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Pressing on with their popular vinyl-only release series, Hospital Records are bringing 'Classic Symptoms' straight on through to 2022 with an exciting new twist This time around, each instalment of their widely- loved wax presses will be curated by one of the label's artists who will select four of their favourite cuts from the NHS catalogue. They'll be pressed onto a super-limited-edition vinyl run which only a handful of lucky collectors will be able to get their hands on.

Kickstarting this year's series in all its glory is the original bass music champion Flava D!

They have been active since 2005 and their new record, Where Myth Becomes
Memory, is their sixth full- length album. It is the follow up to their critically
acclaimed 2018 album, Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It. The group is known
for their sonic and energetic live performances, as well as their stark and
consistent artistic aesthetic.
Vocalist Eva Spence is one of the most dynamic and varied vocalists in the
progressive metal scene, her gorgeous cleans and guttural screams are truly
unique.
Their new record, Where Myth Becomes Memory, is a grand display of
immaculate musicianship, intricate songwriting, and raw emotion. There is a
consistent theme throughout the record which is accompanied by a hauntingly
beautiful grand piano. The attention to detail in the recording is astonishing, as
you can hear the individual cadence of each key being pressed in. The album
feels like a living, breathing work of art.
Throughout Where Myth Becomes Memory, you find Rolo Tomassi moving
through elements of mathcore, post- metal, prog, classical, ambient and
experimental.
The band can be broadly described as progressive metal, and specifically defined
as experimental mathcore.

They have been active since 2005 and their new record, Where Myth Becomes
Memory, is their sixth full- length album. It is the follow up to their critically
acclaimed 2018 album, Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It. The group is known
for their sonic and energetic live performances, as well as their stark and
consistent artistic aesthetic.
Vocalist Eva Spence is one of the most dynamic and varied vocalists in the
progressive metal scene, her gorgeous cleans and guttural screams are truly
unique.
Their new record, Where Myth Becomes Memory, is a grand display of
immaculate musicianship, intricate songwriting, and raw emotion. There is a
consistent theme throughout the record which is accompanied by a hauntingly
beautiful grand piano. The attention to detail in the recording is astonishing, as
you can hear the individual cadence of each key being pressed in. The album
feels like a living, breathing work of art.
Throughout Where Myth Becomes Memory, you find Rolo Tomassi moving
through elements of mathcore, post- metal, prog, classical, ambient and
experimental.
The band can be broadly described as progressive metal, and specifically defined
as experimental mathcore.

Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Conor Oberst), Erin Rae's highly anticipated new album Lighten Up is a timeless amalgam of classic pop, cosmic country and indie rock, recorded earlier this year in California’s Topanga Canyon. Three years have passed since the release of her critically acclaimed debut Putting On Airs, which drew high praise from publications from Rolling Stone to NPR Music. She mostly spent her time on the road, performing at Newport Folk and Red Rocks, sharing stages with Iron & Wine, Jason Isbell, Jenny Lewis, Hiss Golden Messenger and Father John Misty, before her touring came to a sharp halt at the start of the pandemic. The solitude of the road and then the pandemic created space for Rae to undergo a sonic and philosophical shift where she found personal catharsis in creating an album that reflected on her newfound lessons of self acceptance, alongside finding the confidence to offer social commentary on the environment, gender identity and equality. “My last record was a lot of self-assessment and criticism, and trying to kick old habits and ways of relating and not relating to people,” Rae acknowledges. “This one is about blossoming, opening up, and living a little more in the present moment. Fully experiencing what it is to be human.” With a renewed sense of agency, Rae also took a more active role in creating the kaleidoscopic soundscape that became Lighten Up, setting out to reflect a sound she calls, “an emotional pallet, I could get lost in.” Alongside Erin and Jonathan Wilson, who contributed various instruments, the album also features guest appearances from fellow rising star singer songwriters, Meg Duffy, Ny Oh, and Kevin Morby.

Abhoria was created by guitarist Vor (aka, Trevor Portz of Ashen Horde) as a way to satiate his appetite to play classic, aggressive black metal. Recruiting some top-notch players from the L.A. metal underground to join him, he rounded out the band with vocalist Walthrax (ex- Catheter) and bassist Koszmar (Vimana). The band quickly got to work on their debut album with engineer Shane Howard (Vale of Pnath, Martriden, Helleborus), and the result is a black metal album that harks back to the 90s black metal scene, but with modern production. While rooted in the more brutal side of black metal, the album blends the requisite blast beats and tremolo picked guitars with many melodic passages, doom-inspired detours and a variety of tempos. While “Mountebank” is a relentless blitz of high-speed black metal, closing track “Sunless” is a seven-minute epic that incorporates mid-paced, atmospheric grooves and clean vocals. Though the energy never relents, the album is not relentless. Abhoria is hellbent on carrying on the musical torch of the genre’s founding fathers Immortal, Dark Funeral and Emperor.

