van Morrison, is readily apparent, with Conor "Catfish" Gallaher's pedal steel adding a dusting of cosmic country to Collins' down-hard love song. When Collins wrote the would-be AM Gold hit, he was summoning an imaginary vision of a love that had eluded him in reality. Tim Presley sings on the second song, "Baby," and Collins had a clear role in mind for the California avant-rock mainstay. "I love White Fence so much, but I also wanted to hear Presley sing a song that sounded like an early '60s sock hop band who had never tried drugs in their life." Meanwhile, Kate Bollinger floats an effervescent lead vocal over the Rhodes-driven groove in “Pictures of You.”. Taking inspiration from a canon of gruff but soulful rock vocalists like Phil Lynott, Collins looks back on his nocturnal meanderings through LA's warrens of bars and clubs ("New Fascination"). He’s right up front in the mix, detailing a search for love in all the wrong places.

Sasu Ripatti, now sporting the new "Ripatti Deluxe" moniker, presents his very own abstract take on early rave and happy hardcore. "Speed Demon" marks the first release on Ripatti's newly launched label "Rajaton".

The Finnish word ”raja” has multiple meanings. It could refer to a ”border”, ”limit”, ”boundary”, or even ”capacity” if understood broadly. It feels that ”border” is the first interpretation that comes to mind when the word is met in isolation of additional context. It often includes political energy of some sort. Or perhaps it’s just this particular point in time that leads the mind into such field of thought.

As the Dutch author Rutger Bregman notes in his book Human Kind – A Hopeful History, the real trouble with people began when the first person had the idea of drawing a line on sand and claiming ownership of the area on their side. The concept of physical borders was born.

Naturally, there are mental borders, as well. Think about all the things you shut out because they’re ”not for you”. They are numerous and we do it all the time. The issue is not to stop that, but to recognize when to let new things in, even if they’re not commonplace. Mental borders might often be easier to rewrite than physical ones, but the challenge remains a real one.

That’s where the derivative form ”rajaton” comes to play. By simply adding the ”-ton”, all borders, limits, boundaries and capacities are lifted in an instant. We have something ”borderless” instead, and are thus free to expand our thinking.

One could argue that the word ”rajaton” implies not the removal of borders but instead their very non-existence at large. How will our mind work when the concept of borders doesn’t even enter the conscious thought?

Mental borderlessness is a truly fascinating concept. A maximalist array of opportunities and potential ideas enters the picture – one which is also limitless, unlimited, sans boundaries, and also without a danger of being depleted. It’s an all-existence of multitudes where hierarchy also starts to deteriorate, giving way to a new form of full understanding without judgement.

Music is one fine place for such thinking, especially when thinking about the role of the listener. Occupying a much more active position than is generally recognized, the listener can greatly benefit from borderless thinking, and thus help to enhance the collective perceived significance of any given body of work. When there are no boundaries, the interpretation remains unchained and honest.

Basically it was all already said by the late revolutionary jazz pianist Burton Greene: ”Borders are boring!”

Gondwana Records announces Horizons the debut album from Jasmine Myra, produced by Matthew Halsall, it's an elevating debut record of understated beauty

Jasmine Myra is a Leeds-based saxophonist, composer and band leader Her original instrumental music has a euphoric and uplifting sound, influenced by artists as diverse as Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo and Olafur Arnalds and like Mammal Hands and Hania Rani her music has a special, emotive quality that draws the listener into her world. Matthew Halsall first heard Myra's music in 2019 shortly before the pandemic hit, signing her to Gondwana Records and producing her beautiful debut album, Horizons.

"I was immediately drawn to Jasmine's music. I could hear jazz, electronica in her music but with a deep, honest, emotional quality. I was really impressed with her skills as a composer and bandleader, that she is open and intelligent enough to bring all those influences together, to make something fresh and original. We were also delighted to work with a young artist from the North of England. London is often seen as the place to be, but cities like Manchester and Leeds are full of creative musicians too, and that sense of local community is at the heart of our values as a label."

