quête:voice over

Everything is out of control / from melting pots to melting poles - das aktuelle Album der Grazer Alternative-Bande The Base lässt unsere Welt abgeranzt und hässlich glänzen. So beginnt es gleich wie ein dunkler, erdiger field holler. Bei einem field holler rufen sich Sklaven, Gefangene oder Zwangsarbeiter Worte und Sätze zu, die durch ihre Wiederholung den Rhythmus zum Arbeiten angeben - und zum Überleben. Sing or die! Everything falls apart / and everyone is acting smart. Norbert Wally und seine beiden Spießgesellen starten ihre torture de force im tiefen Süden, in der Ursuppe des Rock`n`Roll, im tiefen Sumpfland des Delta-Blues. Aber The Base sind weit davon entfernt, eine Bluesplatte aus dem Schlamm und Dreck auszugraben. Bei "It's all Going South" stehen eher Bands wie Fun Lovin' Criminals, The Clash oder Pixies Pate. The Base verstehen Blues als Brandbeschleuniger: Die Stories, die Statements, die Visionen - kaum je waren Norbert Wally (Voice/Guitars), Albrecht Klinger (Bass) und Karlheinz Miklin Jr. (Drums) so politisch, so sozialkritisch, so wütend. Und nie waren sie so sarkastisch wie 2024. Blues, das heißt Tanzen auf dem Vulkan. Lachen beim eigenen Begräbnis. Und die Fäuste ballen, wenn miese Abzocker das Gute und Schöne beflecken um aus der Wahrheit eine Ware zu machen. Der Opener "High Time For Panicking" ist ein Meisterwerk für sich: Innerhalb von eineinhalb Minuten schießt er uns vom Pre-War Blues alter Lomax-Shellacs in den lärmigen Groove einer New Wave Combo, die um ihr Leben spielt. Der Titeltrack "It's All Going South" flimmert der Ferne wie ein Wüstenkaktus in, der gerade von Mr. Tarantino in einem 1967er Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan niedergewalzt wird: dünenweise Hall auf der massiv geforderten Gitarre, die in Slow-Mo durch die Story wandert. Ein Bass, der vor Clint Eastwood den Hut zieht. Die Atmosphäre: Calexico deluxe. "Alles geht den Bach runter" so Wird die titelgebende Redewendung ins Deutsche übertragen. "Chemically Speaking Alcohol Is Still A Solution" könnte als Antwort auf alle gutgemeinten Versuche gehört werden, eine Welt voller Diktatoren, Kriegsgerät und Wahnsinn mit Vinyasa-Yoga und Lactobacillus bulgaricus im Joghurt zu retten. Waren die vorhergehenden Alben betont reduziert und puristisch, so gönnen sich The Base auf "It's All Going South" Backgroundchöre, fetten Vintagesound und lassen ausgiebige Studioeffekte. Das sitzt jedoch alles wie angegossen und zeigt die Qualität der Songs, denen knapp anliegende Taucheranzüge ebenso gut stehen wie schillernd verbrämte Kostüme. Niemand zieht aus dem Wort "happy" so viel Melancholie wie Norbert Wally und folgerichtig ist auch die Single-Auskoppelung "Waiting for June" ein Liebeslied, das gar keines ist. Aber der zwingendste Grund das Album anzuhören heißt "No One's Safe". Ein Song der sich wie ein Drillbohrer durch das Innenohr zur Großhirnrinde vorarbeitet. Soundcollagen, Voice-Over, eigenartiger Noise - immer tiefer bohrt sich der Song, bis er den Erdkern erreicht. Norbert Wally zeigt in seiner Stimme eine elegante Verletzlichkeit, die an einen David Bowie der 70er-Jahre erinnert. Die Intensität von OK Computer drängt sich auf. Niemand ist sicher. Game over! "It's All Going South" ist die bisher schmerzhafteste, politischste Platte von The Base. Wie schade, wir werden alle untergehen - und das kann zumindest verdammt sexy klingen.

Over a catalog of six albums, Native Harrow have produced a discography of “rich, engrossing records” and “instant classics” while single-mindedly following their own artistic code, acquiescing only to the exigence of the song: each song its own world with its own rules.

Formed a decade ago, Native Harrow spent their first five or six years crisscrossing the United States and Canada on numerous tours, averaging more than 150 concerts per year in 47 states and 4 provinces, on the back of two self-released albums, Ghost (2015) and Sorores (2017). In 2019, they released Happier Now, partnering with London alt-country stalwarts Loose Records. The record garnered glowing reviews, with Rough Trade selecting it for its album of the month, writing “Beautifully soaring... rolling grooves ground languid and dreamy clearwater shimmers of sound.” The critical acclaim and Americana chart success of the album prompted three back-to-back UK tours in 2019 and early 2020, ultimately leading to a three-year stint living and touring in the UK and Europe. In this time, Native Harrow released two more critically acclaimed records with Loose; Closeness (2020) and Old Kind of Magic (2022), playing for audiences ranging from rock clubs in Norway and Sweden to opera halls in Portugal, and every stop in-between, as well as performing at festivals such as BST Hyde Park (supporting the Eagles and Robert Plant & Alison Kraus), Greenman Festival, Black Deer Festival, The Great Escape, Celtic Connections, Moseley Folk Festival, SXSW, and many more.

Following the eruption of its title track, Side A of “Divided Kind” transitions nimbly through hazy tremolo-laden dusty canyons, past an intimate soulful love letter, and towards a moody anthem of devotion buoyed by propulsive grooves, before ultimately settling on a gentle bird’s-eye-view of love and transcendence. Side B opens with the debut single, “Goin’ Nowhere” a soul transmission over incendiary bass and undulating layers of guiro, congas, tambourines, shakers, and handclaps that sidesteps into moments of infinite dial-toned burnished, Rhodes-propelled soul-jazz and self-assured blues rock à gogo before ending in a spectral folk reading on celestial meditation.

“Divided Kind” was produced and recorded by the pair, in their home studio surrounded by the vintage acoustic and electric guitars, dusty semi-functional amplifiers, and out-of-date Rhodes, B3, piano, and assorted percussion they’ve grown accustomed to. Chicago-based Alex Hall was again drafted to add drums and to mix, and Philadelphia drummer and engineer Joshua Friedman mastered the record. London-based musician Joe Harvey-Whyte added the pedal steel to “Borrowing Time”, with all other voices and instruments being performed by Tuel and Harms.

"Allegra Krieger’s ""Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine"", her second full-length album with Double Double Whammy, is a collection of 12 songs that pick at the fragile membrane between life and death.

