Cerca:twist

Cult UK producer Iglew returns with his highly anticipated sophomore record after a six year hiatus, finding a perfect home on Facta and K-LONE’s label, Wisdom Teeth. Iglew first burst through during the instrumental grime boom of the mid-‘10s, debuting on Mr Mitch’s Gobstopper imprint with the now-verified classic ‘Urban Myth’ EP. A run of massive edits, remixes, radio rips, plus a feature on legendary label Boxed followed - andthen he went into hiding. Six years on, his follow-up EP expands and consolidates his sound into something truly unique and distinct. His central talents - glacial synth work, timeless melodies, pristine sound design - are all on show here in abundance, but twisted to fit new, refreshed patterns and structures.

‘Caffeine Dream’ is mutant UK techno that offsets distorted bass and glitching synths against warm chords and a noodling melody. ‘Gold’ is cool and stepping, sitting somewhere between early Night Slugs and the refracteddeep house of DJ Python. Title track ‘Light Armour’ is the EP’s understated climax - a lowlit and psychedelic take on modern pop, sounding something like a Charli XCX record A&R’d by the Freerotation crew. To close, ‘Microfunk Lament’ and ‘Hakwsworth Woods’ lean into microhouse and Reich-school minimalism, putting Iglew’s immense knack for melody and soul on full display.

Released on the We Are Vinyl label via CMG, this is a 30th anniversary edition pressed on neon yellow vinyl with 7" colour booklet and download. Third studio album by Dundee/Glasgow band, originally released in the UK on June 10th 1991 which reached number two in the UK album chart a week later. The record continued the huge critical acclaim and chart success the band enjoyed since the release of their 1989 top 15 debut 'Raintown'. Includes the top 10 hit ‘Twist And Shout’ alongside other singles ‘Your Swaying Arms’, Arms’,‘Closing Time’ and ‘Cover From The Sky’ - it was an album that brought the band back to their Glasgow roots and allowed them to remember and rediscover their love and joy of songwriting influenced only by their combined musicianship that is uniquely and unmistakable Deacon Blue. Marketing.

Germany’s Tilman inaugurates his new imprint Pleasant
Systems this June with the ‘Adventures’ EP, featuring
collaborations with Will Buck and Rhode & Brown. Mainz,
Germany based producer and DJ Tilman has been dropping
his twist on contemporary house over the past decade on
labels such as Shall Not Fade, Life Is For Living and Quality
Vibes as well as his own Fine imprint, run in collaboration
with Johannes Albert. Here though, Tilman marks a new
beginning with the launch of Pleasant Systems, a new
imprint designed to shine a light on vintage inspired house
sounds from both himself and friends. Up ¦rst is ‘What’s
Mine Is Mine’, a collaboration with Brooklyn’s Will Buck which
lays down an amalgamation of airy synth pads, choppy bass
stabs, bright piano lines and enchanting §ute like melodies
atop a swinging drum groove. ‘Strawberry Fields’ follows,
stripping things back to shu©ed percussion, billowing
ethereal textures and wandering sub bass tones while
§uttering brass tones and resonant leads ebb and §ow
within. ‘Velvet Park’ opens the §ip side, this time joining
forces with Rhode & Brown, embracing a classic sound with
raw crunchy drums, delayed piano chords, bumpy bass
stabs, cinematic strings and brass hooks throughout. ‘Lovin'’
then rounds out the release, dropping the tempo, featuring
the voice of Tilman himself and laying focus on off-kilter
organic percussion, twinkling resonant tones, eighties tinged

Blue Vinyl

We continue our sonic adventure with Blovk, producer and sound designer from Madrid, he has refined his musical idea with his peculiar way of understanding techno and electronic music in general.
Releasing on labels such as Awry, Subosc, Postdynamic, Subsist, Doppt Zykkler, MainConcept… and his own imprint, Outside Noises.
In our XL series we want to showcase every corner of our artists’ sound spectrum. We are not just commited to raw and direct dancefloor weapons, we are also aiming the mind of the listener.
To make attemporal electronic music is one of our objectives and this record in particular deserves a place in the list of music to be played loud when all this nightmare finishes.
First cut on wax is Of sleep and tears, an emotional title that describes a dronney atmospheric introduction. Beatless, textured, full of resonant details and space wind.
Pouring Flesh brings the beat to the scene with a clear bass drum and a shuffled bassline setting the patch to martian synth noises and stereo details, all enclosed in an intelligent structure full of subtle twists and hypnosis. The thinking hand combines synthetic details with precise beats on a progressive arrangement.Elements come into action wisely, pulsating electronic grooves fighting with floaty elements make the recipe. Fluids above the skin open the B side in a darker mood. Heavy sub bass action and profound synthesizer lines setting the mood for what comes next.
Shedding machines acts as an ambient interlude in similar coordinates as the first cut in this mini LP.
Closing the release Fluent Gods, an electrified mental dance workout using a similar sound palette as the previous ones. Detailed and precise sound design ranging from sharp asymmetrical sequences, ethereal textures and profuse bass frequencies.
Music by Blovk, text by Hd Substance

African, funky, sarcastic, bewitching, green, ecstatic: these words collide to describe Vaudou Game and all of them are true. Bella is the first vinyl single derived from the upcoming album called Noussin, due to be relased June 11th 2021.
"Bella" is a smashing summer hit, sang in Mina and french. It's an ode to the nature and love in this hard times. "Be My Wife" on the B side, is a trip into a rock /funk universe with an uptempo twist rythm, sang into the voodoo harmonies.
Composed in Lyon on 100% analog equipment during the lockdown, those two songs might be the funky nuggets of all DJ's and radio playlists .

FUSE revisit Rich NxT’s debut album as they welcome Skream, Seb Zito, Guti and Rossi to remix Natural and Other Side from the highly acclaimed album.

FUSE look set to build on Rich NxT’s much-lauded album in notable fashion as they welcome electronic heavyweight Skream as he steps out on FUSE for the very first time,whilst welcoming the long-awaited return of long-standing FUSE family member Seb Zito who returns to the imprint for the first time since late-2019. A wonky, off-kilter, and warping affair, Skream’s take journeys down a twisting trail of elastic analogue rhythms, sweeping electronics and tripped out cuts of Shyam P’s vibrant vocal to take things firmly into after-hours territories, before Seb Zito’s slick interpretation harnesses an abundance of rich UK flavours as skipping garage-tinged drums meet hazy pads, resonant top lines and skittering melodies to close the show in style.

On the flipside the London imprint welcomes two close friends in Argentinian favourite Guti and rising-UK talent Rossi. to offer up fresh interpretations of NxT track ‘Other Side’ featuring Shyam P. Up first, the always excellent Guti offers up his slick and classy remix, welcoming a signature blend of rolling organic percussion beneath snaking top lines, groove-fuelled bass licks and Shyam P’s infectious and hazy vocals, whilst Rossi.’s no-nonsense remix sees the UK hotshot draw for rumbling sub-bass, icy hats and sharp drum licks throughout his driving take on the production.