After being out of print for years, we present the deluxe 10 year anniversary edition of Harm's Way - Isolation. Expanded over two LPs, packaged in a heavy weight tip-on gatefold LP jacket with UV spot varnish, printed inner sleeves and a gatefold insert. Disc one features a re-master of Isolation by Colin Jordan white Disc two features select tracks remixed & reimagined by Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh), Andrew Nolan (Intensive Care, The Endless Blockade), Dylan Walker (Full of Hell, Sore Dream) and Petbrick (Igor Cavalera and Wayne Adams). Recorded in 2011 at Bricktop Studios by Andy Nelson and originally released the summer of that same year, Isolation acted as both a turning point in the sound of Harm’s Way and the foundation of their catalog to come. Elements of Industrial and Electronics expanded the vision of the group as they dove deeper into a metallic sound unheard on their prior releases. This gained the attention of many press outlets including Decibel Magazine, Revolver and Kerrang, as well as tour opportunities with acts such as Nails, Rise and Fall, The Acacia Strain, Terror, Foundation, and many more. After supporting the release of Isolation for two years, Harm’s Way signed to Deathwish Inc to release “Blinded” (2013) and “Rust” (2015) before moving forward to Metal Blade Records for the release of their most recent full length “Posthuman” (2018).

To celebrate this anniversary we will also be releasing Rolling Papers original vinyl in different colored variants.
Rolling Papers is the third studio album by American rapper Wiz Khalifa, it was released on March 29, 2011, by Atlantic Records. The album features guest appearances from Too $hort, Curren$y and Chevy Woods. Rolling Papers was supported by five singles: "Black and Yellow", "Roll Up", "On My Level", "No Sleep" and "The Race". Rolling Papers debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200, It entered at #1 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and Rap Albums chart in the U.S. in the first week of sales. In Canada, Rolling Papers debuted at #6 on the Canadian Albums Chart, #47 on the UK Albums Chart and #2 on the UK R&B Albums Chart. Additionally, Rolling Papers debuted at #35 on the Norwegian Albums Chart, #49 on the Dutch Albums Chart and #60 on the French Albums Chart.

(Deluxe Gatefold Vinyl 2LP, 12-page booklet with liner notes, lyrics in Spanish / English, rare photographs from that era + DL code). This compilation brings together 24 iconic songs from that era, with a focus on the theme of love songs (A + B side) as well as social political songs (C + D side), highlighting the emotions that this music brought to the popular working classes of Lima, nationwide and the diaspora.

Brooklyn-based musician and producer Varsity Star makes his Small Pond Records debut with ‘More Than Anything’, a mini-album of deeply moving and emotive electronic music.

Varsity Star is an electronic musician and upright bassist who grew up in Boston and spent time playing with various bands as a multi-genre sideman. After deciding to go it alone and produce music on a synth and Ableton, he had a spell living in Berlin. Now back in Brooklyn, he has become a prolific artist who, in just a couple of years, has put out various singles, remixes and LPs. As a programmer by day, he has put together high spec live shows involving 3D printers, soldering together LEDs and writing his own programs that read Ableton and output light patterns, he is a truly creative mind.

There is a soft and warm late-night melodic glow to the beautiful opening ambiance of 'Christmas Lights' which then makes way for the prickly live drums of 'Mixtape.' Littered with off-grid hits and detuned synth sounds, it's a modern and electronic take on jazz that is deeply absorbing. 'Bedroom' is a gorgeous affair that floats on airy pads and scuffed up, organic drum sounds while the most innocent of melodies play out.

Matasuna's latest tidbit takes us back to the South American continent once again - to Venezuela to be exact. The song "Zambo" by the band "La Retreta Mayor", which was released in 1976 on the self-titled LP, is now available as an official reissue and the very first time ever on a 7inch vinyl single! The 45 is complemented by an excellent rework of the American producer & DJ "King Most" from San Francisco.

The A-side features the original of the song. "Zambo" is a furious mix with versatile influences of Latin, Jazz & Funk. The rich horn section and percussion of the guest quartet bring pure heat to the track - the drums, bass and piano intensify this even more. An absolute heater for any dance floor!

The B-side features the "King Most" Redirection. The talented producer gently takes on the song, keeping the organic vibe of the original but still giving it a different, new side. His re-arrangement and additional in/outro and a new passage in the middle of the song fit exquisitely. Also his crunchy drums and own piano passages are very tasty and give the song an own flavour!

"Alexandro Rodríguez" was born in Caracas in 1952 and is considered one of Venezuela's most important jazz guitarists of the seventies. He studied classical guitar in his early years, played electric guitar in various rock groups and performed at various national music festivals. He also had the opportunity to play as a musician for renowned orchestras such as "Onda Nueva", "Renny Show's Orchestra" on Venezuelan Television and "Radio Caracas TV's Orchestra".

In the late 1970's he recorded two significant works that may be considered a reference in Venezuelan music history. He formed the short-lived band "La Retreta Mayor" to record a self-titled album, which was released as an LP on the Venezuelan label "Discomoda" in 1976. The 10-piece band and numerous guest musicians created a jazz-funk & fusion gem. The band unfortunately broke up right after the recording and did not play live or record any more music.

His self-released album "Busqueda", released in 1978 under his name, was recorded between New York and Caracas and has an excellent reputation not only in connoisseur circles. In 2012, the album was reissued on CD by a Japanese label, proving the influence Alexandro's music still has in the jazz scene today.