Krieger’s previous album, ""I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane"", hewed more closely to the domestic spaces of city and mind. Rolling Stone regarded the album as “ten songs of heady philosophical meanderings packed with emotional dynamite,” and likened her “finely phrased lyrics” to those of “Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and David Berman.” Krieger’s existential meditations remain on ""Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine"", however her meandering melodies have taken on a stronger sense of direction. She narrates candidly and assertively; the full-band arrangements never overpower, only offer a robust platform on which Krieger’s voice reaches new heights.

The full band brings a heightened sense of drama to the album’s arrangements, which contrasts the quieter approach of Krieger’s previous LP. There are noisy interludes, jazz-inflected discursions, impactful stops and starts, and occasional spaces for Krieger to stretch out her impressive vocal range (most prominently at the dazzling climax of album stand out “Came”). In ""Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine"", Krieger invites us to a place where transfiguration is not only possible but actively happening. From this place, the beautiful and the banal and the terrible are all laid out before us. And Krieger asks us not to look away. Instead, she invites us to stare down the beautiful and terrible in the world, and to realize that sometimes the only way out is through."

For our second release, circuit|breaker quips back the stacked offering of CBRK001 with another dynamic double LP, exhibiting some of the best local and international talent that’s cropped up on our radar over recent years.


The label is as driven as ever to build a bridge between our community and the wider electronic
music domain, giving artists a platform to preach the sound that speaks to them, and this release is but another stepping stone towards greatness, for us and for them.


CBRK002 opens up with a rolling, gritty number that could only be Fergus Sweetland, as metallic voices beckon forth on ‘Untitled (ARP 1.02)’. Hasvat Informant, whose thunderous reputation precedes him, then storms the barn with the explosive ‘Abispa Ephippium’. The B-side shifts gears to Goa’s Dotdat and his frantically groovy track ‘Holo’, followed by a gorgeous minimal number by Berlin-based Pino Peña – Mia’s Pocket; one that’s sure to get summer dancefloors pumping.


The C-side of the record contains two heaving tracks, the C1 from the prominent force of Cloudy Ku with ‘A Room of One’s Own’, and the C2 from the dark visage that is disgrays with
‘Turmstraße’. The final side of the record has Amsterdam legend Juan Sanchez open the filter with a warm, jacking submission in ‘Indulge’, while the Berliner Marsch takes us home with a
devious timbre that will have bodies glued to the floor on ‘Into You’.

The contributions Black women have made to the growth of rock & roll cannot be overstated, from the genre’s beginnings to the present day. Embracing this legacy, world renowned poet jessica Care moore and prolific performer Steffanie Christi’an have joined forces to form We Are Scorpio, an explosive new project blending rock & roll with poetry. A leading voice of her generation, moore has performed on stages across the globe, written acclaimed books and plays, and recorded her poetry with artists like Common, Nas, Jeezy, Karriem Riggins, Jeff Mills, Roy Ayers, Jose James, and more. Her latest foray into music is We Are Scorpio, a unique take on modern rock sparked by chemistry with fellow Detroit native Christi’an and encapsulating an undeniable Black femme punk energy. Joining a long line of Detroit artists who spoke truth with force across genre and gendered borders, the duo is now unveiling its self-titled debut album. With unapologetic vocals and rapid-fire poetics occupying the same space as head-banging guitar riffs, the collection features appearances by talented artists like Talib Kweli, Sada Baby, Divinity Roxx, Niko Is, and Militia Vox. Expansive but intimate, We Are Scorpio delves into parts unknown with fiery purpose.

2024 repress

Rush Hour’s RSS series excels in unearthing buried treasure, offering a second chance for artists and releases that have long been overlooked. That’s certainly the case with ‘Witches’, the superb sole single by British 1980s wave trio Zenana.

Originally released on seven-inch by the tiny PRM label in 1986, ‘Witches’ was the product of a sister-brother songwriting team whose music was mostly recorded in the front room of a terraced house in Nanpean, a small industrial village in Cornwall, England’s most south-westerly county. While the single was infectious, impeccably produced and dancefloor-ready, it sold in limited quantities at the time.

Zenana’s story can be traced back to the early 1980s, when singer-songwriter Anita Tedder founded the all-female trio as a vehicle for her musical ambitions. To bring her songs to life, she joined voices with her brother Mike, an early adopter of electronic music who had built a studio – nicknamed MFR, short for ‘Mike’s Front Room’ – in his Cornish home.

Countless Zenana tracks were recorded at ‘MFR’ between 1984 and ’86, with the resultant demo cassette securing the band a management contract, a slew of live bookings, a video shoot and even a television appearance. Buoyed by this underground success, they headed to the remote Sawmills Studio in Cornwall – famously only accessible by boat – to re-record ‘Witches’, a song inspired by local folk tales of witches gathering near Mike’s home.

While this version of ‘Witches’ failed to make an impact at the time, it has become something of a cult classic following its’ rediscovery by crate digger Kiernan Abbott – and subsequent championing by other dusty-fingered DJs including Antal, Skyrager, Trevor Jackson and Luke Una – in early 2023. The buzz inspired Zenana to perform live again for the first time in decades, with the story of their surprise comeback being covered by British media outlets including the BBC and (more surprisingly) the Daily Mail.

Now presented in re-mastered form, ‘Witches’ is a genuinely slept-on gem. Propelled forwards by punchy drum machine beats, a killer synth bassline and fizzing keyboard sounds, the song benefits greatly from strong vocals and an extra-percussive middle eight layered with vocalisations, cosmic spoken word sections and swirling noises.

It comes backed by a brand-new extended ‘spell of love’ courtesy of Bristol duo Bedmo Disco, AKA music journalist Matt Anniss (author of Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music) and DJ/production partner Gareth Morgan. Anniss is a long-time friend of Mike and Anita Tedder who has fond memories of visiting Mike’s home studio with his family around the time that ‘Witches’ was recorded.

Working from Zenana’s original MFR eight-track recording (tapes of the single version were lost years ago), Anniss and Morgan have turned in the extended ‘dance mix’ the track never had first time around. More atmospheric, clandestine and dancefloor-focused, it offers authentic nods to New York proto-house, mid-80s Shep Pettibone dubs, and the pioneering synth-pop productions and dub mixes of Factory Records regular Martin Rushent.