Very limited LP on Cream / Blue twist vinyl. Emma Houton is a timeless, celestial voice from New York City. We felt an urgency to share this incredibly calming product of Lockdown with the wider world, Trapped Animal Records. // "her ambient soundscapes brim with escapism _and enchantment" Highclouds Magazine // "a truly bewitching, gorgeous sonic tapestry." Beats Per Minute // Composed after ethnographic study into her Irish folk song roots, and recorded as part of her senior thesis in experimental electronic music, Emma originally wrote The Bath as a piece for eight voices to be performed live. Due to the COVID pandemic, she ended up recording all eight parts alone in her childhood bedroom, mixing and producing it herself. On recording the piece, Emma says: "When composing the album I had an interest in recreating the feelings I had hearing folk tales as a kid. We had a giant book of Irish folk tales my grandmother gave me, and I was both fascinated and scared shitless by them! I intended this to be a live performance initially and so the whole album is scored. I write most of my music by constructing layered loops of my voice using a loop pedal and then singing a melody line over them, and I was trying to translate that practice into a live performance in which each "loop" is sung and repeated, creating the effect of looping without actually recording loops. I was hoping to create something where voice is used as an instrument, rather than standing apart from instruments as it often does I took source material from hymns and traditional folk songs, with the lyrics centering on water-related themes like drowning, baptism, and purification, which I tried to reflect in the sonic environment of the piece through enveloping delays, cavernous reverb, and a general sense of being completely immersed in sound. The concept for the piece in its live form is much more of a production than the album itself, which became more of a "how do I record something written for an ensemble alone with an SM58?" project, and I've figured out how to perform these pieces solo with the loop pedal, in a very coming-full-circle turn." Emma found her way to Trapped Animal Records after a quirk in the Bandcamp algorithm led her to listen to - her now label mate - Maija Sofia's similarly named debut "Bath Time". Signed within a fortnight of making contact with the label at the end of 2020, during a bleak winter, the label quickly ploughed ahead to schedule release of "The Bath". Label partner Kerry Devine says "there was a feeling of urgency to share this incredibly calming product of Lockdown with the wider world, we felt compelled".

Following a limited 7” vinyl release of SunPalace edits in 2020, BBE Music finally delivers the full-length versions of Moodymann and Kenny Dope’s ‘Rude Movements’ remixes, alongside brand new interpretations by François K, Frankie Feliciano and OPOLOPO, plus a special edit by Phil Asher.
François Kevorkian needs no introduction to fans of House and electronic music. Featuring keys by Eric Kupper, his ‘SATS Dub’ and ‘TradMix’ versions of ‘Rude Movements’ are simply classic works, summoning House music’s golden era forward in time, to the here and now.
Bonus spaced-out ‘Flerken Space Bubbles’ and beat-less ‘Atmosphere’ revisions are also included in the digital version: both invaluable tools for DJs. Ricanstruction label founder and
long-time champion of the good groove, Frankie Feliciano delivers a slick and faithful update of ‘Rude Movements’, with a slight Latin soul twist. Swedish mix-king OPOLOPO turns in a typically live-sounding, funky and dancefloor-ready jam (ready whenever the dancefloor is,
anyway) The full, extended version of Moodymann’s remix retains the original ‘jammed’ feel of Rude Movements, adding stellar flute, sax and piano solos to that hypnotic vibe. Kenny Dope’s Afro-Latin inspired ‘Dancefloor Powder’ version is joined this time by a rough’n’ready, street tough ‘O'Gutta’ mix; calling all b-boys and b-girls! For the expanded digital package, we are also including a special edit by our sorely missed brother Phil Asher, created for his
own DJ sets and now available to all.
Made famous by David Mancuso at his New York Loft Parties, ‘Rude Movements’ was an obscure Brit-funk b-side recorded in the home studio of Mike Collins. The track’s unique sound, coupled with pristine sonics and production values caught the audiophile ears of
Mancuso, and the rest is history. Soon the track found its way into the hands of Loft Party denizens Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, Frankie Knuckles and Danny Krivit and continues to influence House and electronic producers through to this day.

The award-winning storytellers at DONTNOD invite you on another twisting adventure with Twin Mirror.

In this psychological thriller, Sam Higgs is coming back to Basswood, his childhood town, to attend his best friend’s funeral. It quickly becomes obvious that this little West Virginian city holds numerous dark secrets. The former investigative journalist will employ his deductive skills to uncover the mysteries surrounding the city and its inhabitants. Confronted with his past, Sam will be torn between his quest for truth and his desire to reconnect with loved ones. Who can he really trust?

Twin Mirror™ is available on PlayStation®4 (PlayStation®Store), Xbox One™ (Microsoft®Store), PC (on Epic Games Store) and compatible with PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

David Wingo got his start composing music for films on David Gordon Green's debut 2000 feature GEORGE WASHINGTON and since that time he has worked with Green on a majority of his films, including collaborations with the band Explosions In The Sky on PRINCE AVALANCHE and MANGLEHORN. In 2010 he scored Jeff Nichols' TAKE SHELTER and has since scored all of Nichols' films, including MUD, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, and the Academy Award-nominated LOVING. 2018 saw Wingo moving into television, providing the score for both Showtime's KIDDING and HBO's Emmy Award-winning BARRY, for which he received an Emmy Nomination in 2019 for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series.

Death Waltz Recording Co. is thrilled to bring you BenDavid Grabinski's directorial debut Happily on vinyl. Happily is a dark, twisted romantic comedy full of surprises (and one dead body). It's the kind of film you do not want to read reviews on as you should go in with no spoilers and fresh eyes.

Spot varnish gatefold sleeve with liner notes by writer/director BenDavid Grabinski & composer Joseph Trapanese and featuring a download of the entire score, plus nine bonus cuts not on the physical format.

BenDavid Grabinski (Are You Afraid Of The Dark?) pulled in a stellar cast, including Joel McHale, Natalie Morales, Kerry Bishe & Natalie Zea, who are having fun with his script full of intriguing turns and snappy dialogue.

Joseph Trapanese's score (Tron: Legacy, Straight Outta Compton) is a moody, mysterious piece of work, full of space, quiet, contemplative moments but with an unnerving sense of dread below the surface that gives just the right amount of unease whilst listening.

Composed by Joseph Trapenese
Artwork by We Buy Your Kids
Manufactured in the Czech Republic