Between 1979 and 1982, Alexandro lived in "New York", where he worked as a composer, arranger, performer and orchestrator in the jazz scene with renowned orchestras before returning to Venezuela. Subsequently, his musical career turned to the classical guitar, both as a composer and performer. In 2013, he settled in "Pittsburgh", Pennsylvania (USA), where he continues his activity as composer, arranger, guitarist, bassist and teacher to the present time.

The new album by the Peruvian-born / Berlin-based experimental artist Ale Hop was conceived in a context of immobility and provides six sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience. In collaboration with Ana Quiroga,
Concepcion Huerta, Daniela Huerta, Elsa M'balla, Felicity Magan, Fil Uno, Ignacio Briceño, KMRU, Manongo Mujica, Moises Horta, Nicole L'huillier, Raul Jardín, Sukitoa Onamau, Tomas Tello.

Following her explorations on music's inherent fixation to geographic space and time, be it through the longing of home ("Apophenia" 2019) or scientific magnification of invisible worlds ("The Life of Insects" 2020), Berlin-based Peruvian-born experimental composer Ale Hop's fourth album, "Why Is It They Say a City Like Any City?", was conceived in a context of immobility. During the lockdown
months, she started a process of remote collaboration, by sending messages, posted from various cities along a South American trip, to thirteen musicians from around the world. She journaled her impressions upon these places to an intimate fictional character while reflecting on matters of time,
sound, space, cosmology and colonial memory. The thirteen musicians dialogued with this voice by taking upon the challenge of responding to the messages with sound collaborations.
Field recordings, mouth drumming, drone cellos, electronic loops, arrhythmic rhythms and voices came back from this experiment. Ale assembled them, by layering, twisting and turning, into sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience, making it the first time she's set her guitar aside. Expect no answers to the album's title question, but an innermost psychedelic rumination.
"Despite the technological resources that appear to dilute distances, the simulation of closeness mirrored on the digital space is an emptied body, a state of precarity, a flat surface; unable to withhold an experience of exchange," Ale states. "So, I began this project by asking myself, how can we escape from the reduced experience of the virtual? The idea behind this experiment was that my messages and the places they describe could drive the composition, be a catalyzer, a
score. Thus, to use geography as a tool to remember and imagine, to allow new soundscapes to emerge."
"Memory, diffuse and divergent, sometimes reaches out to the future in its search for form, taking shape from the reflections and echoes that come back … like throwing a rock in a pond and having a rock thrown back at you."

Dark cineastic soundscapes meet african Jazz at times reminicent of Mulatu.
Ahmed Malek was one of the most important musicians of the Algerian scene of the 1970s. His sountrack works that were composed for various Algerian movies of the time fuse Arabic influences with jazz, psych and funk influences Original copies of his vinyl releases have been sold for enormous amounts. For this release we combined the strongest tracks from his releases with a selection of unreleased material straight from the families archive. The vinyl edition comes with a 8 page 12' size booklet, the cd version with a 16 page booklet with lot of unseen photos, an interview with the artist from 1978 and an introduction to Algerian cinema.

The Norwegian-born/Berlin-based electronic duo Soft as Snow returns with their most powerful statement yet. Their second full length 'Bit Rot' perfectly captures the friction of our contemporary existence in which smooth digital surfaces are locked in conflict with messy physical realities. The crumbling of fantastic European infrastructure is mirrored by luxurious synthwave and ecstatic trance crumbling into nightmarish, corroded cyberscapes.

The songs on 'Bit Rot' create a wide variety of zones in which pleasure and discomfort come together organically and seamlessly. Even as these songs are eaten alive by oppressive atmospheres and destabilizing glitches they never lose sight of their strong melodic underpinnings. Tracks like 'Always On', 'Soft Body Hard Dreaming' and the terrifyingly intense title cut are like visits to a rave inside a paranoid microchipped brain, while 'Rubber Boy' presents electro-industrial funk sung by a caged mutant. On the more restrained tip, fluorescent ballads like 'Hollow' and 'Quiet Anger' evoke the feeling of slipping into a fugue state at an all-night convenience store. This is European nightlife imagined as biomechanical horror.

The album was mixed by Ville Haimala of fellow nordic club destroyers Amnesia Scanner, and the striking cover art features a sculpture by Norwegian artist Camilla Steinum. To further elaborate the album's themes in the visual realm the duo is creating a music video and live A/V show with 3D artist Guynoid, including a special latex suit made in collaboration with AGF Hydra. In this way, 'Bit Rot' grows beyond the album itself into a larger project exploring the fluidity of body and identity when the digital and the physical fuse as one.

After 6 years and 7 volumes, the Tramp Records crew invites you to join them on yet another enlightening journey into soulful Jazz, Folk and Funk from the 1970s.

This 8th volume contains nineteen Jazz, Soul and Folk nuggets from between the late 1960s and the late 1970s. One of the many highlights is the opening track by Bobby Cole which is most likely one of the finest independently produced vocal jazz recordings ever put on wax. So true. Oscar Brown Jr. and Mark Murphy sends its regards. But that's just the beginning. Praise Poems Vol.8 covers a wide selection of genres, from big band jazz (Helmut Pistor's Big Rock Jazz Band and Germany's own Ladykiller) to psych-pop (Portraits in Sound, Harve and Charee and Allison & Shaffer), from folk-rock (Flash, Garndarf and the incredible Fang Buzbee) to AOR (The Menagerie and Penn Central), completing the set with a handful of melancholic folk beauties, most notably Hans Hass Jr.'s mind-blowing "Welche Farbe hat der Wind".