The mighty U Roy is the originator, the man who put the DJ phenomenon on the map and made it an artform. From Kingston Jamaica to the corners of all the Dancefloors, Clubs and Sound Systems across the world. U Roy (B. Ewart Beckford, 1942, Kingston, Jamaica) began his musical career spinning records for Doctor Dickies Sound System way back in 1961. The mid sixties saw him working for Sir George The Atomic before moving in 1967 to the man who best shaped his sound King Tubby on his Home Town HI - FI. Tubbys work in the dub field, dropping out vocals on his versions for the Sound Systems allowed U Roy to voice over these spaces adding to the excitment of the Dance!!!

U Roy moved into the recording arena firstly cutting two disc's for Producer Lee Perry 'Earths Rightful Ruler' and 'OK Corral' and then following this with 'Dynamic Fashion Way' and 'Riot' for Producer Keith Hudson. Producer Duke Reid seeing the protential in this new found form brought U Roy to his Treasure Isle Studios to voice over his back catalogue of Rocksteady Hits. His first three releases for Duke Reid 'Wake The Town', 'Rule The Nation' and 'Wear You To The Ball' held the Top 3 positions for 12 weeks in early 1970's.

We have compiled some of U Roy's best loved cuts from his mid 70's period when all were still looking at him for guidence.  The opening cut Call On Me sees him working over Delroy Wilson's 'Got To Be There'.  You Never Get Away gets U Roy answering Delroy Wison's 'Keep On Rocking'. Johnny Clarke's 'Time Gonna Tell' with rootsy bassline turns into Every Knee Shall Bow. Cornell Campbell the Gorgon himself gets his 'Check Mr Morgon' turned into Gorgon Wise. Johnny Clarke's Hold On gets reworked. Jeff Barnes 'Blowing In The Wind' tuned into Number 1 and alongside King of The Road which sees Lennox Brown blow his saxophone over the instrumental 'In The Swing of Things', was one of U Roys first releases. Linval Thompson's 'Let Jah Arise' is versioned to Joyful Locks. I Originate which lends us to the title of this compilation, says it as it is, a classic built over Dave Barker's 'Shocks of Mighty'. Linval Thompson again provides the backbone with his Cool Down Your Temper cut for U Roys version. The mighty Burning Spear's Creation Rebel although providing our next track, it is Johnny Clarke's version that gets worked over. Leo Graham's 'Birds of A Feather' turns into Stick Together. Soul Syndicates instrumental 'Goliath' grows into Riot. A big hit for Max Romeo Wet Dream sounds great under U Roy's new rendition.

Two extra tracks for the CD release of this album sees the great voice of Slim Smith on his 'Let's Stick Together' becomes ‘Ain’t To Proud To Beg’ and Cornell Campbell's 'Stand Firm' works with
U Roy to sign us off with ‘I Shall Not Remove’.  A fine collection i hope you agree to the Daddy of all DJ's who in his own words ''I Originate, so you must appreciate, while the others got to imitate'' says it all really……

Reissue

'Find Me Finding You', the new album from the new organization called the Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, manages to strike new chords while touching familiar keys in the song of life.
From its percolating opening beat, 'Find Me Finding You' locates new systems within the sound-universe of Laetitia Sadier. This in itself isn't a surprise - Laetitia has relentlessly followed her music through different dynamics and into a variety of dimensions over the course of four solo albums since 2010 (not to forget her three albums with Monade and the long era of Stereolab) - but the nature of the construction here stands distinctly apart from her recent albums. Laetitia was inspired by a mind's-eye envisaging of geometric forms and their possible permutations. As she sought to replicate the shapes in music, this guided the process of assembly for the album.
Part of the freshness of 'Find Me Finding You' comes from working and playing within the Source Ensemble and exploring new sound combinations via a set of youthful and evolving musical relationships. Laetitia recognized the energy of the tracks in their initial form and sought to preserve their vitality by not retaking too many performances - instead, the rawness in the tracks was retained and refined at the mixing stage, maintaining an edge throughout. When we hear synth lines diving, lifting and drifting, unusual guitar textures, the plucked sound of flat wound bass strings or the bottomless pulsing of bass pedals stepping out of the mix with an exquisite vibrancy, this is the sound of the Source Ensemble.
A key to Laetitia's music is her use of vocal arrangements. Throughout 'Finding Me Finding You' the shifting accompaniment creates space to bring this element gloriously forward. Arranged by Laetitia with Joe Watson and Jeff Parker making string charts that were subsequently transposed to vocal parts for several songs, richly arranged choirs of voices provide depth along with the thrilling presence of extra breath in the sound. Laetitia's community-politic is well-served by the groups of voices lending support to the machining of the song craft, providing additional uplift to her quintessentially forward-facing viewpoint - as well as massed voices from three different countries sharing space in harmony.
Working in collaboration is Laetita's tradition and a key to this album's view on being free together. The designation of Source Collective implies a new togetherness phase, alongside long time collaborators Emmanuel Mario and Xavi Munoz, keyboard and flutes parts played by David Thayer (Little Tornados) were essential contributions, as well as further keys, synths and electronics from Phil M FU and several intense guitar sequences from Mason le Long. Chris A Cummings (aka Marker Starling, Laetitia's favourite composer) graciously wrote 'Deep Background' for her. The duet with Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor on 'Love Captive' (not to mention Rob Mazurek's distinctive coronet playing) gives voice to an ideological cornerstone of 'Find Me Finding You'

• The return of the award-winning 2009 release • Available on CD and limited-edition translucent red LP • On tour throughout 2024 Since 1999, the GRAMMY-nominated southern rock band NEEDTOBREATHE have quietly emerged as a dynamic force in music, from independently releasing their first album in 2001 to finding themselves playing arenas and receiving nominations for multiple Dove Awards, Grammys, and Billboard Music Awards. After releasing two successful albums, Daylight and The Heat, on Atlantic Records, the band their third album, The Outsiders, in 2009. The record quickly put them on the map, peaking at #20 on the Billboard 200 and at #2 on the Hot Christian Albums charts. The first single, “Lay ’Em Down,” reached #4 on the Hot Christian Songs chart, and other tracks crossed over to Triple A (“Something Beautiful” #12) and the Alternative charts (“Hurricane” #29). AllMusic gave the album four stars, claiming it “offers up another collection of sweeping, reverent rock songs [and] flirts with touches of roots rock and traditional gospel, from the title track's powerful Southern stomp to the sheer power of Bear Rinehart's voice." The Outsiders won the Dove Award for Rock/Contemporary Album Of The Year, and “Lay ’Em Down” landed honors as Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song Of The Year.