Myra came-up through the bustling, creative Leeds music scene and her music draws on the sense of community that permeates life in the city and which is notable for a strong DIY ethos in its musical community. She attended Leeds Conservatoire and played with the Leeds based Abstract Orchestra, a jazz big-band, led by tutor Rob Mitchell that explores the synergy between jazz and hip-hop found in the recordings of Madlib, MF Doom of J Dilla. Indeed, Myra cites MF Doom and Soweto Kinch as early influences on her own music. It was in her last year at the conservatoire that Myra started to consider leading her own group and started to really think about what her own music might sound like and her first band featured guitarist Ben Haskins and drummer George Hall who both feature on Horizons and her band draws heavily on the Leeds community featuring rising stars such as pianist Jasper Green and harpist Alice Roberts.

Myra also mentions local legend, Dave Walker, who owns an instrument repair shop called 'All Brass and Woodwind' which is right next to the music college. She worked there while studying and he introduced her to a lot of local musicians. Walker also has his own line of saxophones (played by Shabaka Hutchins, Pete Wareham and Nubya Garcia), and gifted Myra the saxophone she plays on Horizons. It was Walker who encouraged Myra to apply for Jazz North Introduces, a scheme that supports emerging jazz artists in the North of England and Myra credits her winning a place, in 2018,with helping her grow in confidence.

" It gave me the opportunity to start gigging outside of Leeds, which I was very keen to do. I was quite surprised by people's reaction to the project and the support I was being shown, which helped me gain a lot of confidence. It became clear to me very quickly that being a solo artist was what I wanted to do and it was also apparent to me that mine was one of the only female-led instrumental bands on the Leeds scene, which encouraged me even more, as I wanted my project to inspire younger female musicians".

Horizons was produced by Matthew Halsall and mixed by Portico Quartet collaborator Greg Freeman, and much of the music was written during lockdown. It was a hard time for a lot of people, and initially Myra struggled mentally, deprived of shows and the connections of making music with her band and friends, but she also realised what she wanted as an artist and the result is heard on Horizons.

"I realised that my aim was to start writing music that made people feel happy and uplifted. Writing is one of my biggest passions, but I also love performing. Playing live and seeing the audience connect with my music and have a positive experience brings me so much joy".

This sense of elevation is at the heart of Horizons, together with the feeling of a journey, of reaching new ground. Prologue and Horizons were originally composed as one piece as they encapsulate Myra's own personal development as she worked on the album - taking the listener on a journey, especially Prologue; and then Horizons is that moment of release when you've reached the end goal. 1000 Miles takes inspiration from the music of Shabaka and the Ancestors. Whereas Words Left Unspoken was written after Myra's grandmother unexpectedly passed away in June, and due to Covid restrictions she was unable to visit her before she passed and say how much she loved her. Morningtide is a nod to Kenny Wheeler, particularly the track Opening from Sweet Time Suite on Music for Large and Small Ensembles but Myra also puts her own spin on it as she also does with Promise, another track influenced by Wheeler. Awakening has a calm and euphoric quality and represents that sense of problems lifting, or of reaching the other side, and New Beginnings finishes the album with a positive vibe and a sense of moving forward from darkness

This then is Horizons. A soulful, emotional and up-lifting debut from a major new voice. A snapshot of a young artist at the beginning of her journey - drawing on jazz and electronica influences to create something fresh and new. But also a celebration of her home town Leeds, and a record built on a sense of support and community before looking out to wider Horizons.

Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2 "...That's Jasmine Myra and 'New Beginnings', wonderful to hear new music from a new artists i've not heard before, a great new artist!"

Tom Ravenscroft on BBC 6 Music "Leeds-based saxophonist, composer and band leader Jasmine Myra. 'New Beginnings' on Gondwana Records. Compositions drawing influence by Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo, Ólafur Arnalds. Produced by Matthew Halsall"

