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The trio of fiddle player Erlend Apneseth with guitarist Stephan Meidell and drummer Oyvind Hegg-Lunde follows up their Nordic Prize-nominated album of 2019, ‘Salika, Molika’, with a remarkable suite of tunes inspired by the rhythms and physicality of the human body in motion.
Originally commissioned by FRIKAR Dance Company to accompany the performance of a new work, ‘Skaut’, dealing with the covering of the body in different cultures, the music of ‘Lokk’ takes the trio further than ever before into completely fresh areas of electro-acoustic improvisation.
The sounds of their original instruments are integrated with electronic beats and treated textures to form a kind of enhanced digital-folk style whose influences stretch from traditional south Asian ragas to contemporary dance culture from around the globe.
The result is intense, and intensely rhythmic, music where the normally separate realms of the cerebral and the corporeal can appear to fuse into one irresistible groove.
As the trio rocks on - in a dream of perfect interplay between instruments and players, soloists and ensemble - deep, trembling sub-bass intersects with ethereal ambient soundscapes. Elsewhere, the twittering of birdsong - from both real bird-calls and the uncanny imitation of them by Apneseth’s Hardanger fiddle - meets archival recordings of Norwegian herdswomen.
“Our musical idea for this project was to unite different extremes, connections that felt “forbidden” in one form or another”, says Stephan Meidell. “For example, by using the sampled recording of traditional herd-calling, blended together with aesthetics from more contemporary music styles. This exploration has led us further into a rhythmic and danceable landscape than in previous releases. We also wanted to use this opportunity to deliberately make more dance-related music. As regards the original commission, were pretty free to do what we wanted, but there was one specific dance in mind, ‘Valdresspringar’, for which Erlend wrote the melody. It’s a traditional, asymmetrical dance and has a very particular form. The melody is on the track called ‘Springar’, which we then messed around with.”
This “messing around with” element is key to the sound of ‘Lokk’, whose playful experimentation over the nine separate tracks creates a beguiling, constantly surprising sense of adventure and intrigue that both draws the listener in, and then keeps them on their toes as to where the next stage of the journey will take them. It also becomes inescapably obvious that this is a group of three equals.
The contributions of Stephan Meidell and Oyvind Hegg-Lunde, as musicians, co-composers and producers, appear every bit as important as that of Erlend Apneseth, who performs superbly throughout. “Even though the trio carries Erlend’s name, it’s a band in every sense of the word”, says Stephan Meidell. “We make the music together, where everyone brings their ideas and we build on each other’s input and output. This is not our “coming out” as a band, but the group is sometimes interpreted as having a hierarchical structure, as a soloist and accompaniment.”
As is evident from the trio’s live performances, where each member seamlessly integrates the acoustic and the electronic elements in their respective sounds through constant monitoring and tweaking, Apneseth, Meidell and Hegg-Lunde are also pioneers,
creating real-time effects that in the past were only available through post-production or the intervention of a sympathetic engineer and a truck-load of kit. ‘Lokk’ translates this fleet-footed improvisational approach, and the players’ lightning-speed reaction times, back into the environment of the recording studio, where the music composed for the original FRIKAR dance piece was further embellished and adapted. Played live, it will continue to change again, as improvised music always does.

Ratsnake aka Gesloten Cirkel presents ?Just A Genesis? on the Place No Blame label. An conscious, meditative presentation of single take recordings from recent years. A sequence showcasing the development of techniques and styles that have been touched on and explored through other projects and releases. For the artist and label, this collection of songs represent a timeline of actions and reactions, transforming dusty old memories into perceptible realities in their own right. At its core, this album explores the confines between society and alchemy, and they form part of an ongoing research into the science of idea generation and external reflection. Recommended!

For Jayda G, joy is a state of mind. Whether she transmits it through her upbeat productions or magnetic energy at the decks, the Canadian-born DJ and producer, real name Jayda Guy, is a beacon of empathy on the dancefloor. It's no surprise, then, that Jayda G's DJ-Kicks mix captures the buoyant spirit of the music that has influenced her most. "DJ-Kicks has been a personal goal of mine for a really long time. I've been a fan for decades now. I remember there was one mix by Chromeo and it had some French disco on it that always stood out in my mind," she remembers. Clocking in at just over an hour, Guy's mixtakes you on a journey that moves through loved classics and new bubblers. The mix contains Jayda's Brand new single "All I Need", the follow up to Grammy Nominated breakthrough single "Both Of Us", a slinky house tune co-produced with James Ford that fizzes with shimmering energy. A rallying cry for kinship and understanding, Guy's insouciant vocals insist "all I need is you to hear me", gliding across the perfectly swung house beat. "Because the mix was made during the pandemic, I thought, 'What music makes me happy?' I want people to feel like they know me. I wanted it to be approachable, still honouring the disco and soul music that I love. I hope that translates in some shape or form."

TRANSPARENT ORANGE VINYL

For Jayda G, joy is a state of mind. Whether she transmits it through her upbeat productions or magnetic energy at the decks, the Canadian-born DJ and producer, real name Jayda Guy, is a beacon of empathy on the dancefloor. It's no surprise, then, that Jayda G's DJ-Kicks mix captures the buoyant spirit of the music that has influenced her most. "DJ-Kicks has been a personal goal of mine for a really long time. I've been a fan for decades now. I remember there was one mix by Chromeo and it had some French disco on it that always stood out in my mind," she remembers. Clocking in at just over an hour, Guy's mixtakes you on a journey that moves through loved classics and new bubblers. The mix contains Jayda's Brand new single "All I Need", the follow up to Grammy Nominated breakthrough single "Both Of Us", a slinky house tune co-produced with James Ford that fizzes with shimmering energy. A rallying cry for kinship and understanding, Guy's insouciant vocals insist "all I need is you to hear me", gliding across the perfectly swung house beat. "Because the mix was made during the pandemic, I thought, 'What music makes me happy?' I want people to feel like they know me. I wanted it to be approachable, still honouring the disco and soul music that I love. I hope that translates in some shape or form."

Silent Room, the duo formed by Enzo Carniel and Filippo Vignato is a conversation.
Between the piano of the first and the trombone of the second, two living forces of the
European jazz scene; between France and Italy; between acoustics and electronics. A
patient dialogue initiated on the benches of the conservatory in Paris, which was nourished
by the music of German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff (to whom the duo paid homage for a
concert at the Cité des Arts in 2014), musical moments shared as a group (Enzo Carniel's
sextet at the Jazz à la Villette festival in particular) and in pairs - for numerous concerts
given on both sides of the Alps - before perfecting their common grammar, giving birth to
their own repertoire, creating their own space.

This first album, Aria, released on the Franco-Japanese label MENACE, was recorded in the
setting of the Villa Cicaletto in Tuscany, whose Silent Room the duo made their own in
September 2019. Carniel had just released Wallsdown, the third elegiac disc of his House of
Echo project (Jazz & People, 2020) and Vignato of an intense live duo recorded with
American cellist Hank Roberts (Ghost Dance, on CamJazz in 2019).