Very few compilation series' release as many as eight volumes and those that get that far often start to run out of quality music or meander too far from their original artistic direction. That certainly is not the case with the "Praise Poems" series which leaps from strength-to-strength as our team of compilers and researchers continue to unearth lost and often overlooked music from an era long gone. Many of these records were released in small quantities as private pressings or by small regional labels. Obviously, those labels neither had the budget, expertise, nor options to promote their releases in a sweeping way. Therefore the majority of these artists failed to find the wider audience their music so richly deserved.

After the two first volumes dedicated to Soul and to Jazz, the MEN COllECTION proudly presents its new release : FUNK MEN. Meet all the great male Funk singers for a new musical journey on a double vinyl.

The Sound Of Love International 004 is a particular poignant collection of rarities, collectables and unearthed gems, pulled together by the Italian DJ and crate digger Budino. For the last two years, the pretty coastal town of Tisno in Croatia has been devoid of the (now) legendary Love International week-long celebration of music, leaving thousands of revellers and regular devotes with only the sounds of Love International to keep the spirits strong until the next time friendships are rekindled and dance resumes under the sun and the stars. Luckily, the fiesta is scheduled for a return to Tisno from 13th – 19th July 2022.

Budino, AKA Valentina Bodini, has a lifelong passion for vinyl, amassing an enviable collection of multi-genre LPs and singles via her years spent in Italy and now in Berlin. As resident DJ for Discodromo’s CockTail d’Amore parties, her enthusiasm for music and digging knows no boundaries, and her instalment into the Sound Of Love International series gives us an aural insight into her musical realm.

Musically, The Sound Of Love International #004 is a smorgasbord of sound. Opening with the glacial tones of Peter Seiler’s 1986 new-age gem ‘Serengeti’, the twelve track selection glides through proto-house, tribal ambience, industrial EBM, balearic dance and so much more. It’s a testament to the ground- breaking nature of these tracks that most of the music here was originally released some 30-40 years ago. Inclusions from Oliver Leib’s The Ambush project, Vibes Of Rhythm and Scott Edward stem from the post house & techno explosion of the early 90s, whilst the early proto-electronic experiments from the likes of Kirlian Camera, Clock DVA, Bourbonese Qualk and Pyrolator are welcomely revived for a new audience. Interestingly, a flexi-disc only release of ‘Hark’ by William Orbit & Laurie Mayer’s early 80s Torch Song project is also included here, elongated by Budino herself in the edit suite. Two brand new productions from DJ Blasy and Budino & Berko ensure that business is brought bang up to date, offering a unique and modern spin on the sounds of Budino, and her tantalising selection on this compilation.

* Limited edition Vinyl release presented in full colour sleeve.
* Mozey boasts a catalogue of releases on the likes of Bingo Beats, Emcee Recordings, Souped Up, Serial Killaz and many more top shelf imprints. Shady Novelle features on both tracks having previously linked up with Mozey on his recent Hospital Records cameo.
* Dynamite MC features on 'Midnight Called', an artist who has collaborated with a variety of world class artists including the likes of Tiesto, Andy C, DJ Zinc, DJ Marky, The Scratch Perverts and more.
* 'Make Beleive' is a collaberation with L-Side who's coming fresh off the release of his Canral Mind Remixed project featuring Break, Spirit, Dogger & Mindstate & Alibi.
* A huge two track single that has great club and radio potential.

Sixteen musical vignettes of electrifying emotion at the crossroads of ambient, modern synthesizer productions and organic orchestral music experimentation, which tint French director Jacques Audiard's new feature film with the illuminated glow of a whole new generation.

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When Jacques Audiard contacted him, Rone was just a few weeks away from receiving the Cesar award for best film score for his very first soundtrack "Night Ride", the highest honor in French film for a composer.

Throughout his career, the French director has been able to surprise his audience by playing on the codes of "genre films", while remaining faithful to the aesthetics of "art film". His cinema is both profound and entertaining, sophisticated and accessible, dark and dreamlike.

"Jacques' cinema is physical, sensual, modern", Rone says about the director, "when he asked me to do the music for Paris, 13th District , I immediately accepted, without seeing any images or reading the script. He is simply one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers."

His new feature film deals with youth in general and their sexuality in particular in a way no one may have done before. The story is based on four young characters and their existential questionings, whose destinies intertwined against the backdrop of the Parisian "Olympiades" high rises in the 13th arrondissement.

But time was already running out, as the film was set to be nominated for *Cannes' Palm D'or* at the rescheduled edition of the festival in July 2021. Between the releases of "Rone & Friends" and his remixes for Agnes Obel, Go Go Penguin and Jehnny Beth (who also plays a role in the film), the producer decided to lock himself away in in his brand-new Isola Studio in Cancale, French Brittany. He also invested in a large screen on which he projected loops of the film and started manipulating his gear. "I had Miles Davis in mind and the way he composed "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" by improvising with his band while watching excerpts from the film."