Two years later, the band would be on tour as the opening act for Taylor Swift’s Speak Now world tour, as well as performing alongside acts including Tim McGraw and Train. Since the release of this landmark album, NEEDTOBREATHE have reached arena-sized proportions, headlining iconic venues such as Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN, and four sold out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheaters in Morrison, CO. The band most recently performed at the 2024 CMA Awards in Austin, TX, with Jordan Davis, whom they also recorded an episode of CMT Crossroads with. Now, over fifteen years since The Outsiders was released and brought the band to greater heights, NEEDTOBREATHE are re-pressing the long sold-out record for the first time ever on translucent red vinyl.

Hidden Notes Records (Spindle Ensemble, Fran & Flora, Josh Semans) and Tardigrade Records (Cosmo Sheldrake, Howl) are excited to announce a unique collaboration to release ‘Selected Worlds’, the monumental and ambitious debut triple album by composer and pianist Daniel Inzani. Over the past 2 decades you might have seen Inzani performing with dozens of bands from Bristol’s underground alternative and avant-garde scene, blending classical, jazz, contemporary, improvisation, unusual harmony and rhythms as a band leader and collaborator. He’s released an avant-garde collaborative album with Alabaster dePlume, is the musical director and arranger for Cosmo Sheldrake’s 19 piece live band, leads his own critically acclaimed modern chamber quartet Spindle Ensemble and (the now disbanded) 8 piece Ethiopian Jazz meets Frank Zappa group Tezeta, He has toured worldwide as a keys player, collaborated with Canadian ensembles Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan and London Symphonia and co-founded Bristol’s experimental collective Bloom, leading to tours and releases with UK rocksteady favourites Count Bobo, the psychedelic space doo-wop of Dubi Dolzcek and many more. After years of recording, touring and eclectic composing he has gathered a trusted set of musicians who are both skilled improvisers and virtuoso players to record an instrumental triple album for release under his own name. The 3 vinyl discs act as albums in their own right, each with different sets of musicians, instrumentations, genres and intentions. The 3 discs were recorded live over 3 day periods in quick succession, with Daniel’s regular collaborator Cosmo Sheldrake engineering the recording sessions. It’s quite possibly the only album you’ll ever hear that starts with a neo-impressionist string quartet, goes on to merge avant-garde symphonic arrangements with group improvisation and ends with an 8 piece cosmic jazz band wigging out, yet Inzani’s voice is clear throughout making for a cohesive 2 hour odyssey from the mind of a composer whose idiosyncratic style thrives through variety Listeners will hear influences from the aforementioned composers including Mingus, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Ravel and Moondog in Inzani’s music but might also find the soundtracks of Morricone and Jonny Greenwood nestled alongside the loose freeform leanings of Alabaster dePlume, the contemporary jazz of Kamasi Washington and the unique collaboration by Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders (minus the electronics perhaps.) Daniel will be performing a special preview of the album with an 11 piece band at WOMAD Festival (27.07) and a launch concert at this year’s Hidden Notes Festival in Stroud (21.09), with further tour dates to be announced

`Think Differently' is the debut LP by the duo of Callahan & Witscher. Jeff Witscher has been one of the most daring voices in underground American music for two decades, highlighted by releases on Pan and NNA Tapes. Jack Callahan's focused, uncompromising approach to sound caught the attention of both Demdike Stare's DDS label and Swiss composer Jürg Frey, who took Callahan on as his first composition student. Fans of their individual work might expect opacity, disruption, or rhythmic irregularity from their collaboration, but `Think Differently' sounds like a pitbull in a convertible, a sand-kicking beach party, the dopamine hit you get from 311 or Smash Mouth. It's a punchy, crunchy, highly infectious record. How did Callahan & Witscher cut the path from the ghostly margins of avant garde musics to the gutters of post-grunge American hard rock? In the words of Callahan, "at some point, you start to need a stronger drug." The most potent characteristic of this stronger drug is the guitar. And not just any guitar, but a sassy, contagious, blithe guitar. Its presence is a drastic shift for two guys who've combined to make dozens of records over the years, not a single one of which has a recognizable guitar sound on it. Alongside the cool breezes and hyperactive fretwork of Callahan's guitar playing, the songs are backboned by strutting, groove-happy vocals: all bark, all bite. Every song is a careful collage, light but dense, ornate with gang choruses, soulful femme vocals, autotune and whisper scratches. This accumulation almost manages to hide the record's potent undertow of dread. `Think Differently' unfolds carefully, a slow-motion demolition that reveals the anxiety of second guessing, the exhaustion of tour, creative bankruptcy, willful misunderstanding, the pain of caring. Setting this lyrical cynicism against such sonic glee isn't a spoonful of sugar, it isn't a bait-and-switch, it isn't a prank. After all, the dumb bliss of Sugar Ray's "Fly" shades a song about Mark McGrath's mom dying. "All Star" is about climate change. Most Sublime lyrics are a bummer. But there's still room for a raised beer, for a dumb grin. Like these ancestors, Callahan & Witscher aim at maximum uplift, at sounds that warm and dazzle like a sped-up sunrise. In spite of overdraft fees, in spite of bad art, in spite of self-doubt.

Repress of Still House Plants’ second LP FAST EDIT on frosted clear vinyl with microtene inners. Cultivated over the course of 2019, the album switches the combativeness of previous releases for bare intimacy. FAST EDIT is a palette of qualities and curdled headspaces. Now living far apart and coming together only for intense periods of shows and touring, the band have come to rely on an archive of mp3s (quick recall overtakes stable long-term memory). Written on mobile phones, dictaphones, and laptops, FAST EDIT cuts rehearsals and schemas with tight, raucous tracks. This is most tenderly at play on ‘Shy Song’ – a cut'n’chase piece, in which all sounds are ghosts of another. ‘PredikateD’ is a phone on the ground: the voice is air, the guitar and drums meld with the plywood and sand-bag structure, the seams exposed.

Alliyah Enyo’s genius 2022 ‘Echo's Disintegration’ album infused William Basinski's "Disintegration Loops" with choral smoke, and she now returns with an even more immersive followup alongside ambient enigma and Kelela producer Florian T M Zeisig, making heady and translucent loop-finding vocal soundscapes.

In 2022, Enyo worked with the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop on an epic two-hour composition made from tape loops inspired by selkies, mythical creatures in Celtic folklore. Contemplating memory, grief and time itself, Enyo devised a "sonorous myth" installation and performance that drowned her voice in the deep sea, using echo to help parallel the communication of humpback whales. It was powerful enough for her to net the award for Sonic Arts at the Scottish Awards for New Music last year, and it's this material that she revisits here, entering into a dialog with Berlin-based producer Florian T M Zeisig, here adopting a new avatar - Angel R.