"Under This Hunger Moon We Fell" is the new album from the uniquely talented, multi-instrumental artificer Lomond Campbell, the third and final instalment of his experiments using tape loops at the heart of his music making process. Campbell notes that "as the album was nearing completion there was a particularly dramatic Supermoon called a Hunger Moon. Apparently it has this name because it occurs right at the end of winter, when predators are at their most lethal and desperate, and those seen as less powerful are preyed upon". These themes can be clearly heard on an album that feels cold and bleak in tandem with moments of vulnerability and tenderness. "Under This Hunger Moon We Fell" stalks from the shadows with a natural, quiet confidence before exploring more carnal heaviness and occasionally brutal displays of dramatic tension. It meditates in cycles and is at both times predator and prey, conveying the balance of these relationships with its cinematic compositions. The album ranges from soft, delicate atmospheric musings such as "Bastard Wing" and "Leave Only Love Behind" to the dark electronics of "And They Are Afraid Of Her" and "Phonon For No One", which Campbell describes as "akin to a massive machine starting up, like a huge sinister power mobilising". During its gloomier moments, "Under This Hunger Moon We Fell" buries tonally ambiguous ambience underneath hazy, distorted textures created via the gradual degradation of the tape. It creates a dream-like backdrop with a moody undertone created by deep basslines and hulking percussive elements, blended with orchestral sounds that add an air of humanity. Although his music is grounded in sound it often incorporates sculpture, engineering, product design and visual art. Using a combination of hardware hacking and industrial manufacturing techniques, Lomond builds his own unique instruments and devices for creating sound which he combines with modular synths, piano and voice. The album also sees Campbell"s vocal debut on "For The Uncarved", having originally written the part for a friend. "I was supposed to be recording her album in my studio The Lengths, but she was struck down with Covid so the session was scrapped. It felt like the album needed some kind of human element so I resorted to singing the part myself". "Under This Hunger Moon We Fell" concludes a trio of albums using tape loops, which was kickstarted with an email from Lomond"s long-time friend and collaborator King Creosote. He was looking for a custom tape looping machine so Lomond set about designing and building a unique music machine, inspired by Reich and Basinski, that plays 10 second tape loops which disintegrate over time as they pass near a rotating magnetic disc. Campbell built and then tested the machine by recording a series of improvisations with it which became LUP, the first album in the trilogy.

The renowned trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 11th release, “Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” Demonstrating once again their commitment to continual experimentation in instrumentation and approach, the record begins with a long-distance collaboration made in response to a commission from New York’s Issue Project Room in 2021 during widespread lockdowns and travel limitations. A unique piece in the trio’s extensive body of work, this side-long epic finds Haino performing on metal percussion, O’Rourke on electronics and Ambarchi on gongs and bells. Initially dominated by rapid patterns on resonant, high-pitched tuned percussion, the piece sets Haino’s dynamic and dramatic performance against a calm backdrop of cycling electronics, thrumming gong strikes and hanging bell tones. The performance develops a heightened, intensely concentrated atmosphere reminiscent of Haino’s classic Tenshi No Ginjinka or his Nijiumu project; when Haino moves to clashing hand cymbals in its second half, the piece’s ritualistic energy suggests aspects of the music of Tibetan Buddhism.

The remainder of the double LP documents the trio live at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe (the location of all but their very first recording) in a wide-ranging set recorded in December 2017. The concert opens, in another first for the trio, with Haino on drums, O’Rourke on Hammond organ and Ambarchi on his signature Leslie cabinet guitar tones. Haino’s explosively untutored approach to the drumkit will be familiar to some listeners from the radical duo iteration of Fushitsusha heard on Origin’s Hesitation. Setting flurries of rapid activity against moments of silence, his drumming here at times suggests Milford Graves in its tumbling toms and thudding kick-drum propulsion. Accompanied by O’Rourke’s organ and Ambarchi’s guitar, which in their shared use of long tones and shifting modulation speeds almost blend into a single voice, the opening sections of this performance are some of the most magical music the trio has committed to tape thus far.

After an interlude of spoken vocals in both Japanese and English, Haino makes a dramatic entrance on guitar. Against O’Rourke and Ambarchi’s increasingly intense electronic backdrop, Haino unleashes a stunning passage of slowly moving chromatic melodies and sudden shrieking explosions bathed in distortion and reverb. By the time we reach the third side, the guitar/bass/drums power trio is established and lurches into a passage of massive, lumbering rock that threatens to fall apart at every beat, O’Rourke’s strummed chordal work on six string bass creating a harmonic density equivalent to a second guitar. An abrupt edit throws the listener in media res into a frantic locked groove grounded by fuzzed out bass patterns and caveman drums. As Haino moves through a variety of approaches, from massive edifices of stuttering fuzz to ominous swarms of feedback, the trio eventually stumble into a kind of Harmolodic military tattoo, Haino’s guitar weaving and slashing across the rhythm section’s irregular accents. Moving through an epic opening duet for O’Rourke on Hammond and Haino’s wailing guitar, the fourth side eventually ramps up into a frenetic finale of mad bass riffing, crackling snare hits and guitar squall.“Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” is a testament to the continuing power and invention of this trio, who continue to seek out new terrain after over a decade working together. 2LP set presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve on heavy stock along with inner sleeves containing live pics by Tsuyoshi Kamaike. Photography by Jim O’Rourke, design by Lasse Marhaug and translation by Alan Cummings.