Shura announces a deluxe version of her acclaimed 2019 album
‘forevher’, released via Secretly Canadian.
‘forevher: Deluxe Edition’ is released on cassette and features the
eleven original album tracks with nine extras. These include acoustic
versions of five album tracks recorded and produced with Sam Evian
and featuring Hannah Cohen on backing vocals, previous Bandcamp
single ‘magazine launch (demo)’, last year’s collaborative single
‘elevator girl’ featuring Ivy Sole and two unreleased tracks including
‘obsession’.
On ‘obsession’, Shura explains: “‘obsession’ was one of the songs I
wrote whilst I was writing ‘forevher’. I always wanted it to be a duet
between two women but it never came to fruition during the recording
process. Then, when I toured ‘forevher’ in Europe, Rosie Lowe came
with us and we’d always spoken about wanting to collaborate on
something together and I suddenly remembered this song, which I loved
but had somehow never finished. I sent the track across to Ro and when
she sent back her rough take I was like ‘YES. this is it.’”
With ‘forevher’, Shura’s immediately identifiable way with love, touch and
how we talk about it reached even greater creative heights. Having
moved from West London to New York following her adored 2016 debut,
,Nothing’s Real,, it’s all mirrored in a lyrical journey from rejection and
loss to desire, long-distance love and the prospect of how we make
something real actually work.
In 2020, Shura emerged as one of contemporary pop’s accidental
trailblazers. A frank, funny voice in the LGBTQ+ community whose
contribution to the paradigm-shift in the cultural landscape cannot be
underestimated.
Written primarily about Shura’s relationship with her girlfriend and their
long-distance conception, ‘forevher’ traces everything from the initial pull
of desire to that first real life meeting (‘the stage’), before recognising
when the connection develops into something scarily meaningful. It’s a
classic NYC-to-London love story but one told through the totally modern
filter of dating apps, unanswered texts, Skype chats and MUNA gigs.
And whilst how to live - and love - as a queer woman has always been
integral to Shura, it’s remarkable to hear these stories twisted through
such a gorgeous amalgam of influences: Joni Mitchell and Minnie
Riperton, Bon Iver and Frank Ocean, Prince and Ariel Pink. Through
these inspirations, Shura’s own modern, outlier perspective found a
newer, more daring approach to sound and song.

Bedouin’s Human By Default recruits Upercent for the four-track ‘Inconformisme EP’ this May.

Previously recording for Watergate, Kompakt and Adana Twins’ TAU, the Valencia-based DJ/producer arrives on Bedouin’s imprint for his debut appearance on the label, delivering some of his most accomplished productions to date on vinyl.

Across the record, Upercent displays combines his wide range of musical influences into a set of engaging downtempo dancefloor cuts with impeccable attention to detail. Opener ‘Elefants’ twists various acoustic instruments and vocal samples around soft shakers and warm low end, leading into theloose percussion of ‘Fluir’, grounded by a softly thudding kick amongst fluttering and glitched out FX.

On the flip, ‘Caduco’ combines the natural and the synthetic as hand percussion meets sharp synth stabs and glowing pads. ‘Hipocresia’ twists mangled horns over a low slung backbeat.

Squid announce their debut album, ‘Bright Green Field’, already one of 2021’s most highly anticipated releases.
Produced by Dan Carey, ‘Bright Green Field’ is an album of towering scope and ambition, it is deeply considered, paced and intricately constructed. With all band members playing such a vital and equal role, this album is very much the product of five heads operating as one.
Some bands might be tempted to include previous singles on their debut - and the band already released two more in 2020 via ‘Sludge’ and ‘Broadcaster’ - but instead ‘Bright Green Field’ is completely new. This sense of limitlessness and perpetual forward motion is one of the key ingredients that makes Squid so loved by fans and critics alike, from 6 Music, who have A-Listed previous singles ‘Houseplants’, ‘The Cleaner’ and ‘Match Bet’, to publications such as The Guardian, NME, The Face, The Quietus and countless others. The band was also on the longlist for the BBC Music Sound Of 2020 poll.
‘Bright Green Field’ features field recordings of ringing church bells, tooting bees, microphones swinging from the ceiling orbiting a room of guitar amps and a distorted choir of 30 voices, as well as a horn and string ensemble featuring the likes of Emma-Jean Thackray and Lewis Evans from Black Country, New Road.
Squid’s music - be it agitated and discordant or groove-locked and flowing - has often been a reflection of the tumultuous world we live in and this continues that to some extent. “This album has created an imaginary cityscape,” says Ollie Judge, who writes the majority of the lyrics and plays drums. “The tracks illustrate the places, events and architecture that exist within it. Previous projects were playful and concerned with characters, whereas this project is darker and more concerned with place - the emotional depth of the music has deepened.”
For all the innovative recording techniques, evolutionary leaps, lyrical
themes, ideas and narratives that underpin the album, it’s also a joyous and emphatic record. One that marries the uncertainties of the world with a curious sense of exploration as it endlessly twists and turns down unpredictable avenues.

It’s a given that timing is everything in music – most obviously in terms of composition and production but often just as much in regard to conception and release – the latter two doubly poignantly so in the case of this massive DOOM vs The Sugarcubes mash-up LP from turntablist and producer Krash Slaughta.

Which is why the tale of this project’s gestation is perhaps what should be told about it before anything else.

Begun last August and finished on 25 October, the album started life as an idea born from a casual listen to final Sugarcubes album Stick Around For Joy that Krash had bought a copy of years before in a charity shop. Contemplating the cover art while listening to the LP and the track Hit in particular, it came to him that here might be the musical basis for a concept LP in the grand tradition of the hip-hop mash-up album. Thus the project was born, becoming something of an obsession as lockdown restrictions recommenced through a sanity-testing autumn. As it developed, the provisional title of Stick Around For DOOM morphed into Sugar Coated DOOM and Brighton artists Leigh Pearce and Rob Crespo were roped in to create the artwork. So pleased was Krash with the results that he decided to self-finance the pressing of the LP to vinyl which in turn would allow him to send a copy to DOOM in the most fitting format. On that basis, along with his dad’s advice that if you want something done properly; do it yourself’, he initiated the process for a limited press run as soon as the project wrapped and telephoned his dad (who’d been shielding and who he hadn’t seen for months) to say he’d done precisely that. In a tragic twist, this turned out to be their last ever conversation, for Krash’s dad died suddenly the next day. Two months later of course, while waiting for the Covid-slowed vinyl pressing process to complete, came a further tragic twist as the world received the delayed news that DOOM himself had also passed away back in October – in the event, only five days after Krash’s father. So it’s no understatement to say that Sugar Coated DOOM carries significant emotional resonance for its maker, forever linked as it will be to the deaths of two of his personal heroes.

Which brings us to the content. The album contains seven vocal tracks, with an alternate version of one and instrumental versions of five of the seven across two sides of an album with the music, track names, LP title and cover art mashing up musical, lyrical/ textual and visual elements of The Sugar Cubes’ Stick Around For Joy with DOOM acapellas, track names and references. Listeners won’t need long to appreciate that Krash Slaughta was right to be proud of his creation, almost certainly correct in thinking DOOM would dig it and no doubt The Sugarcubes too. Also, who would have thought The Sugarcubes had so much potential for beat-mining? But then seeing potential in the unexpected was always a vital skill from the golden era of sampling in hip-hop and those who follow in the tradition. The first track proper, for example, swipes Madlib’s lo-fi beat from underneath the vocals for Figaro and replaces it with the looped and beefed-up opening bars of the Cubes’ I’m Hungry. The result is a natural fit. But then the blending of elements in every track on this release provides evidence of the effort and love put into its creation, reinvigorating DOOM’s classic vocals while re-purposing The Sugarcubes in a manner that will delight. Indeed, if you’d didn’t know the work of Bjork’s former band, you’d be unlikely to pin an early 90s alt-rock LP as the sample source. I imagine listeners will have a hard time picking a favourite too. Perhaps Hit It (based on the track which triggered the project idea in the first) which splices the Bond-theme-ish Hit with My Favourite Ladies might prove the most popular, or the monkey’s favourite, Nurse Chong, which blends Happy Nurse with Raedawn (named for Tommy Chong’s daughter) from Viktor Vaughn LP Vaudeville Villain. Whichever one punters pick though, anyone who hears anything off this will know it’s one to rank alongside your other favourite hip-hop mash-up albums. And who knows – perhaps even Mr Daniel Dumile himself might have considered it a not unfitting epitaph.