The album is carried by simple melodies, tenuous threads on which the two improvisers who
have slowly got to know each other crisscross and let their voices express themselves. Aria
can refer to the opening of Bach's Goldberg variations, to sung opera arias, but above all to
any expressive melody that develops the imagination. Aria is also the air in Italian: the air
that comes from the breath, the air that fills the room, the air that vibrates and is transformed
into sound. The repertoire is therefore this collection of Arias composed by Enzo Carniel and
Filippo Vignato.

If the duo advocates with this album its jazz heritage - that of improvisation and
conversation, of freedom and virtuosity - and claims to be Carla and Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett,
Gary Valente, Albert Mangelsdorff, Ornette Coleman or John Surman; it also explores the
contemporary colors of electronic music, ambient and Japanese minimalism. The use of the
prepared piano, Fender Rhodes and synthesizers colors the sound space of the acoustic
piano and trombone. The eponymous composition that opens the album in acoustic, closes
it in an electronic version, illuminating the path of the duo between the two universes.

In the almost plant-like composition "In All Nilautpaula", Enzo Carniel evokes the water lily
(in Sanskrit) coming to purify the water around him. On "Babele", Filippo Vignato invokes the
great question of language: thanks to Arias, and therefore melodies, language becomes
universal through music, and only the sensory experience counts.

Born from Carniel and Vignato's desire to create a sound space that would be filled with as
many melodies as silence, a place for listening, dialogue and meditation, Aria is one of those
rare records that contain entire worlds.

After a long wait, and restructure of our releases due to The Pandemic, we decided that our next EP had to represent the times that we miss on the dancefloor as well as the glimmer of hope that dance music has given us through these surreal times.

Hardt Antoine steps up for his second independent Reculture release with two originals.

‘Tonight’ is an emotional downtempo track resonating feelings missed from a less bleak time. The track is carried through its 80s style bassline, emotive vocal cuts and cinematic feel. Evolving from a mellow and hypnotic aura and transformed by the tracks drums and percussive elements

‘Are You There’ brings together elements of acid, percussion and a rolling bassline that keeps your feet moving - an ode to the dancefloor. Are You There's liveliness creates an energetic atmosphere guided by melodic colours. The vocals within the track opens a dialogue between the music and the listener that creates a symbiotic relationship between DJ and those on the Dancefloor.

Five years after the release of ‘Pressure Loss’ the modern master of electronic minimalism Nicola Ratti returns to Where To Now? in collaboration with Japanese MC ‘MA’, for a suite of submerged, outsider Trip-Hop.

‘Shinkai’ meets at the crossroads of the gloomy sonic snapshot world of Tricky, the South London DIY avant pop bloom of Curl/Mica Levi, the outer fringes of Hip-Hop heralded by the Anticon crew, and the deep textured minimalism of Machinfabriek.

‘Shinkai’ heralds the first time Nicola Ratti has worked with a vocalist, and MA’s unique brand of ritualistic vocal methods and experimental approaches to intonation and inflexion only enhances Ratti’s otherworldly soundscapes. The depth of meaning behind MA’s lyrics further expands this sprawling sound world, revealing a twisted beauty, a deep insight into the melancholic world MA reflects upon within his abstract wordplay – on ‘Suiso’ MA laments above Ratti’s mourning electronics….

“A ship with the wind in the sails erased a path to the skies.

Gone forever,
In sandy finality,
A scene never to be repeated,
Never to be understood.

Never to hatch,
Dreams of never continuing beyond the crossroads
A painting dissipates as the allure runs dry
Without consulting the dusk, dawn never arrives.

Agonising over the silence brought on by a stumble,
Attacked from all angles until I find my ground once more.
What comes next does not matter - just as long as it comes.
A not-so-distant-future, born from certain uncertainty.

Let me face it with wavering reservations,
Bury me in it
My sins left unanswered
Cover the snow on which it falls.

An unthawing aquarium.
An unanswering aquarium.

Hiding, evolving, recollecting, transferring,
A precarious contradiction befalls.
Timeframes cut, edited and replaced with resentment
The ritual aesthetics of a secret ceremony.

The thoughts of once again,
Fills me with dread and rage.
Painted in blood.

Alas, it was fun...”

On the surface this is an unlikely (yet inspired) collaboration – MA has been a part of the Tokyo Hip-Hop underground for many years, over which time he has stylistically leapt into noisier, more experimental territories. We have Rabih Beaini to thank for shining a light on MA’s talents, with the 2019 LP ‘AMA’ being released on Morphine records, and Beaini opening new doors for experimentation and collaboration.

‘Shinkai’ was composed and recorded between January and April 2020. The pair had met a couple of times in Japan first and then in Europe, undertaking a live collaborative experiment combining sounds and words that had not been designed to be performed together, ‘Shinkai’ reflects the fluidity of this encounter and is in essence a consequence of it.

Ratti assigns the following poetic grounding to the intentions and thematic form of the album – “Shinkai means deep sea, a place most of us will never see except on the surface. The sea depths do not belong to us, they are not places for us, we do not know them and they disturb us, they are a material that we can look at without seeing. I have always thought that height, verticality in general, was not a familiar dimension except in relation to our physicality. The horizon reassures us, the depth disturbs us. The Italian language is written and read horizontally, from left to right, the Japanese language can be written vertically and read from right to left. Does the horizon still reassure us?”

Over three decades as the unassuming but pivotal figure behind some of Scotland’s most iconic pop, Jim McCulloch steps out of the shadows and onto centre stage with his debut solo album. The former Soup Dragon perfects his mastery of songcraft on When I Mean What I Say, released on Violette Records on 21 May 2021.
Lush and textured, delicate and intriguing, When I Mean What I Say is immersed in the melodic tapestries of Laurel Canyon but rooted in Jim’s life in his hometown of Glasgow. Written in Donegal’s wild Atlantic coast and recorded pre-Lockdown in Glasgow’s downtown Gorbals district, the warmth of the album’s classic pop and its lyrical openness transports the listener to an emotional and harmonic timelessness far from 2020’s claustrophobia.
Jim: “Violette Records are kindred spirits in the music world. Their ethos, aesthetic and generosity of spirit chime with me. Once I had finished the album, they were the only record company I sent it off to-the only record company I thought could do it justice.”

Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal, by Howard Bilerman. Featuring Thor Harris (Swans, Thor & Friends, Shearwater) on drums and Thierry Amar (GYBE!, ASMZ) on bass, with guest appearances from Tom Relleen (RIP) (Tomaga, Melos Kalpa), Catrin Vincent (Another Sky) and Coral Rose (The Silver Field, Red River Dialect).
David has written five critically acclaimed collections of songs under the Red River Dialect name. The last two albums (released by Paradise of Bachelors) achieved a glowing Pitchfork review and a Folk Album of the Month award from the Guardian. Selected press below.
“Folk Album of the Month. Alert, anti-colonialist folk. Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape... a wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world.” – 4/5 The Guardian
“Animated with a new intensity, the Cornwall band’s fifth album may be its most ingenious and immersive mix of folk and rock yet. It’s also Morris’ most compelling set of songs. He invests small sensations with outsize power, finding joy in sensory pleasures as well as in the mystical inquests that music allows. Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.” – Pitchfork
“The most underrated folk-rock band in Britain. The idea of them as a Cornish-born, Buddhist-inclined Waterboys is more potent than ever. Their fifth album of elementally-battered, rueful and rousing folk-rock ... is as stirringly anthemic as they've managed thus far.” – MOJO
“A beguilingly atmospheric record… imagine Steve Gunn transplanted to Kernow.” – Clash
“Gorgeous and moving, anchored by the heft of the physical but reaching for more. The epic spareness, the way it manages to be both still and an enveloping swirl, reminds me most of Talk Talk. There’s a prayerful intensity to the quiet bits, a listening, wondering awe, that makes the rock payoffs more powerful. The album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.” – Dusted
“It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. RRD has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.” Folk Radio

Monastic Love Songs continues the tradition that David has established over the course of five albums with Red River Dialect: using a song cycle to articulate a relationship with inner and outer landscapes, inspired by the Taoist approach of observing the movement of the heavens in order to understand the cosmos within, and vice versa. The joyful closing track Inner Smile was initially written as a poem of thanks to his Tai Chi teacher Hollis and takes its name from a Taoist practice.
The songs were written during the final weeks of a nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia where David took ordination as Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek. The songs mostly explore human relationships within the community, with outliers: Gone Beyond shimmers with cosmic devotion, in Rhododendron a reverie grows from the shadow of a flower. Steadfast concerns the love to be found beyond the urge to like and be liked, when you can’t avoid that difficult person. Leonard Cohen, on his six years living in a monastery:
“You know, there’s a Zen saying: ‘Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another.’
David considers this album to be a follow up to 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. The cover of that lp featured an image of him on top of Skellig Michael, in the years before the island was made famous as the home of the Jedi. He considers the visit to that abandoned Celtic monastic site to be one of the influences that stirred up his motivation. Skeleton Key speaks of what was given up to go, and what he was giving up to leave, referencing the Tibetan concept of the ‘bardo of becoming’.
The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango. A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there. Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light.
In May David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade. The first, Purple Gold, concerns a reacquaintance with first love. David wrote to the Hotel2Tango asking if they had any days available in mid-July?
Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman replied that they did, and a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it. On the day he went deep into the cover of traditional song Rosemary Lane, his double bass singing on this and on Circus Wagon.
David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations.
He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing.

Mixed by Jimmy Robertson at SNAFU, London, mastered by DenisBlackham.

Colleen is an aboundingly inventive composer and artist. For two decades Cécile Schott, as Colleen, has crafted welcoming, enchanting, and bewildering music. The multi-instrumentalist and vocalist's timeless compositions make use of carefully selected tools to mold memories into transcendent splendor. The Tunnel and the Clearing finds Schott at her most vulnerable and confident, invoking contemplative and swirling organ processed through analog electronics, steady drum machine syncopations and her distinctive voice. On an album centered on processing the complicated washes of emotion through tribulations and revelations Colleen presents a vision of breathless clarity.

Colleen is an aboundingly inventive composer and artist. For two decades Cécile Schott, as Colleen, has crafted welcoming, enchanting, and bewildering music. The multi-instrumentalist and vocalist's timeless compositions make use of carefully selected tools to mold memories into transcendent splendor. The Tunnel and the Clearing finds Schott at her most vulnerable and confident, invoking contemplative and swirling organ processed through analog electronics, steady drum machine syncopations and her distinctive voice. On an album centered on processing the complicated washes of emotion through tribulations and revelations Colleen presents a vision of breathless clarity.

Stiletti Ana, part of the dreamy sunbathed electronic duo “Jesse” and top tier in Finnish music production is releasing a new solo album, “I’m an arpeggiator” on Höga Nord Rekords. This album carries similarities to Jesse in both production and sounds but hides more ancient wisdom. A refined sound but with more edges left sharp and more of a mysterious vibe.

As the sound professor he is, Stiletti Ana takes you in a tour of his vast collection of vintage synthesisers and in centre of attention sits the arpeggiator (hence the album title) which gives the sound much of its repetitive character. Recorded in the legendary Haista II-studio outside Helsinki, “I’m an arpeggiator” channels the energies from the waters and forest surrounding the studio, giving the music its’s escapistic and romantic character.

This record is a transcendental trip down the paths of Boards of Canada and Manuel Göttsching, dedicated to the ancient Babylonian fishing god, Dagan.

Copenhagen’s progressive genre-crossing quartet VOLA re-issue their 2nd album ‘Applause of a Distant Crowd’ on 180gr blue/black splatter on transparent vinyl. This re-issue will be released on May 21st via Mascot Records/Mascot Label Group in conjunction with the new VOLA album Witness.

As with its predecessor, ‘Inmazes’, ‘Applause of a Distant Crowd’ is an ambitious and thought provoking dissection of fragile human emotions through an exploration of entwining musical textures. Mastered by Andy VanDette (Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, Devin Townsend, David Bowie).

It took German metalcore vets, CALIBAN recording a cover of Rammstein’s “Sonne” to realize that their native tongue was a seamless fit with their time tempered collision of punishing riffs and Andreas Dörner’s urgent vocals. With fans hungry for the Essen-borne quintet to record an album exclusively in German, the band simply said: “Why not?” and “Zeitgeister” was born. 11 genre-defining LPs deep into their career, the band’s vision for the album came naturally – a career retrospective and deep-dive into CALIBAN favorites that haven’t had a live airing in some time. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but once we allowed us to make them as different from the originals as we felt it was needed it came fairly naturally”, explains guitarist and main songwriter Marc Görtz. Of course, some updating was necessary when it came to translating the songs to German. “It turned out to be surprisingly tricky,” says Dörner. “While I feel more at home with my native German it made it a lot more complicated, as I had more options to phrase something.” Formed in 1997, CALIBAN’s legacy has been a tireless one, touring the globe and sharing stages with the likes of Slayer, Kreator, Killswitch Engage and many more, “Zeitgeister” was a welcome homecoming. With the help of long-running producer Benjamin Richter (Moonspell, Emil Bulls and more) CALIBAN hand-picked seven tracks to bring new life to: “Trauma“ (feat. Matthi from Nasty, “Arena Of Concealment”), “Herz” (“I Will Never Let You Down”), “Ausbruch nach Innen“ (“Tyranny Of Small Misery”), “Feuer, zieh mit mir“ (“Between The Worlds”), “Nichts ist für immer“ (“All I Gave”), “Intoleranz“ (“Intolerance”). “Mein Inferno” (“My Little Secret”). “Zeitgeister” also boasts a new track, “nICHts”. “It’s a song about feeling disoriented and hopeless, about depression and feeling powerless. Feelings that many of us can probably relate to during these days”, says Dörner.