After a first conclusive test on three scenes of the film which allowed Rone to showcase the skills he had developed in composition in various musical fields, a relationship of trust developed between the musician and the director, which resulted in over 45 minutes of Rone's music used for the final cut.

"There was a lot of music to be made in a short time, but the talks with Jacques were very stimulating. He had a fairly precise idea of what he wanted, while at the same time, I think, having the desire to be surprised, or even a little shaken up."

If the black and white aesthetic recalls the great hours of the "Nouvelle Vague", Rone´s music gives a new layer to the film which fits resolutely with 2020's zeitgeist.

This second soundtrack by Rone is a sonic urban adventure in itself. As it is used in the film, colouring in the lives of Audiard's protagonists, it will have the same impact on us, the listeners, in our own everyday lives.

Excellent open mind Drum & Hardcore rekurd

marbled green vinyl - limited to 300 copies

Nero Zang open the ep with a slow emotional lysergic journey followed up by Oblako Maranta, the new project composed by A-Tweed and Radial Gaze, with a tribal triplets flow scanned by edgy synth, literally a peak time fire gem.

Pletnev close the A side with a trippy electro sequence marked by his voice.

Turn the vinyl to listen Matteo Coffetti in search of a new galaxy, planets are connected to each other through glitchy synths, Camboja draw us a dark scenario with twitchy screaming coming from who?

Closing the various is Hassan Abou Alam the Egyptian emergent artist with triggered voices floating on fattybass.

Highly innovative outsider folk-horror score by John Mehrmann receives lush vinyl and CD treatment from Svart Records. Honeydew is a rural cinematic scare written and directed by Devereux Milburn and stars Sawyer Spielberg, Malin Barr and Barbara Kingsley. Described by writer/director Milburn as a “modern-day Hansel and Gretel narrative,” Honeydew follows Rylie (Malin Barr) and Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) on a camping-trip-gone-wrong. Mehrmann’s soundtrack to this underground horror feast is an eerie organic assembly of human and animal groans, mumbles, vocals, meat and metal percussion. Mehrmann’s (Maine, USA) online biography lists him as a composer for choirs, movies, orchestras, soloists, kids’ shows, commercials, and churches; a pianist, singer, conductor, percussionist, and accordionist; the music director at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Auburn, Maine; a member of the Bangor Symphony percussion section; and a teacher, at Bay Chamber Music School in Rockport, Maine, and at the University of Maine at Augusta. In the score’s accompanying notes Mehrmann explains: “When I started to write the soundtrack for Honeydew, my first few tracks were for fairly traditional instruments, but the director made it clear that he didn’t want that, and he encouraged me to get weirder and weirder. I recorded the entire album with a single mic in my living room, using whatever sounds were at hand namely, my voice, my body, long kitchen knives, glasses filled with water, little percussion instruments and sound effects.

Recorded in 2000 with essentially the same team as “Shades of Bey” and “River Man” and a similar variety of tunes and textures. It includes covers of two Milton Nascimento classics (“Bridges” and “Saidas e Bandeiras”), a cover of “Fragile” (by Sting) and standards such as “I’ll Remember April”, “Just Friends” (with strings), “Invitation" and “Little Girl Blue”, as well as the sultry original “Tuesdays In Chinatown”. This is Andy Bey in fine form, and includes performances by Ron Carter, Geri Allen, Mino Cinelu and Steve Turre. First time on vinyl.

Once again a ground breaking album, the first Afro Peruvian music heard outside of Brazil and the album to introduce Susana Baca to the world.

“This is secret music - a collection of beautiful songs and infectious grooves that’s been hidden for years in the coastal towns and barrios of Peru. It’s not the guys with flutes and drums in woolly hats - it’s music of the black Peruvian communities. Black Peruvians? Yes, Peru was involved in the slave trade too - and this wonderful,funky music is part of that legacy” - David Byrne