Toronto’s Ducks Ltd. will release their debut EP, Get Bleak on May 21, 2021 via Carpark Records. Composed of friends Evan Lewis, on lead guitar, and Tom Mcgreevy, on vocals and rhythm guitar, the band built a reputation in their hometown for their bright, sinewy, guitar sound while sharing bills with artists like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Weyes Blood, The Goon Sax and Juan Wauters. They have earned accolades from Pitchfork who praised the band’s “lilting, throwback jangle pop,” and acclaim from outlets like NPR, Paste, NME, Apple Music 1, and more.

The opening track, “Get Bleak” sets a thematic tone for the EP, one of cultural self-awareness and satiric critiques of society’s pressures and the often ridiculous demands – and prices we pay – to exist. Chiming with breezy indie guitar sounds akin to those of Flying Nun and Sarah Records acts, the track, that features a contribution from Laura Hermiston of Twist, pokes fun at the idea that moving from city to city will fix the problems in your life. Following suit is “Gleaming Spires”, a track that zeroes in on the cities we live in and the push-pull relationships that we so often share with them. “Anhedonia”, via it’s tightly-wound rhythm and nostalgia-inked guitars, shifts focus to the times when one is unable to wring any joy out of the things that they find important in life.

Bringing the band’s characteristic restless bounce, thoughtful lyricism and penchant for orchestration, the tracks explore topics like troubled friendships (“It’s Easy”), self-destructive desires (“Oblivion”), and living with decline (“As Big As All Outside”) while maintaining the balance of earnest self-reflection and humor that endeared audiences to the original release.

Full of the unbridled radiance of jangle-pop, the debut EP from Ducks Ltd.’s Get Bleak celebrates their strengths while expanding their thematic and compositional horizons, and providing an intriguing glimpse of what’s to come.

Celebrating a determined and ambitious 15 year tenure as Yorkshire’s chief bastion of deep house music, Hudd Traxx enlist a who’s who from their gilded halls to contribute tunes for a special anniversary release. Split across two vinyl parts and an expansive digital release, it’s a pretty prestigious occasion featuring dance music legends Nightmares On Wax & Jovonn, long term label stalwarts Iron Curtis & JT Donaldson, a guest appearance from Mark Hawkins (FKA Marquis Hawkes) and a track from label head Eddie Leader. Adding to the already weighty credentials are Agnès (releasing his first material since 2013), Berlin-via-Italy producer Black Loops.

On Part Two longstanding Hudd Traxx veteran JT Donaldson drops “What I Got” - twisting and contorting throughout its duration, a serpentine roller rich with block party flavour and the very essence of deep house coursing through its veins.

Dixon Avenue Basement Jams’ Mark Hawkins does some moonlighting under his newly deed-polled alias with the epically beautifully “Chasing Paper”. No royalty credits heading north of the border here, just swathes of satisfied revellers and euphoric dancefloors guaranteed upon delivery.

Meanwhile, another Hudd Traxx regular, Iron Curtis, pays tribute to one of the scene’s greatest on “Kerri On (Chandelier Dub)”. A red-lit nocturnal jam that Mr. Chandler himself has rubber stamped, its ever-growing bassline, soaring strings and delicately placed keys taking us towards a seriously blissful conclusion.

Concluding part 2 is a track by Agnès - founder of Sthlmaudio Recordings. The stylish Swiss keeps true to his remit – deep, dubby, transcendent grooves that sway lushly with the midnight air. “Embryonic Connections” taking us right back to the roots of that tribal beat and a fitting end to this mammoth release and a perfect lead up to his forthcoming Hudd EP.

4 tracks which perfectly instil why Hudd started this label of love 15 years ago; to showcase fierce, uncompromising dancefloor workouts in as sincere and stylish manner as possible. The artists and tracks chosen show the adventurous routes and development the label keep as their main point of focus – to unearth the tantalizing new and exciting sounds of house music’s continuous evolution.

This release is dedicated to Richi Larkin & Yuriano x

It's been a while now since dance music stopped suddenly and also it's been a while since the Exium duo released stuff here at home.

Hector and Valentin have been busy in their studios during these uncertain days, extracting the best out of their minds and tools to create this four tracker. If you are familiar with the Exium sound over the years, you can feel here a sort of comeback to their primitive roots. The sound is harsher, more violent, the components are a chosen few but well standing in the mix, the rhythms are broken and twisted. Nothing easy for the ear. If you push the boundaries like they do, there's still hope in techno as a constantly new and risky journey. Totally the opposite of cloning what is done.

"Ascendo" relies on a broken kick surrounded by industrial noises and distorted textures. Merciless

"Atheris" uses again nonlinear drums as the basement, spicing the recipe with overdriven pads and abstract sonic elements.

"Cyclotron" is the only 4/4 cut here. A random square wave distorted synth line is the leitmotiv, joined by different layers of sonic components creating an aggressive sci-fi joint.

"Low Pressure Discharge" closes the release returning to abstract breaks as foundation, with metallic industrial hits on top.

‘Bad Time’ is the new EP from Peeping Drexels. The London based 5-piece, who have been together since they were sixteen, have to date released a series of singles on the Permanent Creeps and Fierce Panda labels. This is their first release on BY Records. They've previously received support from the likes of Steve Lamacq, DIY, So Young among others. They've also performed live with artists such as Shame, Goat Girl and Public Practice.

First single, High Heels, sees Peeping Drexels eulogise about white pills and night thrills - anxious overtones abound until the crescendo of guttural angst takes over. "High Heels is a dimly lit journey through the narrow corridors and backrooms of a twisted underground club, all whilst under the influence of an unknown substance. The song is the first taste of Peeping Drexels rebirth; experimental new sounds, broader instrumentation, yet pop music to the bone. A never ending loop of bad-trip fuelled excess, and there is no way to escape."

Prior to lockdown, Peeping Drexels played a Sold Out Parallel Lines headline show at London’s Bermondsey Social Club and ended it with a sold out main support slot for Fat White Family at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney).

The project takes influences from a broad musical spectrum, from the dance vibes of Gary Numan and Mr. Fingers to the intensity of Tyler The Creators' synth-heavy Cherry Bomb and the maximalist work of Kanye West.