** 12” LP edition of 300 copies with cover artwork and booklet featuring illustrations by Ettore Tripodi ** In September 2019 Alessandro Bosetti was invited by fellow composer and curator Riccardo La Foresta to create a new work for a newly created ensemble as part of a residency program hosted by Centro Musica in Modena, Italy. The very first encounter took place on Skype – kind of a prediction of the forthcoming physically distanced pandemic times. The first, straight-to-the-point question Bosetti posed to each musician was to tell him the history of their life. The materials collected in the interviews subsequently underwent a process of anonymization, selection and cut-up in order to create the imaginary autobiography of Didone, a genderless character on whom Bosetti composed a combinatory poem in 84 aphorisms, six of which have been translated into music. The ensemble consists of extremely different musical profiles: the contemporary soprano Giulia Zaniboni, minimalist banjo and acoustic guitar player Glauco Salvo, and four musicians with a jazz background such as guitarist Luca Perciballi, drummers Andrea Grillini and Simone Sferruzza, and saxophonist Dan Kinzelman (also part of Hobby Horse trio and long-time collaborator of Enrico Rava). Some of the stylistic features of Bosetti’s project Trophies (along with Kenta Nagai and Tony Buck) can be detected here and there. Persistent repetitions, mesmerizing sonic masses and extended, oblique melodic lines are here led by the clear and precise voice of soprano Giulia Zaniboni.



The voice is at the heart of this work: the textual fragments of the autobiographies are filtered through Zaniboni’s contemporary vocality, while informing the instrumental writing as well. Themes and textures unveil traces of words or sentences; fragments of biographies are embedded in the intricate instrumental dialogue between the two drummers. A final layer was added by Ettore Tripodi, a unique and out-of-time visual artist who imagined Didone in a series of illustrations accompanying the poem. "Didone" is a work about the reconfiguration and recombination of identities, where every specific sense of belonging melts into an indistinct swarming of possibilities.



Alessandro Bosetti is a Marseille-based composer and sound artist with a particular interest in the musicality of language and in the voice, conceived as an autonomous object and an instrument of expression. His works enact a dialogue between language, voice and sound within complex tonal and formal constructions, often crossed by oblique irony. He builds surprising devices, often linked to the radio medium and to a tireless reflection on the relationships between music and language, questioning aesthetic categories and listening postures.



His work has been shown in reference venues such as the GRM / Présences Electronique festival in Paris, Roulette and The Stone in New York, Café OTO in London, the Liquid Architecture Festival in Melbourne and Sydney, the Serralves Museum in Porto and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. His music is released by labels such as Errant Bodies Press, Holidays Records, Rossbin, Sedimental, Unsounds, Monotype, Weird Ear Records.

Toronto-based punk rockers Billy Talent released their fifth studio album Afraid of Heights in 2016. Preceded by the strong singles “Afraid of Heights”, “Louder than the DJ” and “Ghost Ship of Cannibal Rats”, the album became both a critical and a commercial success. It hit number 1 on the album charts in several countries including their native Canada. It is the first album with drummer Jordan Hastings (of Alexisonfire fame), after drummer Aaron Solowoniuk announced he would not be able to play drums for the foreseeable future due to a multiple sclerosis relapse. However, Solowoniuk very much remained part of the band and was involved in the recording of the album. It was a new chapter for Billy Talent, but the trusted high-energy punk rock that they are known for remains more than solid. Just listen to the thumping “The Crutch” or the introspective epic “Rabbit Down The Hole”.

The album is released as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on bloody mary (transparent red & solid white & black mixed) coloured vinyl. It is housed in a UV matte finished gatefold sleeve, which also contains a 4-page booklet and an exclusive art print by Igor Hofbauer.

Conrad Clipper is the pseudonym of an anonymous composer and multi-instrumentalist, with a focus on prepared,
programmed & played piano. He lives and records in Berlin.

His debut album, Cycle of Liminal Rites, was released on Emily Elhaj’s Love Lion label (Angel Olsen). He is set to releasehis follow-up release, Heron’s Book of Dreams, on Luau Records (Theo Alexander, Sontag Shogun, Segal) on March 26th 2021. It was recorded in Arizona and Berlin, and was mixed and mastered by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich.


Conrad on the recording of Heron’s Book of Dreams:

Through the window at Arcosanti, I could see the desert, vast and transformative. Inside the room was an upright piano, a Fender

Rhodes, and several synths. For five days - every morning, afternoon and evening - I sat in this room with the circular window and wrote the music you can hear on this record. Outside, intimate crowds gathered to watch some of the world’s best musicians play unique and unrepeatable sets.

“Arcosanti, AZ is a prototype arcology designed by Paolo Soleri. Picture, if you can, moonbase architecture inspired by late-60s sustainable ideologies. Concrete atriums screened with poplar and olive trees. Shady, calm apses to keep the desert sun off. The low roar of the iron forge, casting the famous Arcosanti bells that are shipped around the world.”

Label Text "Dekmantel once again teams up with RE:VIVE, the cultural initiative setup by the The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, to pair modern electronic talent with Dutch archival footage. The third EP in the Scores series sees Interstellar Funk and Italian producer Guenter Råler create innovative, modular soundscapes to the graceful visual arts unearthed from the EYE Filmmuseum archives.

As Interstellar Funk, Olf van Elden uses his production competency to craft a heavenly arpeggiated, synth composition to the amateur aquarium movies by J.L. Clement which are edited for this project by Sjoerd Martens. Filmed in the 1940’s, the video’s turn-of-the-century black-and-white style aquatic footage is reanimated through van Elden’s tacit polyphonic, modular sonic soundtrack. Layering together multiple sequences, van Elden pieces together the music as a whole, to mimic the way in which the film was created.

On the B-Side, Italian abstract artist and Dutch native Guenter Raler concocts a deeply introspective, and perfectly choreographed, ambient soundtrack to a select series of pieced together clips from the Collectie Natuurbeelden, the Institute’s Collection of Natural Images. The music plays against the depiction of multiple biological communities in transition; what is referred to as an ecotone. The title itself not only recalls that of a musical tone, but represents the ever-evolving aspect of life and nature as similar colours, along with movements of animals and plants pass on from one image to the next.

Within their own right, the new scores not only give the age-old films new context and sonic character, but exist as creative works as their own, full of resonance and individualism that highlight the retrospective artists’ voices to their fullest."