On the A-side, Enyo distills two hours of the original composition into 11 haunted fragments that ooze in and out of each other like a dream. Reworked at Glasgow's Green Door studio, she sculpts her voice into weightless Radigue-style incantations, leaning into the tape loops' corroded inconsistencies. Enyo's voice becomes the selkie's song: wordless echoes that sound as if they're being dragged slowly towards the sea bed. There are remnants of folk forms in there; we hear traces of church music and Celtic ballads - but she obscures her influences with dubbed reverb, distortion and repetition. Phrases disappear and re-appear, time becomes a loop, best absorbed in a single sitting to properly perceive its graceful, sinking bliss. By the end of the side, Enyo’s vocals are completely waterlogged, dimmed against Robin Guthrie-like shimmers, all brassy, blurred incantations emanating from the depths of a floatation tank.

Florian T M Zeisig responds on the B-side with three flooded, longer-form pieces that will appeal to anyone who devoured his album of corroded Enya loops a couple of years ago. Enyo's voice is now reduced to a whisper, blistered and gauzy expressions that float over dense pads on 'Untitled I' before getting lost in the weeds completely on the muggy 'Untitled II'. On the closing 'Gates of Heaven', he sculpts Enyo's voice until it's just an illusory, hypnotic reflection, slow-fading into the aether.

WWM012 is Brenko's long-awaited release, a mini album that takes you on a musical journey through various emotions and soundscapes.

The project maintains a consistent feel, making it a cohesive work of art.
Brenko showcases a great talent for blending electronic and ambient elements, creating an album that’s both innovative and deeply engaging.

The album opens with "Alpha Wave," pulling you into a hypnotic electronic vibe with its pulsing rhythm and layered sound waves, creating a calming, introspective sonic landscape. This sets the tone for the whole release, offering a deep, meditative listening experience.

The next track, "Lisolia's Voice" introduces a more structured and dynamic melody. Here, Brenko plays with complex rhythms and diverse sound textures, striking a balance between energy and melody. The smooth transitions and use of synthesizers evoke a sense of journey and discovery.

"The Sky Vanished" takes the album to a darker, more intense place. The aggressive beats and distorted sounds create a stark contrast with the earlier tracks, exploring themes of tension and release while maintaining a constant energy that keeps you hooked.

With " Subconscious Activity" the album shifts back to a reflective tone. This track features a slower rhythm and ambient sounds that float freely in space. The skillful use of sound effects and pauses creates a sense of depth and mystery, inviting full immersion in the music.

" Beginner's Luck" changes the pace significantly with its mix of precise percussion and enveloping melodies, making it more dancefloor-friendly while still fitting the album's overall vibe.

"Sirius" experiments with organic sounds and vocal samples, adding a human dimension to the album by blending elements of concrete music with electronics.

The album concludes with "I Stayed Motionless In Air" a track that captures the project's essence perfectly. The ambient sounds and ethereal melodies create a peaceful and conclusive atmosphere, inviting reflection on the journey you've just experienced.

Rio-born, Joyce Moreno, is one of the greatest Brazilian artists of all time. The voice, the playing, the writing, they all combine to make her a true allrounder. She possesses the ability to transport, captivate and transcend listeners. With a career that has spanned more than 30 albums and over 50 years, she continues to record and tour the world.

‘Aldeia de Ogum’ is one of her most well-known songs. With a joyfully jazzy arrangement, building Latin percussion, Brazilian flute and tropical atmosphere, this full-bodied samba smash became an anthem amongst London’s DJs and dancers in the Acid Jazz days. A favourite of Patrick Forge and Gilles Peterson, it was regularly spun at their legendary Dingwalls sessions.

Originally featured on her sought after Feminina LP from 1980, it also appears on our 'Essential' Joyce compilation from 1997. The original pressing of this Brazil 45 was the first time the track had been released on 7".

A fellow Rio native, Rosinha was a highly acclaimed composer, arranger and guitarist who played with legends including Baden Powell, Sérgio Mendes and Sivuca.

Here we present her stunning cover of the Gershwin classic, ‘Summertime’. Rosinha’s elegant, instrumental interpretation showcases her majestic guitar playing, and what a player she was! Backed with beautifully arranged, emotion-drenched strings, this track is guaranteed to stir your soul.

'Summertime' is taken from her 1975 RCA LP entitled Um Violão Em Primeiro Plano. The original pressing of this Brazil45 was the first time the track had been released on 7".

Remastered with refreshed artwork.

Jaw dropping album from Egypt's Dijit, featuring his own vocals for the first time alongside a star studded roster!

A vast array of moods fluctuate throughout the album, from gnarly drill & trap with the help of Brodinski, to wayward folk & ambience with vocals from Lella and Sarah Shedid, encompassed with tinges of pop and Kelesh's own trip-hop style. It's also the first time Dijit uses his own vocals, which creates an introspective and deep feel to the LP, with his voice being a constant throughout. Kelesh has exuded everything in to this piece of work, a true culmination of his personal experiences over the last five years, which ultimately converts into a supremely diverse but beautiful album.

1STEP Process 180g 45rpm 2-LP, Pressed on VR900-Supreme Vinyl!
The ultimate edition of Frank Sinatra’s famed 1950 concept album
Cut Using Original Analogue Mix-down Masters by Chris Bellman and Andreas Meyer! Strictly Limited To 5,000 Numbered Pressings!
Two 45-rpm 1STEP LPs pressed by RTI on VR900 Supreme Vinyl
New lacquers cut after each run of 500 pressings
Distinctive Impex 1STEP packaging featuring a gorgeous tip-in 36-page booklet with exclusive photography and period graphics, an expanded historical essay by Charles L. Granata

A heavy-stock two-sleeve Monster Pack jacket by Stoughton Printing and a luxe colour-matched slip case


We are beyond thrilled to announce the release of a very special limited edition of Frank Sinatra’s historic Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra on Impex 1STEP! Our all-analogue 2-LP set adds further narrative substance and sonic greatness to The Voice’s first big-band jazz long-play vinyl “concept” album! Our 33.3 release was a landmark reissue, but this is a whole other level!

Like all Impex 1STEPs, this audiophile recording is pressed at 45-RPM on high-definition, VR-900 Supreme vinyl for incredible clarity, immediacy and a tonal depth that virtually mirrors the original monophonic master tape. Additionally, the tapes and discs we mastered from have rarely been used by other labels, delivering the original recording sessions closer than releases whose tapes have gone through mastering chains over and over. Silent, flat surfaces provide for near-perfect audio playback without distracting non-fill issues.