Excelsior! It’s the hail of yore that one should go ever onward and upward. And so, fittingly Onwards and Downwards is the occultist Swedish band Alastor’s clever call to arms... and also a reflection of our collective dark state of mind these days.
“If our last album Slave to the Grave were about death, this record is more about madness,” says guitarist Hampus Sandell. “You can look at the whole record as one person’s gradual slip into insanity. An ongoing nightmare without end. It also sums up the state of the world around us as this year has clearly shown.”
Alastor is heavy doom rock for the wicked and depraved. Drenched in heavy, distorted darkness and steeped in occult horror that will make your skin crawl and ears cry sweet tears of blood, the band is revitalized in 2021 with meticulously crafted songs and new drummer Jim Nordström bringing a hard-hitting and precise energy.
“It’s a more focused record but at the same time it’s more personal and naked. More raw emotion and pain,” Hampus says. The band recorded the album with the help of Joona Hassinen of Studio Underjord, who has helped with mixing since their ”Blood on Satan’s Claw” EP in 2017. Christoffer Karlsson of The Dahmers also assisted with overdubs and encouraged the band to demo the material early on, aiding in the album’s more deliberate and tighter feel.
From the first note of opener “The Killer In My Skull” the guitars are far thicker and out front than ever, and Nordström pummels the snare and kick like a young Dave Grohl. Bassist/vocalist Robin Arnryd’s chorus-drenched voice soars above it all like a one-man choir, at times harmonizing beautifully with shimmering Hammond organ notes. Nary a moment is wasted on the droning navel-gazing of lesser bands. Particularly, the driving anthem “Death Cult” which sounds like it would fit comfortably on QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf, though there’s considerably more heft here. The title track pays its due to the Devil’s tritone in a marvelously woven framework of intertwining melodies befitting the album’s theme of descent into madness.
The quartet released its epic 3-song debut album Black Magic in early 2017 via Twin Earth Records, followed by the 2-track “Blood On Satan’s Claw” EP on Halloween the same year. Joining forces with RidingEasy Records in 2018, Alastor summoned the 7-track hateful gospel Slave To The Grave, which was packed with dynamic twists and turns, and funereal girth. It was met with considerable praise, setting the stage for the band’s greatest step onward (and upward... or downward, depending on your preferences.)

Excelsior! It’s the hail of yore that one should go ever onward and upward. And so, fittingly Onwards and Downwards is the occultist Swedish band Alastor’s clever call to arms... and also a reflection of our collective dark state of mind these days.
“If our last album Slave to the Grave were about death, this record is more about madness,” says guitarist Hampus Sandell. “You can look at the whole record as one person’s gradual slip into insanity. An ongoing nightmare without end. It also sums up the state of the world around us as this year has clearly shown.”
Alastor is heavy doom rock for the wicked and depraved. Drenched in heavy, distorted darkness and steeped in occult horror that will make your skin crawl and ears cry sweet tears of blood, the band is revitalized in 2021 with meticulously crafted songs and new drummer Jim Nordström bringing a hard-hitting and precise energy.
“It’s a more focused record but at the same time it’s more personal and naked. More raw emotion and pain,” Hampus says. The band recorded the album with the help of Joona Hassinen of Studio Underjord, who has helped with mixing since their ”Blood on Satan’s Claw” EP in 2017. Christoffer Karlsson of The Dahmers also assisted with overdubs and encouraged the band to demo the material early on, aiding in the album’s more deliberate and tighter feel.
From the first note of opener “The Killer In My Skull” the guitars are far thicker and out front than ever, and Nordström pummels the snare and kick like a young Dave Grohl. Bassist/vocalist Robin Arnryd’s chorus-drenched voice soars above it all like a one-man choir, at times harmonizing beautifully with shimmering Hammond organ notes. Nary a moment is wasted on the droning navel-gazing of lesser bands. Particularly, the driving anthem “Death Cult” which sounds like it would fit comfortably on QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf, though there’s considerably more heft here. The title track pays its due to the Devil’s tritone in a marvelously woven framework of intertwining melodies befitting the album’s theme of descent into madness.
The quartet released its epic 3-song debut album Black Magic in early 2017 via Twin Earth Records, followed by the 2-track “Blood On Satan’s Claw” EP on Halloween the same year. Joining forces with RidingEasy Records in 2018, Alastor summoned the 7-track hateful gospel Slave To The Grave, which was packed with dynamic twists and turns, and funereal girth. It was met with considerable praise, setting the stage for the band’s greatest step onward (and upward... or downward, depending on your preferences.)

Forest Green Vinyl

Toronto’s Ducks Ltd. will release their debut EP, Get Bleak on May 21, 2021 via Carpark Records. Composed of friends Evan Lewis, on lead guitar, and Tom Mcgreevy, on vocals and rhythm guitar, the band built a reputation in their hometown for their bright, sinewy, guitar sound while sharing bills with artists like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Weyes Blood, The Goon Sax and Juan Wauters. They have earned accolades from Pitchfork who praised the band’s “lilting, throwback jangle pop,” and acclaim from outlets like NPR, Paste, NME, Apple Music 1, and more.

The opening track, “Get Bleak” sets a thematic tone for the EP, one of cultural self-awareness and satiric critiques of society’s pressures and the often ridiculous demands – and prices we pay – to exist. Chiming with breezy indie guitar sounds akin to those of Flying Nun and Sarah Records acts, the track, that features a contribution from Laura Hermiston of Twist, pokes fun at the idea that moving from city to city will fix the problems in your life. Following suit is “Gleaming Spires”, a track that zeroes in on the cities we live in and the push-pull relationships that we so often share with them. “Anhedonia”, via it’s tightly-wound rhythm and nostalgia-inked guitars, shifts focus to the times when one is unable to wring any joy out of the things that they find important in life.

Bringing the band’s characteristic restless bounce, thoughtful lyricism and penchant for orchestration, the tracks explore topics like troubled friendships (“It’s Easy”), self-destructive desires (“Oblivion”), and living with decline (“As Big As All Outside”) while maintaining the balance of earnest self-reflection and humor that endeared audiences to the original release.

Full of the unbridled radiance of jangle-pop, the debut EP from Ducks Ltd.’s Get Bleak celebrates their strengths while expanding their thematic and compositional horizons, and providing an intriguing glimpse of what’s to come.

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?”

JIN 03 EP presents a 4 track EP from Osaka's Ground. True to his unique soul that's reminiscent of a nomad, traversing the planet, befriending kindred spirits found in humans and various environments, this EP presents 4 pieces of unique grooves that ranges from the more euphoric vibe to both daytime & night time of a winter season surrounding a temple.

On A side "Osakacid" comes in two versions : A1 original version is a slow motion acidic tripper under the winter street of Osaka city lights. Long Flight Version features Mayuko, 1/2 of ambient, electronica duo Synth Sisters. Soothing melody layered with Ground's goofy acidic flavor compliments perfectly with each other.

B1 turns to the pure creative side of Ground. "Stone Bridge" is based on a local bridge that connects to a temple nearby his country side home outside of Osaka. Mystic and minimalistically punchy, this cut digs deep into the soulful side of Ground's ever nomadic approach. B2 comes in a complete shock: Ground's longtime friends in Thailand - Mogambo twists up "Stone Bridge" into a psychedelic, GOA fused floor shaker that takes you to an imaginary zone of raving inside the temple late into early morning.

Repress

Germany’s Peter Grummich has been releasing his twist on House and Techno over the past two decades via the likes of Shitkatapult, Kompakt, Spectral Sound, Mule Musiq and of course his very own Innerbird. Here though we see Peter deliver his latest works via Bengoa’s fledgling B2 Recordings, which sees him experimenting with some outboard classics like the classic Casio RZ-1 drum machine and the Roland JX8P synthesizer to create a raw, old school feel.