Produced by Fussell and co-founder Alana Pagnutti and
mixed by Joel Ford (Ford & Lopatin, Yes/And), ‘Honey
Harper & The Infinite Sky’ features the premiere of The
Infinite Sky, a stacked backing band consisting of longtime
bassist and contributing writer Mick Mayer, pianist John
Carroll Kirby (Solange, Steve Lacy), Spoon keyboardist
Alex Fischel, guitarist Jackson MacIntosh (Drugdealer,
Jessica Pratt), pedal-steel player Connor Gallaher (Black
Lips, Calexico), and TOPS drummer Riley Fleck.
Within the first few moments of the self-titled new album,
Honey Harper and The Infinite Sky deliver a dashed-off
statement on the trappings of country music. Despite the
high level of conceptualization that went into its creation,
the record embodies an irresistibly loose and grooveheavy sound that hits with an immediate impact. While
previous album, ‘Starmaker’, was touted as “country music
for people who don’t like country music,” ‘Honey Harper &
The Infinite Sky’ is “country music for everyone.”

From their new millennium rise to MTV superstardom through pop-punk’s modern resurgence that has introduced their iconic, multi-platinum sound to new audiences around the world, SIMPLE PLAN have been an indelible part of pop culture for more than two decades because they’ve never lost sight of what got them there in the first place: their fans.It’s this same sense of mutual respect that’s fully on display on “The Antidote,” the first single from their sixth studio album, HARDER THAN IT LOOKS., their first new music since 2016’s Taking One For The Team, and the most authentically Simple Plan album since 2004’s Still Not Getting Any. Free agents for the first time in their storied career, the band kept their circle tight during the recording process, enlisting longtime songwriting partners like We The Kings’ Travis Clark and producers Brian Howes and Jason Van Poederooyen (who worked on the band’s 2011’s album Get Your Heart On!) and Zakk Cervini (blink-182, Good Charlotte). From the skyscraping choruses of “Congratulations” and “Ruin My Life” (ft. Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley) to the unflinching poignancy of the album-closing “Two,” which instantly ranks alongside “Perfect” and “Untitled (How Could This Happen To Me?)” as one of the band’s best closers ever, HARDER THAN IT LOOKS certainly respects Simple Plan’s storied career – and the same spirit that helped the band sell 10 million albums worldwide – without being overtly reverent. The album-opening “Wake Me Up (When This Nightmare’s Over)” is a cathartic rush of familiarity and freshness – not to mention a bit lyrically prescient, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after the band wrapped the album. (“We certainly didn’t set out to write a pandemic album,” Bouvier says with a laugh. “It’s funny how some of the songs might seem like that, though.”) There are even spiritual successors to early material, like the glass-half-full skate-punk-leaning “Best Day Of My Life,” quite a 180 for a band who put a song called “The Worst Day Ever” on their genre-defining, Platinum-selling 2002 debut No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls. But you won’t find an ounce of fat on the 10-song album, no obvious plays to recapture the radio waves they claimed in the early aughts with smash hits like “I’d Do Anything,” “I’m Just A Kid” and “Addicted.”

As three souls plunge down from the heavens, death and destruction can be felt hanging in the air like a foul stench. Red clouds swirl around a black sun that never sets and an erratic clock ticks off-tempo, moving faster and slower before rewinding and starting anew.

“Let me paint you a picture…” vocalist Mikey Arthur sings, welcoming listeners with a dramatic opening scene. It takes a skillful guide to navigate the darkest depths of hell. And, as The Gloom In The Corner depict in their second full-length album Trinity, death is merely the beginning of the series of chilling adventures

Purposefully aligning their song count with unlucky number thirteen – a reoccurring symbol in the ever-unfolding Gloom Cinematic Universe or GCU – it comes as little surprise to longtime fans that each of the Australian quartet’s enticing tracks intertwine to form an interlocking tale; this time centered around the appropriately labeled unholy trinity.