Lion's Drums full length exists as en exploration in multiple dimensions. First by challenging the notion of the album format by presenting a body of work that lies snuggly between remixes, edits and original works and secondly as a means to delve into the transcendent potential of the drum. The album sets the tone by putting these two concepts fully on display with its hypnotic chant, swaying one into ease over the first two songs. In orderly cue folding and unfolding, meditatively through, melodies as muddied pastelle whispers cast over the measured language of the drum. Breaking away from the musing themes of the opening songs we find an ecstatic ritual in "Tanz der Korperlinge" and "Journey to Middle Earth", two distinct varieties but both of the same perennial species. Inky ether seeps back in through the second half of the album with a peak of frenzied tumbling toms and incongruous textures hovering above in the Manos Tsangaris' collaboration "Crying Tafel" and his re-imagining of Tullio De Piscopo's unhinged drum excursion "Fastness". The closing exemplifies the edit/remix/original ethos proposed for this work with Lions Drums drawing from tapes and original material of electronic pioneers Suzanne Ciani and Roberto Musci. Drawing from unreleased music and song sketches by the original artists as well as field recordings from travels & studio sessions made by Roberto Musci & Manos Tsangaris in the 80's and early 90's he constructs a side winding journey through playful textures and ethereal moods.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Piece of Me, the sophomore full length offering from Lady Wray. This is something of a homecoming for Nicole. Where her 2016 solo debut Queen Alone leaned more towards Soul and R&B with tinges of hip-hop, this record changes the mixture. It's still R&B with the textures of analog Soul, but there is a heavy Hip Hop influence that brings the sum of Nicole's career together in a new sound that will de ne her future. Boom-bap drums and chunky bass lines are front-and-center creating a perfect head-nodding backdrop for Lady Wray to take on the good, the bad, the difficult, and the joyful on her most personal collection of songs to date. The title track, "Piece of Me," which has already become a classic since it's 2019 release is about the people in your life who need more than you are willing to give. This tune and the B side of the 7" "Come On In" were the first songs put to tape for this album and they were recorded with Nicole sitting in a chair 8 months pregnant with her daughter. Her voice is so powerful, so raw, so thorough on these initial songs - it's wild to think that they were recorded this way. And even wilder to know that she knocked them all out in one take. Longtime collaborator and producer Leon Michels keeps the musical backing restrained and expertly executed, setting up Lady Wray for the full spotlight and setting the tone for the rest of the album. While the upbeat energies of "Under The Sun" and "Through It All" are sure to become hits that reconnect Lady Wray with her 90s R&B fanbase, "Where Were You" offers a behind the scenes look at what those days of stardom in her youth were really like. Nicole takes on the racial tension in America with her poetic and powerful "Beauty In The Fire" and leans heavy into her faith and church upbringing on the showstopper, "Thank You". She gushes about the profound love she's come to know for her daughter on "Melody" and celebrates life's ups and downs on "Joy & Pain". In 2021 it is rare to hear a varied yet cohesive album with no "skippers", but that is what you have here in spades. The tried and true chemistry between Lady Wray and Leon Michels has undeniably found a higher level and this album stands as a testament to conviction and dedication for all of us to enjoy and be inspired by.

After the recent reissue of their first eponymous album, Favorite Recordings proudly presents Vegas, the second LP from Venezuelan band Esperanto. Rare and sought-after for many collectors, it was recorded in between Las Vegas and Caracas and originally released in 1981. Following bandleader Jorge Aguilar in his musical trip to the infamous American city bathing into flashing lights and vivid colors, we're invited to an excursion in Disco, Boogie and Jazz-Funk territories. Finally reissued, fully remastered, Vegas will be available as Gatefold Tip-On Vinyl LP.

With great care and attention to details, Esperanto managed to create a very convincing sequel to their Jazz-Funk debuts. Vegas keeps indeed a perfect balance between various influences. Through energic disco beats with intense funky solos, catchy AOR-influenced songs, where Jorge delivers convincing vocal performance, or sunny jazz-funk slow jams, the album still reveals something quite authentic. And this feeling echoes surely the one that could have been felt by Jorge Aguilar while discovering USA on a trip - where it all started for the music he loves. Like sometimes a foreigner's enriching view on some local specialty, he surely brought with the band all his authenticity and young but vibrant experience while convincing at the same time major labels for distribution.

With certain notoriety coming with the release of their first album, Jorge Aguilar and his drummer Pablo Matarazzo planned to go to Los Angeles for a few gigs. But once there, they realized their contact had to leave for Tina Turner's tour in Europe. Before that, he invited them to come along to Las Vegas and eventually meet musicians there. Luckily, the plan worked perfectly: Jorge came back to Los Angeles with a lot of contacts then moved to Boston and NYC before finally coming back to Caracas. He told: "I was so impressed with this trip that I told myself that one day I would return to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The first tracks I did them in Los Angeles with Kenny More, James Gadson and other session musicians from that city. Later, I took the tracks to Caracas where the musicians of the band recorded overdubs. After that, I returned to Los Angeles to master with Bernie Grundman who was still working in his small studio at A & M records studios in Hollywood. As can be seen in the title of some of the songs like "Hollywood", "Vegas", "Kenny's Place", were only the translation of my experiences at the time."

As Could Change begins, you'll notice how little audio material is really needed for your brain to start turning things into things. The merest slice of a plosive becomes a beat. The notes buried in every vowel are a bass line that nobody's fingers can reach. And of course the lyrics are the music: a synthetic voice, stripped of its humanity, that will relentlessly call to your brain like a siren and beg you to make sense of what doesn't. This piece isolates your perceptive abilities in the audio realm the way an optical illusion works on your eyes. Its melody is the amount you'll struggle to turn sound into sense. On top of that, it's delightfully fucking annoying. Marc Matter first came around as part of Institut fuer Feinmotorik, The Durian Brothers and Salon des Amateurs and has been politely shoving vocal recordings through various sorts of blenders ever since. (Angela Sawyer)

Black Flower is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions.

Limited version on smokey coloured vinyl.Black Flower is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions.

Following the already classic Wamono A to Z trilogy, 180g presents an exceptional collection of jazz funk / rare groove tunes recorded in the mid-seventies at the Nippon Columbia studios by three giants of Japanese music: arranger Kiyoshi Yamaya, koto legend Toshiko Yonekawa and shakuhachi master Kifu Mitsuhashi.