Opening the package is title-cut ‘Onions’ the ‘Lee Anderson Endless Summer Mix’, laid out over eight minutes with hazy stab sequences, dusty drums and a chugging low-end drive while squelching acid licks subtly work their way into the latter stages of the for composition. ‘Hello Rave’ follows next on the flip-side, bringing airy dub chords, metallic stabs and gritty analogue percussion into the limelight for a groove-driven workout. ‘Basement Memories’ then rounds things out, this time bringing dynamically evolving, intricate drum patterns, resonant bleeps into focus atop and an underlying dubbed out aesthetic.

After 12 years in the game, Spanish nu-disco stable have reached the 100-release milestone, and they're celebrating with this vinyl sampler of the digital compilation. Includes 4 cuts by Dj Rocca, Eric Duncan, Mushrooms Project, and Rayko, putting the emphasis on heavily electronic grooves with a dark and leftfield twist.

Jean Philippe Smet went to a different type school: while education came second, he spent most of his time in music halls. He began studio recording at 17 and was still there almost 60 years later, at 74. You can fool people for a long time and an audience for a brief moment, but no one could have fooled such a diverse fanbase for 57 years. There are only few examples, in France or anywhere else, of such longevity in the music industry.

Not only did Johnny Hallyday attract a horde of admirers around him, but he also never stopped growing his fans who stayed with him for 57 years. Staying at the top for five decades is only possible for an artist who combines sincerity with talent.

It is that combination of gifts and personality, along with the exceptional composers and writers surrounding him, that can explain why three years after his death, people are still looking for the slightest opportunity to get together and celebrate their idol.

There’sone word that unites everyone who loves Johnny Hallyday with the ones who don't; and this word is 'Respect'. This record is available in crystal clear with a printed inner sleeve!”

The Running Man’, was composed by Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Cop Out, and the upcoming film Top Gun, Maverick).

The original (1987) 17 track album has been expanded to 35 tracks for this deluxe edition, which includes additional music and unreleased and alternate cues. The album was remastered by Chas Ferry from the original Paramount Pictures sources. The 2 LP gatefold package features original artwork created by Florian Mihr and includes images from the film and extensive liner notes by Daniel Schweiger on the inner sleeves.

In the year 2019, America is a totalitarian state where the favorite television program is The Running Man - a game show in which prisoners must run to freedom to avoid a brutal death. Having been made a scapegoat by the government, an imprisoned Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has the opportunity to make it back to the outside again by being a contestant on the deadly show, although the twisted host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) has no intention of letting him escape.

LIMITED 180GM OPAQUE ORANGE VINYL.

BUFFET LUNCH are a Scottish group who make it their mission to craft satisfyingly imperfect pop songs filled with imagery and humour.The group’s elementary parts are Perry O’Bray (Vocals/Keys/Guitar), Neil Robinson (Bass), John Muir (Lead Guitar) & Luke Moran (Drums), united by a shared love of music on the ABBA-to-Beefheart axis.

These four ricochet between Glasgow and Edinburgh, creating music that bristles with DIY spirit and upbeat wonkiness. Their tracks are vigorous excursions, meandering into clattersome terrain as often as hiking up into the breezy, melodious foothills.The desire to lead the listener along a curious tale helps tie things together, showcasing a lyrical playfulness that pins down their puzzle of sound.

Having been an active band for a few years, playing regularly north of the border with like-minds such as Irma Vep, Robert Sotelo and Kaputt, Buffet Lunch spent early 2020 working on the follow-up to their two EPs on Permanent Slump.The fruits from such labour bore out as the band’s debut album ‘ThePower of Rocks’, out may 7th on UpsetTheRhythm.

‘ThePower of Rocks’ was recorded in a Crofters cottage/studio on the banks of Upper Loch Fyne in Argyll, over four nights and five days at the beginning of March 2020, before Covid-19 made itself such an ongoing concern. Back then four people could occupy the same space and make music, lunch and dinner together. Days fell into a pattern of long sessions and long meals.The album came together as a luminous mix of Buffet Lunch’s live chestnuts, some sparky recent songs and some new material entirely written and recorded in situ. All tracks were recorded by Neil Robinson acting as the in-house engineer.

As the seriousness of the virus and talk of national lockdowns developed - there was a feeling of anticipation more than fear in the air, but being holed up in cottage in a wild corner of Scotland surrounded by snowy mountains still took on an apocalyptic feel, albeit an apocalypse where the band were safe and overdubbing vocals. After leaving the cottage, reality (as it must) set in and finishing the album became a more remote task.

Over the following months, an extended period of listening awarded the recordings a deeper realisation, as they bounced between band members computers. Perry also started writing on his Casio keyboard and collaborated on a couple of songs (‘Ten Times’ & ‘Ashley’s New Haircut’) with Jayne Dent (of electronic music project Me Lost Me), drawing on her ethereal singing voice as a counterpoint to his own more ‘spoken’ vocals on the album. These gauzy, dreamlike tracks were then sent to other members of Buffet Lunch to add their respective parts, creating evocative new dimensions to close each half ofthealbum with.

The Power of Rocks’ rattles along like a short-story collection, exploring a variety of narratives. When it comes to the music itself, Perry describes their approach as “see what happens” but admits to a preference for simple synth melodies, plenty of percussion, and prickly guitar-parts. ‘Red Apple’ opens the album with a dizzy swagger, guitars and keyboard notes swirling in forays whilst its lyric tackles notions of social bravado. ‘Orange Peel’ follows equally serpentine with its blattering tune and jagged, yet jolly melodic twists.The themes across the album are wide-ranging and personal, from irritation with out of touch politicians (‘Pebbledash’), to love letters to seaside living (‘Bladderwrack’), to even the frailty and confusion of old age (‘Said Bernie’, ‘It Helps to Know’). Title track ‘ThePower of Rocks’ is an ode to the power of nature sunk within a rolling wave of cheery jangle. “Do you believe in the power of rocks when the sun is too hot on your face?” sings Perry as the song zigzags with consequence. ‘He Wore Two Hats’ sports similarly bop-worthy riffs and addictive nods as it deals with its story of savvy man who’d bitten off more than he could chew.

Buffet Lunch’s debut album accomplishes a lot in its brief 38 minutes. It stuns and startles, intrigues and entwines, drawing the listener further into its characterful world. When asked about any intent posed with this debut record Perry confides that “we hope people can hear the joy the band had making the album and the curiosity and frustration that went into the writing. There was no process or design, but there is detail, and deliberateness in our wish to explore and create.” It’s this attentive focus alongside a keen sense of humour that really sets Buffet Lunch apart, with ideas darting wilfully to and from the poignant truths at hand.