Since her crowning in 2009 at the Blues sur Seine Festival, the young guitar prodigy Nina Attal, with a powerful soul voice, has imposed herself to the public, recording 2 EPs, 3 albums and performing more
than 600 concerts.
‘Pieces of Soul’, is Attal’s fourth album and shows her return to the blues, rhythm ‘n’ blues and rock. Written and composed in the wake of a road trip on the West Coast of the United States, ‘Pieces of Soul’ is eagerly awaited.
These 12 tracks, to which is added a cover of “You’re No Good” popularized by Linda Ronstadt, put the guitar back at the heart of her creative process, through a range of sunny sounds, discreetly and respectfully tinted by various Californian influences (Ben Harper, Lenny Kravitz, John Mayer...).
The riffs with rock distortions are next to great blues-soul ballads, folk, or rhythm ‘n’ blues. Her lyrics, very personal, translate as many doubts as to her desire for emancipation. Inspired by her incompressible love for the music she has in her skin, just like her tattoos, ‘Pieces of Soul’ undoubtedly offers Nina Attal a new dimension.

BEATCONDUCTOR drops this limited 1-sided reworking of a 60s classic from the BEACH BOYS under a cheekily appropriate alias. Lifted from original stems and branched out towards tropical shores. Still keeping the moody feeling and adding some extra extended uplifting rhythms. The original organ is transferred into a laidback skankin backbeat with the bass steady pounding deep below. Full color stickered label on a 1-sided 12” with vocal and instrumental mixes

Following on from their ‘Insect-Talk’ 12”, O Yuki Conjugate return to Utter for the vinyl version of their most recent album ‘Sleepwalker’.

‘Sleepwalker’ documents O Yuki Conjugate’s 2017-2019 live shows but also doubles as the soundtrack to a film of the same name by founder member Andrew Hulme. The music and images were conceived together and the resulting album comprises 10 tracks taken from 24 live performances in nine countries across Europe. ‘Sleepwalker’ captures OYC’s current musical direction, a blend of plangent keyboards, abstract guitars and electronic rhythms, presented in OYC’s inimical style.

Originally released in 2019 on CD by German label Auf Abwegen, ‘Sleepwalker’ is finally available in vinyl form complete with three additional live studio recordings from OYC’s ‘Flesh and Bones’ NTS session of the same year.

The album features a contribution from musician and actor Keeley Forsyth on ‘Eyelids Burn’ (courtesy of Leaf Records). It was mixed and mastered by Nurse With Wound’s Colin Potter and then transferred and cut by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering.

The sleeve houses a 16 page 10”x10” size booklet displaying images and text from the ‘Sleepwalker’ film, a special 12”x12” tour insert plus codes to download the album and view the film.

Newly launched Dutch electro label LDI Records follows up their first release from T/Error with a deep and dark four track EP by French producer Franck Kartell. In a homage to masterful science fiction writer Philip K Dick - Side A of Electric Sheep EP evokes scenes from future mechanized worlds. Electric Sheep kicks the 12" off with a melancholic and contemplative moment followed by a steel cold and brooding venture in Voigt-Kampff. On the B side of this release, there is a live mix of Kartell's track Electro Music, a futuristic electro work out with kicks for the dancefloor. The EP completes with Victoria - an ode to the electronic musician Victoria Lukas who passed away in 2020 - with a beautifully poised and contemplative track steeped in synths. Franck Kartell is a French producer who has releases on Between Places, Transient Force, Ukonx Recordings, New Flesh, Bass Agenda and others. Since 2005 he has been producing well thought-out Electro music filled with dark atmospheres and driving rhythms. Specializing in moody, atmospheric electro, LDI Records (Lloyd's Dark Imperium) are an essential label to watch. Distributed worldwide by Clone Distribution, while the Dutch label's main focus is on vinyl releases, available in selected record shops across the globe, releases will also be available digitally.

Having already explored the archives of a number of overlooked Greek composers, Into The Light is now turning its attention to the uncharted territory of Greek film soundtracks of the 70s and 80s - a boom period for mystical, transcendental arthouse cinema in Greece.

GOST: A Spiritual Exploration into Greek Soundtracks (1975-1989) is a passion project from the Greek filmmaker and composer Yannis Veslemes, that took years of engagement, exhaustive research and persistence. The collection features a mixture of rare, hard-to-find and previously unreleased material from musicians and composers including Yannis Kostidakis, Thesia, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Michalis Christodoulides, Stamatis Spanoudakis, Haris Xanthoudakis, Vangelis Katsoulis and Charlotte Van Gelder . All material is accompanied by detailed linear notes from the curator Veslemes, explaining the stories behind the tracks and the movies they first featured on.

The compilation celebrates the inventiveness and experimentation of Greek soundtrack composers in the ‘70s and ‘80s, by presenting a surprising mixture of musical hybrids that bridge the worlds of electronic and acoustic music, and compositions that bring together Western and Eastern musical traditions, in uniquely idiosyncratic ways.

Stiletti-Ana debut on Public Possession.
Intergalactic transmission.
Haista II Studio Finland.
Motor Scooter Piaggio
Drums, Drums, Drums. Ecstasy!

Pure Donzin is the debut solo offering by Amsterdam - based Donald “Donny” Madjid - also known for his involvement in The Mauskovic Dance Band. On a pandemic - induced break from his usually busy tour ing schedule, Donny, armed with a 60’s drum machine and a few synths, made the most of his time off by experimenting with, and home - recording new sounds - resulting in a fully - fledged 9 - track album under the artist monicker Don Melody Club.

Whilst many of his local peers tend to turn to sounds further from home for inspiration, Madjid felt drawn to honour the literary and musical tradition of The Netherlands, following in the footsteps of classic and lesser known Dutch troubadours such as Ramses Shaffy (a cover of ‘Laat Me’ features on the album) and Ronald Langestraat. Don drew inspiration from bard - like storytelling and for the first time started writing in his native tongue, craftily forging lyrics that his rich tenor voice delivers with a sincerity that translates regardless of whether or not you understand Dutch. This intimacy is balanced evenly with synth and drum machine grooves, recalling Dutch New Wave legends Doe Maar - merging ear worm pop hooks and infectious danceable beats to these otherwise pe nsive ballads.

An ode to being immersed in the magic of the night in good company, an experience so lacking during the year in which the album was recorded, is the danceable Psychonauten. The track is a fine example of the glittering synthesis of infectio us musical atmosphere and lyrically rich straightforwardness Donny has mastered on the album.

The influence of The Mauskovic Dance Band, especially the bass driven, hypnotic groove - a signature sound Don guides in new directions - can be detected on Ver anderd. Somewhat of an anthem, it is laced with tones of 70’s West - African sounds, like fast percussive key arrangements and energetic backing vocals. An example of a more laid back tune on the record is Isabel, a cool nostalgic love song, a soother for a sentimental occasion.

Opening number Geen Nood (No Panic), lyrically nothing short of a ‘sign of the times’ track, paints a mindful setting of cycling past the Amsterdam canals, seeing the leaves in the water, and feeling your blood flow peacefully throu gh your veins - letting go of the need to be anywhere other than where you are. Be it through meditative observances, or hypnotic dance grooves, Pure Donzin is a record that tempts the listener to become just that: immersed in the moment.

Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin includes pop standards penned by
America’s legendary songwriting duo George and Ira Gershwin.

As Willie tells it: “Ira and George Gershwin were just fantastic writers. They wrote some of the greatest songs ever. The Gershwin songs have been here for many, many years. When I was just a small guy, I remember hearing all these great Gershwin songs and they’ll be around forever because great music like that just does not go away.”

Among the 11 Gershwin classics recorded by Willie Nelson for the album are two duets: “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” with Cyndi Lauper and “Embraceable You” with Sheryl Crow.

Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin debuted at number one on the Traditional Jazz and Top Jazz Albums Billboard charts, becoming Nelson’s third album to top the latter. Meanwhile, it reached number fourteen in Top Album Sales and reached number forty in the Billboard 200.

Now available as a limited edition of 1000 numbered copies on transparent red vinyl, including an insert + Willie Nelson on Music On Vinyl catalogue insert.

Neutral’s seminal album, Grå Våg Gamlestaden, is widely
considered ground zero for the explosion of creativity that has
transpired in the Swedish Underground ever since. It is the noisy
experimental rock album that opened the door and welcomed in
so many artists working behind the scenes. Gothenburgers Dan
Johansson (Sewer Election) and Sofie Herner had previously
made music together in the band Källarbarnen when they started
discussing a new methodology and a fresh sound for recordings
in 2013 under a new name as a duo.
After witnessing Herner and Johansson’s live performance in
an artist’s studio in the spring 2014, Gustaf Dicksson, who was
running the Omlott record label at the time as well as performing
under his own moniker, Blod, offered to release an album by
Neutral on the spot.
Herner recorded most of the instruments and voice, Johansson
worked on manipulating the recordings, experimenting with
reel-to-reel techniques. The title of the album translates as “Grey
Wave Gamlestaden” and was chosen as an inside joke about the
neighbourhood Gamlestaden where Johansson and Herner lived.
A major theme on the recording is a certain kind of bleakness
but with a wry smile closely identified with the spirit of the
neighborhood.
In the fall of 2014 Grå Våg Gamlestaden was released,
limited to 200 copies, and sold out quickly without many copies
making it outside of Sweden. Around the same time, Johansson
and Herner joined forces with other underground artists in their
widening circle to form a sort of Gothenburg supergroup making
music together as Enhet för Fri Musik.
Grapefruit’s reissue of Grå Våg Gamlestaden is the first time
Neutral’s masterpiece has seen the light of day since it sold out
quickly in 2014. This vinyl-only gatefold reissue is limited to
300 copies.

Nach zwei Alben auf Morr Music erscheint das dritte Album der Münchner ALOA INPUT auf dem Wiener Label SILUH RECORDS. Der versponnen-psychedelische Krautpop-Entwurf mit Independent Folk-Anleihen wird konzeptuell erhöht und darf Liebhabern der Beta Band, Jane Weaver, späten Tame Impala oder Animal Collective nicht entgehen. ALOA INPUT ist im besten Sinne eine Experimental Pop Band. Das dritte Album der Band um Angela Aux, Marcus Grassl und Cico Beck (The Notwist, Joasihno) ist ein Konzeptalbum, hört auf den Namen "Devil's Diamond Memory Collection" und erscheint im Mai 2021. Fünf Jahre sind seit dem letzten Album von Aloa Input, der einstigen Speerspitze des "New Weird Bavaria", vergangen. Eine für die Band ungewöhnlich lange Zeit. Angela Aux, Marcus Grassl und Cico Beck verbrachten sie damit einen endlosen Strom an Demomaterial zu produzieren. Bei Sessions in Ateliers, Kinos und Kellerräumen in München, Mexico City und Montreal entstanden knapp 50 Stücke. Am Ende blieben 14 übrig, die im ersten Konzeptalbum der achtjährigen Bandgeschichte gipfelten. Das Thema? Die ,gefühlte Ewigkeit"! Jedes der 14 Lieder ist aus einer anderen, fiktiven Perspektive aus einem unbestimmten Zeitpunkt in der Zukunft erzählt, eine Rückschau auf die Fetzen unserer Zivilisation. ,Wir wollten eine Platte machen, die wir selber in 20 Jahren anhören würden und sagen, ja: So erschien uns damals die Zukunft". Doch wie lässt man eine Zukunft vor dem inneren Ohr auferstehen, die nur in unseren Gedanken existieren kann? Aloa Input haben auf ,Devil's Diamond Memory Collection" den richtigen Ton getroffen, irgendwo zwischen alienated und alltäglich. "Devil's Diamond Memory Collection" ist der Soundtrack für ein Science-Fiction-Szenario, das nicht als fortschrittsoptimistische Utopie oder bombastische Endzeitvision daherkommt, sondern als geradezu beiläufige Erkenntnis, dass wir längst in unserer Zukunft angekommen sind. 180gr Vinyl in festem Klappcover plus Download Code

LTD PINK PANTHER LP

Nach zwei Alben auf Morr Music erscheint das dritte Album der Münchner ALOA INPUT auf dem Wiener Label SILUH RECORDS. Der versponnen-psychedelische Krautpop-Entwurf mit Independent Folk-Anleihen wird konzeptuell erhöht und darf Liebhabern der Beta Band, Jane Weaver, späten Tame Impala oder Animal Collective nicht entgehen. ALOA INPUT ist im besten Sinne eine Experimental Pop Band. Das dritte Album der Band um Angela Aux, Marcus Grassl und Cico Beck (The Notwist, Joasihno) ist ein Konzeptalbum, hört auf den Namen "Devil's Diamond Memory Collection" und erscheint im Mai 2021. Fünf Jahre sind seit dem letzten Album von Aloa Input, der einstigen Speerspitze des "New Weird Bavaria", vergangen. Eine für die Band ungewöhnlich lange Zeit. Angela Aux, Marcus Grassl und Cico Beck verbrachten sie damit einen endlosen Strom an Demomaterial zu produzieren. Bei Sessions in Ateliers, Kinos und Kellerräumen in München, Mexico City und Montreal entstanden knapp 50 Stücke. Am Ende blieben 14 übrig, die im ersten Konzeptalbum der achtjährigen Bandgeschichte gipfelten. Das Thema? Die ,gefühlte Ewigkeit"! Jedes der 14 Lieder ist aus einer anderen, fiktiven Perspektive aus einem unbestimmten Zeitpunkt in der Zukunft erzählt, eine Rückschau auf die Fetzen unserer Zivilisation. ,Wir wollten eine Platte machen, die wir selber in 20 Jahren anhören würden und sagen, ja: So erschien uns damals die Zukunft". Doch wie lässt man eine Zukunft vor dem inneren Ohr auferstehen, die nur in unseren Gedanken existieren kann? Aloa Input haben auf ,Devil's Diamond Memory Collection" den richtigen Ton getroffen, irgendwo zwischen alienated und alltäglich. "Devil's Diamond Memory Collection" ist der Soundtrack für ein Science-Fiction-Szenario, das nicht als fortschrittsoptimistische Utopie oder bombastische Endzeitvision daherkommt, sondern als geradezu beiläufige Erkenntnis, dass wir längst in unserer Zukunft angekommen sind. 180gr Vinyl in festem Klappcover plus Download Code

Tape

The arcane enigma from the caucasian mountains that is Natalie Beridze, treats us with a reflective concept album, her 9th solo album, focussing on buried chapters in her own work history.