Comprised of previously deceased characters Rachel Barker, Ethan Hardy, and Clara Carne, the group’s bloody battle is woven throughout the album as the anti-heroes determinedly claw their way back to Earth from the Rabbit Hole dimension, slashing, shooting, and extinguishing anyone who dares to oppose their quest. Yet, for the Girl of Glass, Ronin, and Queen of Misanthropy, there is clearly more to the story than what can be contained within a single package.

Projecting a wide and complex web of lore, plot twists, and tongue and cheek humor, frontman Mikey Arthur, guitarist Matt Stevens, bassist Paul Musolino, and drummer Nic Haberle, have been producing highly detailed concept releases since their formation. And, consistently filling in more missing pieces of the puzzle with every body of work, the band equate each new record to a fresh season of The Umbrella Academy dropping on the streaming service of your choice. Because, just as a great TV series captivates viewers with its music and storytelling, the quartet’s work provides a complete experience designed to allow fans to check in with their favorite characters, all the while enjoying a cinematic new soundtrack.

For those just joining the GCU, as well as those looking for a quick refresh, 2016 debut album Fear Me introduced listeners to main protagonists Julian “Jay” Hardy, a Section 13 agent consumed by anger over his girlfriend Rachel’s death, and Jay’s gloom (later known as Sherlock Adaliah Bones), a demonic entity who at times takes over Jay’s body as a host vessel. 2017 EP Homecoming tells the tale of Jay’s brother Ethan, a war veteran suffering from PTSD, who upon discovering his brother’s struggle, kills himself as part of a Dante-style rescue mission to bring Rachel back to life. In 2019 EP Flesh and Bones, we’re introduced to Clara Carne, a past witness to one of Jay and Sherlock’s crimes, who instead of taking revenge, began a twisted love story with Sherlock, only to be murdered by his forced hand. And 2020’s Ultima Pluvia EP where we finally learn of Sherlock’s past as an ancient warlord under the tyrannical King Baphicho, and see Sherlock and Jay’s deaths ushered in by Section 13 opponent and New Order leader Elias DeGraver and his gloom Atticus Encey.

After 2016’s Fear Me, the band admit that their original intention was to jump straight into the events of Trinity before pivoting to create Homecoming, Flesh and Bones, and Ultima Pluvia. However, upon reflection, primary storywriter Mikey Arthur believes that pushing the timeline back actually provided greater opportunity for the group to properly flesh out the songs and plotlines for their sophomore studio record.

Indeed, while Trinity re-introduces the three central “heroes” of this new arc, it’s important to understand that while familiar, the characters are not carbon copies of who they were earlier in the story. And neither is the band who brought them to life.

Fully embracing the weird and whacky has never been a struggle for The Gloom In The Corner. Rather, it’s together with this attitude that the group come away with special moments such as the fascinating old and new dynamic between neighboring tracks “Red Clouds” – a song whose initial version predates the formation of The Gloom In The Corner as an official band – and “Gravity” in which a demo intended for future material was adjusted to fit the sonic drop.

Mirroring this evolution in the band’s musical approach, a sense of growth can also be seen projected in the characters and story that the quartet chronicle across the thirteen tracks.

Classifying their individual sound as an intricate form of “cinema or theater-core” due to the depth and breadth of their musical approach, features, samples, symphonic elements, and conceptual nature, The Gloom In The Corner continue to prove that they’re more than just a simple concept band.

In fact, similar to character theme music in movies and video games, the group seamlessly play off their diverse sonic story in a variety of ways. Continuing to breathe new life into older staples from their catalog, the quartet reworked their infamous “Oxymøron” breakdown from Fear Me into an impactful moment in Trinity’s “Nor Hell A Fury” and sprinkled audio easter eggs of this sort all throughout their new music for fans to discover.