Black Truffle is delighted to offer up a rare serving of unheard works by legendary Swiss artist Anton Bruhin. Active as a visual artist, poet, and musician since the 1960s, Bruhin has created important work in forms as varied as concrete poetry and landscape painting, imbuing everything he does with wit, humility, and absurdist humour. A recognised master of the jew’s harp (or Trümpi, as this ancient folk instrument is known in Swiss German), Bruhin’s sound work also encompasses tape collage, sound poetry, and manipulated bird song. On Speech Poems/Fruity Music we are treated to 26 short pieces made between 2006 and 2008 using the audio software Fruity Loops. These pieces carry on Bruhin’s long-running project of exploring the creative use and misuse of cheap, accessible technologies. In many of his analogue works, Bruhin explored the possibilities of simple cassette equipment. He invented DIY approaches to layering sounds by using multiple tape machines, experimented with distortion and tape speed, or, in his classic Inout (1981) created a maniacally single-minded audio monument to the pause button. Like the computer pixel drawings the artist produced around the same time as these recordings, Speech Poems/Fruity Music extends this approach to consumer software, presenting two parallel sequences of works that make use of Fruity Loops’ inbuilt synthetic instruments and its speech synthesis function. The instrumental works play like a twisted take on the aesthetics of 1980s video game soundtracks, using synthetic accordion and harpsichord sounds to realise jaunty little ditties that exploit their machine-realisation by making use of improbable pitch-bends and humanly impossible tempos and articulations. Between these samples of Fruity Music, we are treated to the Speech Poems, a series of recitations by a lone computer-generated voice. Many of them are in fact songs, as the synthetic voice crudely and hilariously changes pitch as it moves through its fragmented syllables and odes to cream in coffee. Carrying on Bruhin’s interest in the creative misuse of technology, many of the Speech Poems attempt to force Fruity Loops’ voice synthesis, designed only to speak English, to speak German. By entering phonetic text into the program, Bruhin gets it to produce a passable German alphabet and a series of approximations to a proper pronunciation of his name. Hilarious while strangely austere, entertaining but bizarre, Speech Poems/Fruity Music is classic Anton Bruhin, arriving in a beautiful mosaic cover by the artist, with the text of the ‘abc für anglophone’ on the back cover.

‘This Is Telex’ is a brand-new compilation collecting 14
tracks from the innovative Belgium trio, covering their
career from formation in 1978 up to the final album in
2006.

This compilation includes the hit single ‘Moskow
Diskow’ as well as their Eurovision Song Contest
entry, aptly called ‘Euro-vision’.
There are also two wonderful and previously
unreleased tracks unearthed from the Telex archive, a
cover of The Beatles’ ‘Dear Prudence’ and a
reinterpretation of a Sonny & Cher track called ‘The
Beat Goes On/Off’.

All the tracks were newly mixed and remastered from
the original tapes by band members Dan Lacksman
and Michel Moers, keeping all the tracks in the spirit of
the originals but adding a freshness to them.
This compilation sets the way for a comprehensive
reissue campaign of the entire Telex catalogue.
CD in card pack with 12-page booklet.

Coloured vinyl 2LP (side A/B is shrimp pink vinyl, side
C/D fern green vinyl) housed in a gatefold cover with
printed inner sleeves with notes by David Stubbs, plus
digital download code.

Tape packaged in pink case with a green shell, plus
digital download code.

Flat Worms on 45! These two tracks charge forth in perfect accord with the increased speed of the format. Culled from their sessions at Electrical Audio for the just-released ‘Antarctica’, this is the upper-cut to follow the album’s gut-punch, a classic knockout move.
The dance called ‘The Guest’ is a bit like The Twist but with more writhing involved. There’s horror there so it’s earned writhing on your part. For this song, Flat Worms take a DEVO-esque view, looking passively upon the actions of the real people. It’s pretty scary.
‘Circle’ belongs to that tradition of 45 tracks that may or may not allude to the 45 itself. “Find the circle! Find the center!” might serve as both timely
polemic and shameless self-promotion. Or maybe not. One thing that’s not ambiguous is the acidglazed lead guitar that hovers like a neon apparition above the thrashing rhythm section. It’s
definitively eerie.
‘Antarctica’ was a life sentence. This double-A-side
45 is the emphatic exclamation point that follows.

Pekka Laine is leading a double life. There is his daytime persona, a longstanding journalist and maker of award-winning documentary series for radio and television. Then there is the other side to him that comes out at night: the guitar player and DIY-composer. As a driving force of The Hypnomen, a band with a cult following, Laine has explored the world of instrumental music since the 1990s. In his intrepid journeys from primitive noise art to the spheres of soulful psychedelia, he has now reached one important milestone. As a result of a series of unpredictable twists and turns, Pekka Laine’s first solo album was born. The making of the album has been a highly personal journey. It is a declaration of his undying love of the enchanted instrument that is the electric guitar and the cosmic echoes that tie together the primal 1960s space sounds, psychedelia, dub music and weird film soundtracks to form one futuristic continuum. What started as an innocent and unexpected email in last March has turned into a process mentored by Esa Pulliainen, the fearless leader of the legendary band Agents. From his seat behind the mixing console, the guitar legend captured the sound waves and created the right mood. Multi-instrumentalist and producer Toni Liimatta, a serious alchemist in the world of instrumental music, added his invaluable expertise and experience. The spirit during the sessions where Laine’s compositions were transformed from dreamy ideas into reality was free and almost childlike in zeal. No holds were barred and nothing could stop the stream of influences, associations and sounds ricocheting off the studio walls. Joe Meek, electronic space sounds, Spaghetti Westerns, experimental tape music, London, California, Moscow, Jane Birkin, library music, Björn Olsson, Link Wray, early hip hop, the Wrecking Crew, folk, Roy Anderson’s films – there was no end in sight when the party started raving about all things inspiring. The music, however, is authentic. It came straight from the composer’s own head and heart.

On “Skeleton Elevator”, a hair-tingling, spine-popping, ribcage-rattling slab of twisted tundra boogie, Finland’s Cosmo Jones Beat Machine have their bony fingers on the global pulse of underground rock’n’roll, invoking the spirits of Beefheart, the Fall and Funkadelic. Cosmo Jones Beat Machine have a history that spans over two decades and starts in the woods and the wild in eastern Finland. Over the years the band have lived through five album releases, countless lineup changes and furious live appearances around Scandinavia and Europe that have brought the band a minor cult following. Skeleton Elevator is their sixth album altogether and the first in six years. The six years spent in cultivating the album now at hand have further tempered the band’s trademark sound, which is comprised of primitive but captivating rhythms and a terrifying racket. The vocalist Pharaoh Pirttikangas’ trademark raspy delivery, which has deepened over the years, weaves stories dug up from the Mississippi Delta in the pale moonlight and distilled through an eastern Finnish swamp. The new album’s Beefheartian clatter is at times spiced with influences from unexpected directions such as disco (Minimal Brain Dysfunction Generation) and Funkadelic-style space funk (Transformed). The band recorded the bulk of the album during a 24-hour session without sleep, which only adds to the record’s pleasantly unpolished, frantic edge.