“I sought after material, piled up on my old hard drives; - various sound debris, recorded and produced in the past. I recycled them beyond recognition and fudged them together into new samples to compose this album.

Mapping Debris is a term used during an investigation of a plane crash.
Special agency collects millions of infinite small pieces of shattered metal and wiring from the crash site. They later try to reconstruct an original fuselage of the plane from assembled debris, in order to recreate its story and reveal the reason that lead up to the catastrophe.



Mapping Debris is a manifestation of dematerialization in physical domain and time: shedding skin turning into dust, decaying objects, corrosion, atrophy, rot, nonsense and factual forgetfulness, which mirrors chilling fear of perishing, losing integrity, memory of events, images, smells and sensation of touch of those, who have already perished in their earthly archetype.
Yet in the aftermath of realization, one no longer dwells in colossal dead weight of inevitability of the end. The pattern perishing has a golden thread on one end - the one that makes us dwell in ceaseless possibility of rebirth, translation and remembrance.

This album is a continuation of series of works I have dedicated to my parents lives, as well as their death...”

It is an intricate poetic net one enters while surrendering to Natalies music. The spiky grit and her heartwarming, harmonic swashes that touch you like a hug, belong inseparably together and spread that multilayerd consolation, manifesting the force of music in its most glistening form. (Thomas Fehlmann/ Natalie Beridze)

Orange and black. Fire and ebony. Fury and pride. Wearing its signature colors proudly and raising its exclamation point high, Impulse! Records was the go-to label for music that harnessed the searching and political stand-taking of the Sixties. Launched in 1961, Impulse grew to become an inherent part of the era’s velocity as well as its volume, pulling jazz into the age of Black Power, Afrocentricity, and Spiritual Expansion. In its balance of tradition and transition, it bridged the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late Fifties to the Seventies when players representing every jazz era were alive and active—from Louis Armstrong to Albert Ayler, from the legends of lore to a new generation of energy players. Impulse treated all its musicians as innovators, revolutionaries even—from swing and bebop, to free and Afrofuturist. The performances on Impulse Records: Music, Message and the Moment draw their staying power from a wide embrace of styles and sounds, as well as a tight focus on a historic moment when the promise of change was in the air and the message of racial harmony was in the music. Today that music has lost none of its relevance: the promise still deferred, the message still on time.

Glasgow post-punk six-piece Kaputt aren’t strangers to directing their explosive energy and maximalist vibrancy in the name of allegory and critique. Their 2019 debut album on Upset the Rhythm ‘Carnage Hall’ confidently deconstructed themes of surveillance, paranoia, and cultural identity through a sonic lens of high-tempo, bright, danceable pop hooks and technical, polyphonic rhythms which border on the bombast of Zeuhl. 


New EP ‘Movement Now/Another War Talk’ continues the synthesis of animation and discontent with an ethos that exemplifies post-punk’s most original and guiding purpose: casting aside the rigid, signifying fashions of modern performative genre tropes and instead combining a vast fluidity of influence, tone and style to create something as unique and personal as it is counter-cultural. The result is a release that responds to the apathy of our current situation with a positive thesis, breathing life into the lived-in, bursting through every vessel, leaving nothing unturned.

‘Movement Now’ enters with the distinct high-low drive of guitar whines and racing low toms, emblematic of the presence one feels when pushing past bodies in a heaving DIY venue, but it is not afraid to play with expectations. When the song thematically opens out, disrupts convention and progressively rebuilds upon itself, the track, a comment on the ever-lagging pace that jaded, old values take to transform, transitions from a goth aesthetic to the optimism characteristic of any indie heavyweight.

‘Another War Talk’ shines in production and composition as arguably one of the best examples of distilling the band’s manic live energy into a studio recording. The divergent vocal duality of Cal D. and Chrissy B. accompanied by competing percussionists and dynamic saxophone lines encapsulates the performative strengths that has allowed the band to become a constant highlight in Glasgow’s ever exciting DIY scene. It is, in essence, the naturalness by which six passionate voices can combine into one vision so seamlessly, which one who has not experienced the band live should take away from the track for now in anticipation of the future.

Demon Records is proud to present a new series of vinyl reissues from American singer-songwriter Black Francis / Frank Black
• First released in 2005, Honeycomb is the tenth studio album by Frank Black. For almost a decade, Frank Black discussed
making a “Black On Blonde” album with producer Jon Tiven. In 2005, Black travelled to Nashville and recorded with legendary
local session musicians including Steve Cropper, Reggie Young, Anton Fig and Spooner Oldham.
• Now available on vinyl for the very first time, this reissue features the complete album pressed on 140g translucent-honey vinyl,
housed in a printed inner sleeve featuring photographs by Michael Halsband.
• Stand out tracks include ‘I Burn Today’, ‘Lone Child’ and the title song ‘Honeycomb’.

Demon Records is proud to present a new series of vinyl reissues from American singer-songwriter Black Francis / Frank Black
• First released in 2006, Fast Man Raider Man is the eleventh studio album by Frank Black. Recorded as a follow up to 2005’s
Honeycomb, Black returned to Nashville to work with a team of all star musicians including Al Kooper, Bob Babbitt, Levon Helm,
Lyle Workman, Steve Cropper, Jim Keltner, Rich Gilbert, Simon Kirke, Ian McClagan, Chester Thomspon, Dave Phillips and
Spooner Oldham.
• Album highlights include ‘Johnny Barleycorn’, ‘In The Time Of My Ruin’ and ‘If Your Poison Gets You’.
• Now available on vinyl for the very first time, this reissue features the complete album pressed on two 140g translucent vinyl.

AL presents the first musical collaboration between Hamburg based Asmus Tietchens and Japanese artist Miki Yui, operating out of Düsseldorf for almost 20 years now. Highly respected and hugely influential artist Asmus Tietchens first made his mark on the electronic music scene in the late 1970s, whereas Miki Yui debuted her sonic settings in1999.

Their first joint album NEUES BOOT envelops the listener with a poetic sound sensibility and a conceptual clarity which was processed and passed back and forth between their individual studios in Hamburg and Düsseldorf.