Exclusive to the Impex 1STEP edition are two previously unreleased bonus recordings and an extended version of the “It All Depends On You” Session + Take, where Sinatra capably arranges the musicians in real time!

The luxurious 1STEP packaging includes a gorgeous 36-page full-colour booklet with expanded historical liner notes, unique photos and graphics, and a deluxe slipcase. It provides an excellent listening experience and a “coffee table book” for your living room or den!

repress !

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s abundantly clear from the first bars of their 5th studio album Through Other Reflection, that this is, and could only ever be, The Soundcarriers. From the enchanting vocal duets of folk-bidden Chanteuses Leonore Wheatley and Dorian Conway; to the precise bass lines of Paul Isherwood and the limber, jazz-cool, Hal Blaine-esque drums of his his co-songwriter Adam Cann; from the fairy-like flutes, 60s-garage guitars and organ sounds pilfered from the archives of exotica - listening to the Soundcarriers resembles a rediscovery of all the most prized, esoteric corners of the 1960s, all bundled up, warped and refracted through the quartet’s astutely modern cultural lens. Channelling Tropicalia, Middle Eastern psychedelic Jazz/Funk, The French Library sounds of Nino Nardini, and a whole host of lavish obscurites beside, Through Other Reflection delivers another sonic adventure from one of the most unique and distinctive voices of British Psychedelia. After an 8 year wait for their album 4 - 2022’s Wilds - it thankfully didn’t take so long for the follow-up this time round. In many ways, this feels like a companion to Wilds; recording again at their Nottingham warehouse studio, Through Other Reflection retains that same organic glow, all the passions and imperfections of a tightly clipped unit jamming out these living, breathing pop-art nuggets as if straight onto the acetate.”We wanted to keep an air of spontaneity with this album and not get too bogged with the recording process”, explains Cann, “It was more a case of getting the songs as tightly written and arranged as possible first so we could get them down quickly in the studio. It always takes longer than you think” Less packed with strident pop hooks as its predecessor however, the music of Through… has been given extra licence to breathe, stretch out, and wander more uncharted terrains. While gleaming psych-pop of tracks like ‘The City Was’, or ‘Already Over’ confidently carry on from where they left off, from the album’s 2nd track ‘Always’, the trip becomes a little less predictable. Starting out as a smoky Procol Harum-meets-French-Psych organ ballad, the music drifts, as if of its own accord into an eerie, garage trance that lingers, cycles, and hypnotises, growing ever stranger, reaching ever-further away from its point of conception. And almost every track on Through Other Reflections holds that outer-body moment, where the band fix themselves on a limber, lysergic groove, lose all grip on time and reality, and melt themselves away into a liquid state of blind euphoria. There are sequences on this record that feel more like rituals than songs, built upon a single hypnotic rhythm which, like the centre of a vortex, pulling everything under its beatific command. Take the finale to ‘What We Found’ for instance, sounding like a ghostly march across the psychedelic moors, or ‘Feel The Way’, where a single athletic drum-loop rises and rises, growing ever more urgent and suspenseful underneath its frantic harpsichords and rasping flutes. Full of such rich stylisms as these, The Soundcarriers showcase themselves as abstract storytellers par excellence by virtue of their textures and arrangements alone. Resembling Romantic composer Maurice Ravel, but if he had just a four-piece rock band at his disposal, Through Other Reflects is rich with detail; there’s shakers, rattles, clarinets, booming drums; there’s synthesiser swarms, chiming xylophones, vintage organs and experimental Cluster & Eno-esque ambiences. Within all this nuance the music flows like some undisclosed narrative swathed in a magnetic secrecy. “It almost comes across like a story in some ways”, says Cann of the album, “the music is quite sectional with elements of exotica and cinematic type layers, it's a good balance of grooves, tunes and weirdness”. No more is this “epic cinematic feel” heard more proudly than on short instrumental ‘Sonya’s Lament” - its innate, hauntological atmospheres befitting a Peter Strickland soundtrack, or the classics of Lex Baxter, the so-called ‘Founder of Exotica’ himself. On the other hand, providing a greasier undercurrent to all these bucolic sounds is a leaning towards a more “direct” lyricism referencing more “external concerns. Laying down the first tracks for the album in the wintry gloom of pre-lockdown 2020, and drawing inspiration from time spent in Berlin, Through Other Reflections returns to some of the post-apocalyptic futurism explored in 2014’s Entropicalia - a loose concept album inspired by J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World. “The songs explore a disillusionment with the way things are going particularly after 40 years of neoliberalism”, says Cann, “They follow that folk-song tradition of wanting to escape to an imagined time, but here it’s more urban than pastoral. The first couple of ideas I came up with when doing some music in Berlin and had some time to wander aimlessly. And think the atmosphere seeped in, particularly on The City Was and Already Over. He continues, “One aspect of the title, ‘Through Other Reflections’ is about synthesis and layers of influence. How things can be filtered through other things and change the perspective. This is something you get in cities as well.” Though, as with everything The Soundcarriers make, “It can mean anything. It also just sounds kind of cool.”