Red Vinyl

The unmissable, head-twisting debut LP by Cairo’s 1127 returns on red vinyl pressing for those who missed its shockwaves for the first time back in summer 2019, Huge recommendation if you’re into Autechre, Arca, Croww w, Rabit...
Getting right under the skin with its hugely variegated palette of brutalist, rhythmic power electronics and evocative location recordings, ‘Tqaseem Mqamat El Haram 2016-2019’ resembles something like a soundtrack to a Neil Blomkamp flick set it Cario, Egypt, 2050 where stifling heat and pollution means everyone wears
breathing apparatus and hover cars sputter about its dusty sprawl. It’s surely one of the most shocking and transfixing sides from North Africa this side of the debut LPs by 1127’s peers, Myslma and Zuli, and should be prized by anyone with an ear for futurist rhythms and microtonal synths of a modern, Afro-futurist order.
Comprising collaged chunks from 1127’s archive arranged in a seamless, diffracted flow that recalls Autechre as well as the mutant adjuncts in Arca’s &&&& or Croww’s ‘Prosthetics MechaMix’, the results feel as though scraped from the insides of 1127’s skull, capturing and rendering the sounds of Cairo street raves ricocheting
with spasms of gristly noise, strafing into pockets of cutthroat flashcore and dropping out into smoky,
intimate scenes of Arabic dialogue, all threaded together with a distinctive taste for metallic microtonal synthlines and coruscating noise.

Four Flies is proud and excited to present the first full-album release of the long-forgotten soundtrack composed by Armando Trovajoli for Piero Vivarelli's 1964 movie Il Vuoto.

Rightly considered by many to be a key figure, if not the key figure, in the history of Italian jazz, Trovajoli was responsible for fostering an appreciation and understanding of jazz among the generation of music listeners and musicians raised under Mussolini and Fascist nationalism. His outstanding work as a pianist, composer and conductor contributed immensely to the popularization of the genre among the general public and to the reduction of institutional bias against it.

The collaboration between Trovajoli and Vivarelli did not happen by chance. The latter, now regarded as one of Italy's "kings of the B's" for his work in the 'exotic-erotic' genre (Il dio serpente, Codice d'amore orientale, etc.), was a great music expert, a skilled talent scout for the Italian music industry, and a true lover of jazz.

Most of Trovajoli's score for Il vuoto has a refined smoothness that is clearly reminiscent of cool jazz – many tracks on the soundtrack are performed by a sextet featuring Trovajoli himself on piano, Carlo Zoffoli on vibraphone, Gino Marinacci on baritone sax and flute, Enzo Grillini on electric guitar, Berto Pisano on double bass, and Sergio Conti on drums and percussion. At the same time, Trovajoli explores other jazz styles or sub-styles in faster, more rhythm-oriented tracks influenced by bossa nova, samba, and even rock'n'roll, where instruments like drums and percussion, electric guitar, or flute take center stage.

This stylistic variety demonstrates both the maestro's versatility as a composer and the fine skills of the musicians who performed on the soundtrack. Like Trovajoli, they were all pioneers of Italian jazz and played in Italy's very first 'institutional' jazz orchestra: the Orchestra di Musica Leggera of the RAI (the Italian public broadcasting company), formed under Trovajoli's leadership in 1956 and credited as "his orchestra" in public performances and in the album The Beat Generation (RCA Italiana, 1960).

By making available for the first time ever almost all of the music recorded by Trovajoli for Il vuoto, this LP fills an important gap in the maestro's discography. Most importantly, it offers further insight not only into the history of Italian jazz, but also into the penetration of the genre into Italian film music, which was possible thanks to Trovajoli's mastery as a composer and to the virtuosity of the pioneering musicians who performed in his orchestra.

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fi@h solo effort,
draws from the deep well of that city’s ferCle 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground,
mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.
Walker spent his formaCve years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folkrock
troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences disClling into something
original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of acCve imaginaCon and endless possibiliCes.
Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEn:re, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/
mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now
spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is preVy much a trademark of quality.
Another Windy City exile, McEnCre is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs
here, he delivers the signature shimmering and prisCne sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEnCre was also inCmately involved with Course
In Fable’s overall creaCve process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.
The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas
(Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no maVer how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous
string secCons (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky Cme signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in
unexpected direcCons but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit
gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addiCon to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiraCon comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on
YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)
To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longCme collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay)
and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence
throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of seangs, from
straighborward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew ScoJ Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health&Beauty) has logged many miles on
tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm secCon, able to navigate someCmes dizzying turnarounds
with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year roadtesCng
Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relaCvely fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of
playing together.
Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if sCll typically crypCc — lyrics, hinCng at some of the trials the songwriter has
been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humor and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming
record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.
Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City
among them. This Cme around, he’s doing it DIY-style, puang Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that
sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve
been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

Is it really a musical?! The 33rd Guided By Voices album, Earth
Man Blues, is a magical cinematic rock album, full of dramatic
and surreal twists and turns. Lyrics and liner notes trace the
growth of young Harold Admore Harold through a coming of age
and a reckoning with darkness. Vivid scenes appear: snapshots
of youth, fantastical nightmares, unknown worlds.
The music hasn’t softened a bit. One will hear the impossibly
perfect melodies and word play that you expect from Robert
Pollard, with the band playing at peak-heavy. “Trust Them Now”
rocks like an instant classic, “The Batman Sees The Ball” is lean,
mean rock muscle. Opener “Made Man” tears and slashes at the
ears and heart. Sweeping, colossal tracks like “Lights Out (In
Memphis, Egypt)” and “Dirty Kid School” stretch far beyond
the ordinary vocabulary of rock.
Doug Gillard’s brilliant guitar playing explodes out of
the speakers. The rhythm section of Kevin March and Mark
Shue, always strong and reliable, has grown into a breathing
composite organism. Along with Bobby Bare, Jr on rhythm
guitar, they drive the songs and make one’s head shake. Producer
Travis Harrison ties the talents of the band together, once again
recorded remotely and individually, pandemic-style. This group
brings to life the sounds in Pollard’s technicolor imagination.

On his latest opus, 2121, Michigan composer and multi-instrumentalist, The Lasso, creates a thermonuclear rocket ship glide of astral funk: a floating house party that exists at that eternal crossroads, suspended in timeless animation, the axis mundi where past, present, and future all get down. Its genesis traces back to the dozens of instrumental demos that The Lasso created throughout 2019 and early 2020, vulcanizing his singular twists on psychedelic rap with delirious mutations of vintage Ohio and Minneapolis funk. A long-brewing collaboration with New Mexico-based vocalist A. Billi Free, coupled with his introduction to the vocalist Rachele Eve, allowed for their voices to buoy his interstellar thump. Over the course of the summer of 2020, Lasso gathered various features from old and new collaborators to fill out the core vocalists, including Fat Tony, Hemlock Ernst (Sam Herring of Future Islands), Ill Camille, Namir Blade, and Nelson Bandela. In the fall of that year, The Lasso met up with The Saxsquatch and cellist Jordan Hamilton for the fait accompli: layering lush orchestrations to capture the haunted reverberations of a renowned 100-year old Michigan theatre. 2121 exists in its own galaxy, its own planetary tilt, its own sense of time. A record that asks whether the future is merely the place where the loop starts again, but this time a little more aged. As the centuries progress -- from 1921 to 2021 to 2121, with each repetition, we can hear the tape warble deepen and the hi-end lose its definition. What is it about this moment now that will shape our future ten decades hence? Life revolves in cycles, so you might as well maximize the upswing. If music is our collective vessel to track where and who we are and what we hope to lean towards in this next passage through history, the only sane answer is to turn 2121 up as loud as possible, until we all disappear into the shadows.