Asmus Tietchens: After Stefan Schneider suggested to release a Yui-Tietchens album on his TAL imprint Miki and I quickly developed some ideas towards our eventual collaboration. We agreed upon an ongoing mutual exchange of material. We have both been very familiar with each other's music for a long time and we found our individual approach towards sound design to be uniquely compatible. We do not use our electronic tools in order to merely achieve the maximum of technical possibilities, but to illustrate aesthetic necessities. This entails a deliberate reduction and refined perception of the sonic characteristics of the material. Only this approach enabled us to fully realise the complete spectrum of the sounds and noises we were working with in order to construct this New Boat. Each and everyone of my treatments is e x c l u s i v e l y based on a track supplied by Miki. I added no new sound sources. Naturally the spatial and temporal dimensions of the source material were thus altered. These transformations are exactly what makes our collaboration special and unique. Very early on we had agreed on New Boat as a working title and a guiding light . Of course in the beginning we had no idea where this New Boat might take us. Now we do know. After several months of ship-building the boat has now set sails for new sonic horizons. Ahoi!

Miki Yui: The title of the album as well as the individual tracks have been inspired by conversations with Asmus. When we had a chat after one of his concerts, he told me about Kōdō, the Art or the Way of the Scent. It is a 8th century Japanese incense ceremony. Very frequently the names of Japanese incense sticks are derived from natural themes, e.g. Bairin is the plum grove, the scent of the first blossom heralding the end of winter. This poetry, the ephemeral nature of the world reminded me of Kigo, words from a Haiku (a form of Japanese poetry), which reference a particular season or a natural phenomenon. So I chose the names of the individual pieces from Kigo as if The Boat was exploring nature whilst sailing through the seasons. Only in retrospect I realised that the titles combined create this poem:

Early spring a hazy view in the night (Oboro)
Plum groves (Bairin)
Over a Dayfly (Kagerou)
A Milkyway (Amanogawa)
Dawn (Akatsuki)
Art of fragrance (Kōdō)
On fragile thin ice (Usurai)

SCAR OF THE SUN aus Griechenland erheben ihre Stimme gegen soziale Ungerechtigkeit und verbinden
Wissenschaft mit energiegeladenem Modern Metal!
Auf Inertia vermitteln SCAR OF THE SUN ihre leidenschaftlichen Botschaften über große Herausforderungen und soziales Bewusstsein kombiniert mit wissenschaftlicher Thematik. Auf diese Weise besingen sie
eine der schwersten gesellschaftlichen Bürden: finanzieller Gewinn gedeiht auf Kosten der Menschlichkeit
und der Lebensgrundlagen von Individuen. Das instrumentale Intro „Hydrogen” heizt die Stimmung an,
bevor der Titeltrack „Inertia“ die musikalisch harte Seite des Albums präsentiert – die stürmischen und von
donnernden Drums getragenen Strophen münden in einen unbestreitbar eingängigen Refrain. Mit seinen
messerscharfen Riffs reflektiert „I Am The Circle“ kompromisslos und aufrichtig über die härtesten Aspekte des Musikerdaseins, während die „Quantum Leap Zero“-Trilogie sehr intensiv von den dramatischen
Ereignissen erzählt, die 2015 in Griechenland stattfanden: von Unterdrückung, Aufstieg und Revolution
sowie von der finalen Niederlage.
Inertia endet mit „Anastasis“ (griechisch für ”Auferstehung”), das vom furchtbaren Schmerz erzählt, einen
geliebten Menschen zu verlieren. Mit dem finalen Song fassen SCAR OF THE SUN diesen Schmerz
gekonnt in Worte und verwandeln die spürbare Verzweiflung in gefühlvolle Musik.

Following a remix on Kynant in 2018, IORI returns with the kaleidoscopic ‘Andromeda’, phasing DJ ammo in ‘Transit’ and ultra-deep sonics in ‘Under The Water’. Fellow Tokyo-based artist Wata Igarashi delivers a remix in his unique, mind-bending style.

Norwegian duo Lost Girls, artist and writer Jenny Hval and multi-instrumentalist Håvard Volden, release their first album after collaborating for more than ten years. Volden has been playing regularly in Hval's live band for more than a decade, and their duo project goes back to an acoustic collaborative album from 2012, using the moniker Nude on Sand. Instead of resurrecting the previous band, Hval and Volden opted for a fresh start for their 2018 EP Feeling, taking nomenclatural inspiration from the 2006 graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and comics artist Melinda Gebbie. For their first LP, Hval and Volden booked an actual studio (Ora studios, Trondheim, Norway), which they had never done before. Recording sessions took place in March 2020, even if they felt like the material wasn't really ready for recording. This left a lot to improvisation, and so Menneskekollektivet was created in-between set structures and the energy of collective exploration. Perhaps this is what makes Menneskekollektivet unique: The quality of trying something, to see if the structures fit. In a way this is a more physical version of what Hval has been exploring lyrically over the past decade in her solo work. The title is Norwegian and translates to human collective, which adds to the feeling of a recording made as part of a strange, improvised performance project. The music flickers; between club beats and improvised guitar textures; between spoken word and melodic vocal textures; between abstract and harmonic synth lines. Throughout the piece, Volden's guitar and Hval's voice come across as equals, wandering, wondering, meandering. Sharing the space. The writing process began with short, more concise forms, but then Volden brought in experiments with seasick synth loops and drum machines, and the work went off on a longer durational tangent, inspired by chance and intuition. This allowed for an unfinished, raw feel, and the song structures and words were expanded and improvised in the studio. Hval says: "There are lots of late night ideas at work, begun as half-asleep, slack vocal takes on top of something really strange Håvard has sent me. We both record before we know what we're actually doing."

Strut present the definitive edition of a 1977 classic, Plunky & Oneness OfJuju's 'Make A Change' album featuring the international hit 'Every WayBut Loose' and five previously unheard studio takes. Recorded at Omega studios in Maryland, the album marked a transition forthe band with lead vocalist Jackie Eka-Ete recording her last sessions withPlunky and Virtania Tillery taking over lead vocal duties. "'Make A Change'was always designed as a slightly more commercial entry in our discography," says Plunky. "We approached the sessions in the same way that we had approached all of our music since the early '70s. We played extended jams because we would always find something within those explorations. The songs had enough organic qualities to be considered R&B and enough rhythm to be Afro funk." After catching fire in Washington DC clubs through local record pools, the dancefloor favourite 'Every Way But Loose' famously became an anthem for Larry Levan at New York's Paradise Garage, kick-starting international success for the track. Other album cuts like funk workout 'Higher' and the wistful stepper 'Always Have To Say Goodbye' have remained staples among soulful DJs worldwide. "The songs and lyrics on this album have come back around full circle," continues Plunky. "With songs like '(Family Tree) Make A Change' and 'Every Way But Loose', we don't have tochange one word for them to be relevant all these years later. The positive messages are universal and timeless." This definitive edition of 'Make A Change' features the full original album alongside five previously unheard studio takes, all remastered by TheCarvery from the original tapes. Bonus tracks include extended studio versions of 'Every Way But Loose' and 'Always Have To Say Goodbye'and a previously unheard version of 'Time'. Package features brand newliner notes by bandleader Plunky Branch.