- 180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board jacket

- Fully licensed Nippon Columbia masters available for the first time outside of Japan

- Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland

- Artwork by Nker

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Born in 1932 in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Yamaya started his musical career in 1953 when he played in various jazz bands in town. In 1957, Yamaya joined Nobuo Hara's famous jazz big band Sharps & Flats as a baritone saxophone player and started composing, arranging, and recording for them and other big bands. He became a key jazz figure in Japan in the sixties together with Norio Maeda and Keitaro Miho, both jazz pianists, composers and arrangers, by forming the Modern Jazz Three Association – which aimed at improving the level of Japanese jazz composition and arrangement. In the mid-seventies, his Contemporary Sound Orchestra explored jazz funk fusions with traditional Japanese melodies and instruments such as the shakuhachi, koto, biwa, and shamisen. These works were recorded for a series of panoramic Japanese albums released domestically on Denon and Nippon Columbia, from which the tracks on this compilation are taken from.

Toshiko Yonekawa, born 1913 in the city of Himeji, not so far from Osaka, is the eldest daughter of koto and shamisen master Kin'o Yonekawa. She started studying both instruments with her talented father from the age of 3, played in her first concert at 8, and was only 12 years old when she first appeared on national radio. Her unique style of koto playing is widely recognized due to the extreme accuracy of the intonation and rhythm, as well as the unequaled beauty of the instrument's sonority. After a life decorated with awards and prizes, Toshiko Yonekawa was named a Living National Treasure in 1996.

Born in Tokyo in 1950, Kifu Mitsuhashi is a great master of Koto style shakuhachi. After completing the NHK Hōgaku Training Program in 1972, Mitsuhashi became a member of Pro Musica Nipponia, a group of leading composers and top-ranking musicians devoted to performing a wide-ranging repertoire of classical and contemporary compositions from both Japan and the West – in which all music is performed by traditional Japanese musical instruments. Mitsuhashi has toured the world for hundreds of recitals, also as a soloist, and has performed his art with the greatest ensembles such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2020, Kifu Mitsuhashi was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun.

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All tracks selected and compiled by Greg Gouty and Maxime Brottes, with the assistance of Ryohei "Nitchiku-kun" Tanaka.

All tracks licensed by Nippon Columbia, Japan.

Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland.

Artwork by Nicolas Kerembellec (Nker.fr).

Proofreading by Brian Durr (Diskotopia).

Executive producers: Greg Gouty and Maxime Brottes.

180GWALP04 - Manufactured and distributed by 180g.

he British singer Paul Young gained his highest level of commercial success with his second album The Secret Of Association, which featured several hit singles. The album was originally released in 1985 and was certified gold in the US and platinum in the UK, reaching #1 in the UK album charts. The album’s most notable single was his cover of Daryl Hall’s “Every Time You Go Away”, which hit #1 on the US single charts and
#4 in the UK. In addition, the album features “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down”, “Everything Must Change” and “Tomb of Memories”, which all charted well.

The Secret Of Association is available as an expanded edition and includes various mixes of the singles, B-sides “Give Me My Freedom” and “Man In The Iron Mask”, and also live versions of “No Parlez” and “Bite The Hand That Feeds”. The album is available as a 2LP limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on gold & black marbled vinyl.

'No Beauty In The World' is a reflection of how in a world so cruel we can find beauty, with its music bouncing between beautiful ambience and piano loops, modular synth melodies to darker textural and feedback driven drones. Unlike other wounds records where the fluidity of the entire album tells a story, 'No Beauty In The World' explore various sonic possibilities and territories. This is a culmination of over 2 years of writing and recording, constantly driven by the uncertainty and darkness in the world that we live in. Despite it all, the sonic arc of the album gives us something to hope for, maybe there is beauty in the end. The record was engineered and mixed by Diogo Strausz (Far Out Recordings) in France and mastered (digital and vinyl) by Lawrence English (Room40). The record features collaborations from guitarist Carlos Ferreira and drummer / synthesist Phillip Stosberg.

'No Beauty In The World' is a reflection of how in a world so cruel we can find beauty, with its music bouncing between beautiful ambience and piano loops, modular synth melodies to darker textural and feedback driven drones. Unlike other wounds records where the fluidity of the entire album tells a story, 'No Beauty In The World' explore various sonic possibilities and territories. This is a culmination of over 2 years of writing and recording, constantly driven by the uncertainty and darkness in the world that we live in. Despite it all, the sonic arc of the album gives us something to hope for, maybe there is beauty in the end. The record was engineered and mixed by Diogo Strausz (Far Out Recordings) in France and mastered (digital and vinyl) by Lawrence English (Room40). The record features collaborations from guitarist Carlos Ferreira and drummer / synthesist Phillip Stosberg.

Since its launch in January 2019, Deutsche Grammophon’s “XII” has grown with new compositions every month. Renewal has always been part of music, long before the invention of such distinctive categories as “Classical” or “Contemporary”. Deutsche Grammophon’s commitment to the process of musical creation took a fresh direction 2019 with the launch of “XII”. The changing seasons and life’s restless stream of feelings and emotions lie behind the sounds of “XII”, Deutsche Grammophon’s celebration of new works by some of today’s most innovative and creative musicians. Building upon the Yellow Label’s commitment to new repertoire, “XII” presents a series of works with the power to punch through the crowd of monthly releases and establish an online home on influential music-streaming playlists. Their composers, free from rigid genre boundaries, reflect contemporary classical music’s diversity.