Listeners are also brought further into the world of the GCU with the help of what The Gloom In The Corner call their “casting process.” Like picking actors for a musical, the band meticulously selected eleven different vocal features and several additional voice actors to bring the album and characters to life. Described as a 50/50 split between notable talents such as Ryo Kinoshita (Crystal Lake), Joe Badolato (Fit For An Autopsy), and Lauren Babic (Red Handed Denial), as well as talented friends and family like Elijah Witt (Cane Hill) and Mikey’s sister Amelia Duffield, each featured artist brought their own touch and realistic spark to the characters they portrayed.

For in the end, as much as Trinity and it’s cast live within the confines of their own supernatural worlds, themes such as falling out of love (Gatekeeper), battling depression (Obliteration Imminent), and standing behind women’s empowerment (Nor Hell A Fury), are ones that many can relate to or understand. And, while most individuals may avoid drowning their woes by way of transforming into full-on egotistical murderers like the Queen and King of Misanthropy and the gang, The Gloom In The Corner have illustrated that time and time again, life’s a little more fun when you can crack a smile. Taking a page from the trinity’s playbook: try to avoid the end of the world. But if you can’t…at least spend it with a killer soundtrack.

A unique longplayer by Germany's Funk champions The Mighty Mocambos: 'Scénarios' is a wild journey through iconic performances captured on 8-track tape, including celebrated versions of breakdance favourites like 'Axel F.' And 'Let The Music Play' as well as brand new original material composed especially for recordings in unusual settings.

Hamburg's deep funk chefs are known for their intuitive recordings that capture the energy of a live performance, and with this record they go all the way.

Just before the pandemic, the group recorded an in-store live session at legendary Hamburg record shop Groove City and taped an impromptu performance at JAM PDM! breakdance battle in Potsdam. Both were released on vinyl 45s, quickly sold out and became secret weapons for DJs. While most bands shifted their stage to the studio in 2020, producing an abundance of isolated lockdown-inspired material, the Mighty Mocambos – never shy of an antidote - took the mobile version of their recording studio on the road.

With no audience allowed at the Pitt Hopkins Music Session charity concert, the group used the occasion to compose meditative folk-soul instrumentals to be performed exclusively on stringed instruments. Sweaty funk does not work via video stream, but the format provided a welcome opportunity to create something entirely different. Even without electricity and drums, the cinematic "Four Two Three" and "Silent Heroes" are unmistakably recognizable as Mocambo themes.

When you follow Nina Simone's credo that an "artist's duty is to reflect the times", it became evident that once the world slowly started opening up again, further concerts would be captured on the group's portable Fostex R-8 tape machine. Luckily, restrictions fell on the very evening that the band hit the open air stage at the Import Export in Munich on September 11th 2021. The extended afrobeat-inspired jam on J.J. Cale's "Carry On" witnesses people celebrating and dancing together again for the first time after a year and the manic "Munich Psycholympics" unleashes all bottled-up energies that had being lying dormant.

The slightly kafka-esque "Ghost Walk" was taped during a soundcheck for a concert that was eventually called off for safety reasons, reflecting once more the uncertainty of the time. The last scénario sees the Mighty Mocambos returning to a packed indoor venue, playing "Let The Music Play" to a audience of b-boys and -girls – a testament to the sheer power of music. Featured as an encore here, an acoustic version of "Where Do We Go From Here?" (originally recorded with Lee Fields) closes the record and its restless voyage through unusual recording situations.

"Scénarios" differs drastically from other live albums as it does not seek to replicate existing material from studio albums. All songs were written or arranged especially for the live recordings in order to combine the group's DJ-friendly trademark sound with added vibes and momentum from the audience. Most of them were recorded while they were performed in public for the first time ever.

Comes in gatefold sleeve & includes download voucher.




d 04: Theme from Beverly Hills Cop (Axel F) Live

A new series from Jazzman featuring the lowest of the lowball schlock n' roll 45s never known to exist!

After many years in hiding, notoriously shady Super Spiv of the record world Greasy Mike has finally opened up his vinyl dungeon, and we were first to raid it!

We have left no box untouched, no crate unrummaged, no pile unpilfered! Just the greasiest and grimiest, the most shocking and sordid 45s have made it onto our selections. Watch out for more!!!