It’s abundantly clear from the first bars of their 5th studio album Through Other Reflection, that this is, and could only ever be, The Soundcarriers. From the enchanting vocal duets of folk-bidden Chanteuses Leonore Wheatley and Dorian Conway; to the precise bass lines of Paul Isherwood and the limber, jazz-cool, Hal Blaine-esque drums of his his co-songwriter Adam Cann; from the fairy-like flutes, 60s-garage guitars and organ sounds pilfered from the archives of exotica - listening to the Soundcarriers resembles a rediscovery of all the most prized, esoteric corners of the 1960s, all bundled up, warped and refracted through the quartet’s astutely modern cultural lens. Channelling Tropicalia, Middle Eastern psychedelic Jazz/Funk, The French Library sounds of Nino Nardini, and a whole host of lavish obscurites beside, Through Other Reflection delivers another sonic adventure from one of the most unique and distinctive voices of British Psychedelia. After an 8 year wait for their album 4 - 2022’s Wilds - it thankfully didn’t take so long for the follow-up this time round. In many ways, this feels like a companion to Wilds; recording again at their Nottingham warehouse studio, Through Other Reflection retains that same organic glow, all the passions and imperfections of a tightly clipped unit jamming out these living, breathing pop-art nuggets as if straight onto the acetate.”We wanted to keep an air of spontaneity with this album and not get too bogged with the recording process”, explains Cann, “It was more a case of getting the songs as tightly written and arranged as possible first so we could get them down quickly in the studio. It always takes longer than you think” Less packed with strident pop hooks as its predecessor however, the music of Through… has been given extra licence to breathe, stretch out, and wander more uncharted terrains. While gleaming psych-pop of tracks like ‘The City Was’, or ‘Already Over’ confidently carry on from where they left off, from the album’s 2nd track ‘Always’, the trip becomes a little less predictable. Starting out as a smoky Procol Harum-meets-French-Psych organ ballad, the music drifts, as if of its own accord into an eerie, garage trance that lingers, cycles, and hypnotises, growing ever stranger, reaching ever-further away from its point of conception. And almost every track on Through Other Reflections holds that outer-body moment, where the band fix themselves on a limber, lysergic groove, lose all grip on time and reality, and melt themselves away into a liquid state of blind euphoria. There are sequences on this record that feel more like rituals than songs, built upon a single hypnotic rhythm which, like the centre of a vortex, pulling everything under its beatific command. Take the finale to ‘What We Found’ for instance, sounding like a ghostly march across the psychedelic moors, or ‘Feel The Way’, where a single athletic drum-loop rises and rises, growing ever more urgent and suspenseful underneath its frantic harpsichords and rasping flutes. Full of such rich stylisms as these, The Soundcarriers showcase themselves as abstract storytellers par excellence by virtue of their textures and arrangements alone. Resembling Romantic composer Maurice Ravel, but if he had just a four-piece rock band at his disposal, Through Other Reflects is rich with detail; there’s shakers, rattles, clarinets, booming drums; there’s synthesiser swarms, chiming xylophones, vintage organs and experimental Cluster & Eno-esque ambiences. Within all this nuance the music flows like some undisclosed narrative swathed in a magnetic secrecy. “It almost comes across like a story in some ways”, says Cann of the album, “the music is quite sectional with elements of exotica and cinematic type layers, it's a good balance of grooves, tunes and weirdness”. No more is this “epic cinematic feel” heard more proudly than on short instrumental ‘Sonya’s Lament” - its innate, hauntological atmospheres befitting a Peter Strickland soundtrack, or the classics of Lex Baxter, the so-called ‘Founder of Exotica’ himself. On the other hand, providing a greasier undercurrent to all these bucolic sounds is a leaning towards a more “direct” lyricism referencing more “external concerns. Laying down the first tracks for the album in the wintry gloom of pre-lockdown 2020, and drawing inspiration from time spent in Berlin, Through Other Reflections returns to some of the post-apocalyptic futurism explored in 2014’s Entropicalia - a loose concept album inspired by J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World. “The songs explore a disillusionment with the way things are going particularly after 40 years of neoliberalism”, says Cann, “They follow that folk-song tradition of wanting to escape to an imagined time, but here it’s more urban than pastoral. The first couple of ideas I came up with when doing some music in Berlin and had some time to wander aimlessly. And think the atmosphere seeped in, particularly on The City Was and Already Over. He continues, “One aspect of the title, ‘Through Other Reflections’ is about synthesis and layers of influence. How things can be filtered through other things and change the perspective. This is something you get in cities as well.” Though, as with everything The Soundcarriers make, “It can mean anything. It also just sounds kind of cool.”

THE LIGHT IS LEAVING US ALL is one of the C93 albums that haunts me the most. I was OverMoon and Blessed to work on it with the Astonishing Aeonic Beautiful Talents of Reinier Van Houdt, Alasdair Roberts, Ossian Brown, Rita Knuistingh Neven, Andrew Liles, Aloma Ruiz Boada, Michael York, Davide Pepe, Ania Goszczyńska, and Giulio Di Mauro. Once again, the Voice in the Mask of one of my favourite authors, and longest colleagues, Thomas Ligotti, also joined C93.

The album’s title was given to me in a dream, in which I saw The Souls of humans pouring out of their eyes, and returning to God—The Light Had Left Them Quite!

On THE LIGHT IS LEAVING US ALL, I brought together my studies of specific Akkadian and Biblical Hebrew texts that I was translating with my friends and teachers Professor Martin Worthington, Ola Wikander, and Professor Seth Sanders, and also Channelled my fascinations with The Red Barn Murder of 1827 and “The Witchcraft Murders” of “Bella” in Hagley Wood in c.1941 and Charles Walton in Lower Quinton in 1945.

All this time, the birds were sweetly singing, the kettle was on, the milkmaid was singing, and the policeman was dead—all this while the birds were softly singing, and The Light Was Leaving Us All.

Remastered by The Bricoleur at Bladud Flies!, and with the original artwork refreshed and reborn by Rob Hopeye, this 12” vinyl picture-disc comes in a full-colour die-cut sleeve, which is printed on both the outside and inside.

This is one of the first 4 reissues of the entire back catalogue of C93 on picture-disc and standard vinyl, in the lead-up to the publication of my autobiography at the end of 2025, whilst I also work on many other recording, publishing, and painting projects, and Watch And Pray! Each release in the picture-disc vinyl reissues series is limited to 1,000 copies, and the titles will not be repressed as picture-discs once they have sold out.

Originally issued in 1983, and mostly voiced at King Tubby's over rhythms recorded at Channel One by the Roots Radics. The lead single, Sensie Man was in defence of his fellow ganja smokers from around the island.

The learning process is just as much an act of healing as betterment. The enabling of solutions through sheer willpower and openness to discovery, or a noble mission, never completed. In that spirit, the latest album by Berlin-based Slovak duo Päfgens – comprising Jana Drábeková Kočišová and Filip Drábek – represents a pensive development for the project.

Drifting from their lo-fi shoegaze beginnings, Päfgens drone-infused soundscapes have become increasingly immersive and expressive “framed improvisations,” where spontaneous passages are captured, then revisited with fresh layers upon layers over the course of months, breathing and evolving naturally, mirroring the unpredictability of nature. Songforms have all but melted away, with ethereal guitars and bass nestling up against field-recorded sounds, synth beds, percussion, and singing bowl tones.