Malta-based stoner and grunge rock act A Broken
Design gear up for the vinyl-release of their latest
album, ‘Another Day In Hell’, via Argonauta
Records.
 The band’s much acclaimed debut album was
originally self-released in the middle of the
pandemic in October 2020, but will be now
reissued, for the first time ever, on vinyl.
 A Broken Design were formed in 2014 and feature
former band members of sludge metal
heavyweights Slit, doomsters Nomad Son and
electro rockers Kill The Action.
 With a mix of various alternative and heavy rock
influences, their 2017 debut EP ‘Halo Of Flies’
already showcased A Broken Design’s passion,
drive and skills to write catchy songs that deliver a
heavy dose of flat out grooves with a nostalgic oldschool grungy touch in a raw and rough sound.
 Their album ‘Another Day In Hell’ marks the band‘s
most mature and emotional record to date, delving
deep into a personal catharsis while the four-piece
broadens its sound to further sonic templates.
 For fans of Soundgarden, Los Natas, Life Of
Agony, Stone Temple Pilots, Queens Of The Stone
Age, Alice In Chains, I Mother Earth, Pist.On,
Mother Love Bone, Kyuss, Gruntruck.

A musical journey with Emile Parisien is an adventure, something way out of the
ordinary. The soprano saxophonist’s sound is instantly recognisable - as is the way
with the greats - and you know that you are in the best possible company to set off
for a destination shrouded in uncertainty.
 For the past twenty years, the one-time child prodigy of Marciac has found ways to
astonish, to shake up and to enchant listeners with colourful and productive
experiments. His driving force is a passion which seems physically to take hold of
him as he plays.
 Anyone who has seen his development as a performer knows what he’s about; there
is an element of the dance but also the tension of a coiled spring. And among the
musicians who seek him out are not only the very best of his own generation but also
the jazz masters, such is his reputation both as a leader and as an inspirational
partner.
 As a musician he is one of a kind, with a power to be evocative and to bring
convincing shape to the unpredictable. His musical language can express sudden
frenzy, keeping the listener completely on tenterhooks, but there are also outbursts of
tenderness and a palpable emotional honesty.
 ‘Louise’ takes its title from Louise Bourgeois and more specifically her sculpture of a
spider, ‘Maman’. Her monumental work has motherhood as its theme, also conveyed
through the metaphor of weaving, an underlying thread that runs through Emile
Parisien’s creation.
 He has assembled a group of musicians who bridge the two sides of the Atlantic. The
saxophonist has set out to combine the essence of jazz with his own purposes; so,
what shines through here are both his kaleidoscopic imagination and his appetite for
breaking down barriers. Three American musicians are in the group, all of them
friends whom he has got to know over time.
 Their eagerness to engage in fruitful conversations with a trio consisting of Parisien
himself and two of his closest colleagues from France is miraculous. All kinds of
nuances and a confluence of influences are to be heard here. We find variations of
pace from skittering syncopations to the softly majestic.
 Textures are meticulously calibrated, with a broad palette of instrumental colours
both in the original compositions and in a burning cover of Joe Zawinul’s
‘Madagascar’. This collective endeavour leaves plenty of room for individual
inventiveness, yet there is a happy balance between the different personalities as
well. Emile Parisien, always hyperalert, knows when to step back and to leave the
initiative to his partners, but will then re-enter authoritatively and be the catalyst who
completely re-energise them.
 ‘Louise’ is just magnificent in its twists and turns, and in the way it celebrates the
sheer joy of the groove. ACT have taken a path towards intoxicating freedom with a
team of artists in complete balance both individually and collectively. Through its
subtle amalgamation of diffidence and affirmation, this pellucid music tells us the
truth about life.

”Es gibt eine Galaxie von Klaviertrios im heutigen Jazz-Universum”, hat das BBC Music Magazine festgestellt, ”aber nur wenige strahlen so hell wie das von Marcin Wasilewski”. Auf ihrem siebten ECM-Album
beleuchtet die vielseitige polnische Gruppe ein für sie charakteristisch weites Spektrum der Musik. Auf
En attendant stehen kollektiv erarbeitete Stücke neben Wasilewskis formbarem ”Glimmer of Hope”, Carla
Bleys zeitlosem ”Vashkar”, dem hypnotisierenden The Doors-Klassiker ”Riders On The Storm” und einem
Streifzug durch Johann Sebastian Bachs Goldberg-Variationen. Flüssiges Zusammenspiel ist das Markenzeichen dieses Trios, dessen mehr als ein Vierteljahrhundert langes gemeinsames Wirken zu einem geradezu telepathisch tiefen Verständnis zwischen Wasilewski, Bassist Kurkiewicz und Schlagzeuger Miskiewicz
geführt hat. En attendant wurde im August 2019 in den Studios La Buissonne in Südfrankreich aufgenommen und von Manfred Eicher produziert.