But first - and just in time for your Halloween Horror Shock Hop - Greasy Mike unearths his alltime all-hallowed Halloween Monsters: The Zombie Walk, Night Sweats, the Chiller, Prowler and Screaming Vampire! Putrid pieces of raucous rot n' roll records direct from Greasy Mike's manky mitts! Oww-ooooh!!!

Set for release on 28th October, the deluxe edition of Lady Blackbird’s debut album ‘Black Acid Soul’ comes with a staggering 11 additional songs, encompassing brand new material such as stunning single ‘Feel It Comin’ and remixes commissioned by the likes of electronic, jazz, funk luminaries Emma-Jean Thackray, Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy and Greg Foat.

Originally released in 2021, ‘Black Acid Soul’ received enormous critical acclaim; The Sunday Times named her their Breaking Act, stating that she “brings a singing voice of extraordinary nuance and immaculate phrasing to a selection of covers/reworkings and pindrop originals” in a 4* review. The Guardian awarded the album a 5* review, remarking that Blackbird “finds her calling with an extraordinary collection of songs and performances that burn deep into you”.

As Anomalie, the shape- shifting production project he unveiled in 2016, Dupuis has channeled his musical upbringing (his mother, a piano teacher; his father, a host on Radio- Canada), formal schooling, and stage- seasoned chops into two companion EPs — Metropole and Metropole II — the Chromeo collaboration Bend the Rules, and a series of singles lighting a pathway to his upcoming long-form debut, Galerie.
Galerie’s forward-facing approach may call to mind a timeless phrase familiar to any jazzhead: The Shape of Jazz to Come. Ornette Coleman’s 1959 opus reconfigured traditional notions of harmonic structure, its title and content serving as both a blueprint and open question for progressive music’s future. With Dupuis’ reverent but revolutionary project, that answer is no longer in the past or on the horizon; it’s here.

Ekkehard Ehlers' seminal plays series was originally released on three 12inches (Staubgold) and two 7inches (Bottrop-Boy) in very limited runs. The entire series was previously only available as a CD compilation or digitally. Keplar finally presents it on double vinyl for the first time, featuring a new cover artwork.

Domestic ethnology: Ekkehard Ehlers plays.

‘Play’ is a word in English with many meanings attached. Each one sends you down a different cognitive pathway. When I think of ‘playing’, in the sense of a game, I think of an activity involving more than one person. When Ekkehard Ehlers plays, he is very much on his own. Or, at least, alone but at the same time keeping intimate company with the artistic innovators named in his titles. Robert Johnson. John Cassavetes. Albert Ayler. Cornelius Cardew. Hubert Fichte. Is he playing with them, against them, about them, for them, to them? This can never be known.

It is certainly a mistake to try to hear the ‘work’ of these originals in the sounds played by Ekkehard. They’re not cover versions. They’re hardly tributes in the conventional sense. Cassavetes and Fichte are not even musicians, although music played an important part in both their careers. Sure, there are little nods and flashes of recognition – tiny guitar licks among the minimal beats of ‘Robert Johnson 2’; rich bowed instruments in ‘Albert Ayler’, recalling the violin, cello and double bass arrangements on Ayler’s 1967 Live in Greenwich Village LP; the elongated organ lines of ‘Cornelius Cardew 1’ gesturing towards passages in Paragraph 1 of the British composer’s 1971 Marxist monolith, The Great Learning. Ekkehard is not so much playing these figures as allowing himself to be played by them.

Playing as an activity also suggests freedom. Maybe the only thing all five named persons have in common is that they were all quiet radicals. In music, literature and cinema, they all stepped, without self-promotion or fanfare, into unmapped territories. Once there they found it necessary to invent new languages in order to survive. Necessity was the mother of their inventiveness. They were also uncomfortable avant gardists. Lonely types, fighting their corners out on the margins, with little reward, often misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored.

All died unfairly young. Fichte a victim of HIV/AIDS, Cassavetes of cirrhosis of the liver. (‘Cassavetes 2’ sounds like a tender farewell played across the 59 year old alcoholic director’s death bed.) The deaths of Johnson, Ayler and Cardew have never been satisfactorily explained, and remain shrouded in myths and conspiracy theories. The pioneering expeditions of all five began in that spirit of playful freedom, but inexorably drew them towards the heart of darkness.

So these ‘plays’ are micro-dramas, sonic soliloquies, monolog-ins to the private accounts of various geniuses in Ekkehard’s ‘follow’ list. Hacked sensibilities. Artistic manifestos boiled down and distilled, skinned and dried in the digital smokehouse. (Ekkehard Ehlers Flays.) Each of these plays was originally floated out into the world alone on its own disc. The collected works play well as a team – a tranquil, introspective experience where each artist has his own identifiably unique sound character. As an album, Plays is a ‘Plattenragout’ – a ‘record stew’ – which was the title of Hubert Fichte’s LP review column in the leftist culture magazine konkret in the 1960s. The novelist’s work investigating the cultures of South America and the Caribbean islands has been called ‘domestic ethnology’. The writer himself referred to his ‘ethnopoesie’. Ekkehard Ehlers’s intuitive electronic portraits are a form of domestic ethnology in themselves. Invoking another of Ekkehard’s musical aliases, they are portraits of cultural ‘autopoiesies’ – creators whose works were strong enough to have their own self-regenerating life force. (by Rob Young)

All tracks written and produced by Ekkehard Ehlers.
Featuring Stephan Mathieu, Joseph Suchy, Anka Hirsch.
Tracks A1 to C2 originally released on three 12inches via Staubgold.
Tracks D1 to D4 originally released on two 7inches via Bottrop-Boy.
Plays originally released as CD compilation in 2002 by Staubgold.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Cut to vinyl by Lupo, Berlin, 2022.
Redesigned by Sandra Kastl, 2022.
Photos by Ludger Blanke

After "La Légende d'Eer" in 2016, the PERIHEL series presents one of the milestones of electroacoustic music: IANNIS XENAKIS' mindblowing 54-minutes oeuvre "Persepolis", mixed from the original 8 track tapes by MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered / cut by RASHAD BECKER.

"Persepolis" is the longest electroacoustic composition by IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001) who ranks among the most influential 20th century avantgarde composers. Commissioned by the Persian Shah, the piece was part of a multimedia performance - XENAKIS' so-called "polytopes" - which premiered in 1971 in Shiraz-Persepolis (Iran) as a performance including light-tracks, laser beams, groups of children walking around with torches and 59 loudspeakers to project the music in an open-air situation. XENAKIS had realized "Persepolis" on 8-track analogue tape in the Studio Acusti in Paris and released a stereo reduction on vinyl in the famous Philips series "Prospective 21e Siècle" in 1972, adding the new subtitle "We bear the light of the earth", his most hymnal title ever.
Out of print for decades now, the LP became - especially the Japanese edition from 1974 - one of the most expensive collector's item of electroacoustic music. There were some later CD versions with different durations - too long due to a wrong sample rate, others shortened by 3 minutes due to other reasons. The PERIHEL series now presents a new version: mixed from the original (!) master 8 track tapes by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered by RASHAD BECKER at D&M, Berlin - the same experts who had already taken care of the 2016 KARLRECORDS release of "La Légende d'Eer", another milestone composition among the works of the Greek-French avant-garde composer.

Kieran Hebden’s Text Records is proud to announce Bolts, the debut album from British-Armenian producer Hagop Tchaparian, set for release in autumn 2022.

“Can I say, my friends call me Hagop? I don’t want people to struggle with my long name. I always liked that Eminem introduced himself and said “hi, my name is….” I think I want to be called Hagop so people find it easy to connect.”

Hagop’s debut album Bolts features ten tracks of hyper-personal rhythm music that mixes techno with field recordings of his travels through Armenian and Mediterranean culture. Early DJ support has come from Four Tet, Gilles Peterson and Nikki Nair. The artwork for Bolts was curated by skateboard, music and sports photography legend Atiba Jefferson.
“As a teenager I would make the pilgrimage to Slam City skateboard shop - I couldn't really afford to buy anything other than Thrasher magazine. I would see Atiba’s photos and get super inspired and want to push across the bridge and go skate Southbank. Downstairs was Rough Trade Records where I would be able to find the music from the music section in Thrasher and music i heard in the background of skate videos that I couldn’t really seem to find anywhere else. Atiba was photographing loads of these bands too so it's absolutely a crazy dream to be able to work with someone who provided so much of the inspiration throughout my life.”