The framed improvisation on ‘Aspect of What’ explores love and loss, relishing both the joy and melancholy of paying tribute to Filip’s late ethnologist grandmother, Božena Filová (1926-2020). Her voice opens track 2, ‘Particles’, speaking of the humble desire to “help the people in the rural environment”, and the goal of “uplifting people to better living through education”. The album’s emotionally charged approach to improvisation is suitably uplifting and seemingly made without ego, the couple melting away into the flitting wall of rustling drones and heavenly fuzz. Even at their most serrated (the groaning guitar amp squall underpinning ‘Journey’) or when surrounded by chiming bells, clocks and bowls (‘Around the Clock’), Päfgens is ready to listen, rest, learn, and improve, extracting and nurturing hidden abstract emotion in every piece, plundering something universal and teachable from very personal depths.

"Even God Has A Sense Of Humor" is the long-awaited follow up album to Maxo's critically acclaimed 2019 release Lil Big Man. Across the 14-tracks, Even God Has A Sense Of Humor pays tribute to the mercurial nature of life and includes features from Liv.e, keiyaA, LastNameDavid, and Melanie Charles along with the previously released singles "Free!," produced by Dev Morrison and "48," produced by Madlib and featuring Pink Siifu. The FADER recently sat down with Maxo to discuss the album, which they described as having "a defiant glow, like a bronze statue still standing after an intense tornado."

Born Maxamillian Allen, Even God Has A Sense Of Humor finds Maxo earnest, full-hearted, and lyrically agile. His delivery punches as he poetically unpacks the trials and blessings that have marked the last three years since Lil Big Man, his stirring and meditative debut album. “Life is always gonna be life-ing,” Maxo says, speaking to the spiritual lessons that inspired this new project and an album process that has revealed to him the many ways in which he’s divinely protected.

The album’s striking cover features three casted sculptures of Maxo by legendary NYC-based artist artist John Ahearn, photographed by the rapper’s friend Steven Traylor. The image both preceded the music and set the tone for the record’s overall aura. Experiencing the casting process—which required long periods of stillness for form, and breathwork to avoid claustrophobia—became a metaphor about ego death for Maxo. “I had to go to a space where I was just not there,” he says. As the molding was poured over his body and the voices of those in the room became distant, Maxo’s inner world came into focus. “By the time it hardened, it seemed like the sculpture had risen to be 20 feet above where it was first— almost like it grew tall,” he explains. EGHASOH, in its aural ebbs and flows, honest questioning, profound revelations, and elegant verse, is Maxo standing spiritually tall following a period of challenges with family and friends.

Maxo’s writing process has always been rooted in imagery, observation, and capturing moments. Growing up in Southern California, Maxo spent a lot of time combing through old family photo albums, some of whose contents have become the artwork for prior releases. But his fascination with visual memento is less about nostalgia or remembering, and more about exploring concepts of growth, healing, and cycles. His artistry is intentional and deeply sensitive: “If I’m not feeling it, I’m not gonna record.” While his past records openly grappled with emotional turbulence, anger and depression, EGHASOH is Maxo’s acceptance stage: “I can't really judge nothing. I can't sit up and be mad at shit because everything is, everything is kind of coexisting,” he says.

Musically, EGHASOH is an impressive evolution from Maxo’s earlier, unornamented lo-fi projects. With an emphasis on jazzy instrumentalism and soothing, intricate vocals from both the artist and featured chanteueses Liv.e, Melanie Charles, and keiyaA, EGHASOH is a welcome and beautifully complex sonic effort. Its contributors include a range of musicians: Pink Siifu, LastNameDavid, Madlib, GrayMatter, Karriem Riggins, Beat Butcha, Lance Skiiiwalker, and more. The album was executive produced by Mount Kimbie’s Dom Maker.

“Nobody talks about the fact that we’re changing as we get older... Everybody just acts like you supposed to know,” Maxo says on album standout, “Face of Stone”. It's moody bassline meets a cinematic accordion melody that paradoxically both broods and uplifts—a fitting production choice that mirrors the song’s story. “I’m seeing how this world is chipping you and withering your bones,” Maxo says. “I’m talking about myself, talking about my bro. But it’s never nothing you gonna do that’s a one stop shop in this life. You gotta keep staying diligent and consistent.” For Maxo, Even God Has a Sense of Humor is nothing more than another moment on the timeline of his offerings of self-expression as an artist—one whose sole intention is to, in his words, develop as a human being and heal.

THE SINISTER DEBUT ALBUM OF PURE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL
FEELING,FEATURING MEMBERS OF AURA NOIR, OBLITERATION &
CONDOR."Underground metal the way it should sound returns to
Kolbotn!" - Fenriz (Darkthrone)From the depths of Norway looms a new
rising beast of hate & misanthropy in the form of Avmakt
Featuring the duo of Kristian Valbo & Christoffer Brathen - known for their work
with such acts as Aura Noir, Obliteration & Condor - their debut album, 'The
Satanic Inversion of....', is a grim & revelatory offering. Primitive in a way that
captures the early magic of Kolbotn's metal kings, Darkthrone, as well as the stark
chaos of early-era Bathory along with their very own distinguishable stamp on the
genre, 'The Satanic Inversion of....' is a masterclass of real Black Metal feeling,
wrapped up in a hypnotic frenzy of ice-cold riffing.
Though both members had played in bands covering different genres since their
early teenage years, Black Metal had always been one of the most important as a
vehicle for an honesty & fierceness that resonated deeply within the duo, without
the need for extravagant clothing or pretentious concepts. And so Avmakt itself
was born as the vessel for channelling this stripped-down raw feeling.
Formed in 2020 & with their one & only demo release gaining traction in the
underground, the Norwegians quickly came to the attention of Darkthrone's Fenriz
& Peaceville Records & Avmakt was swiftly included on Peaceville's Black Metal
Compilation, 'Dark Side Of The Sacred Star' which launched at the end of 2022.
Avmakt itself means "powerlessness", the sense of being overwhelmed & not
able to have any influence - without choice, voice, or hope. And so, it is from far
down in this psychological abyss that Avmakt's ideas & expressions manifest
with the completion of their debut studio release; 6 sprawling epic tracks
recorded with the assistance of Arild Torp, also of Obliteration & encapsulating
such themes as emptiness, desolation & alienation in a powerful display of
sinister, uninhibited Black Metal.

DJ support: J:Kenzo, Kahn, Rob Smith and Don Letts. This includes BBC Radio, SWU FM (part of the Rinse network)

Bay Area producer Dubamine returns to Dub-Stuy with yet another sureshot featuring the label’s own JonnyGo Figure on vocals. The title track, Bulletproof, is a classic Dubamine tune: a ghostly, flute melody riding over a deceptively minimalist riddim that showcases his skills in crafting compelling beats. Jonny comes correct on this one, mashing up the dance in his own trademark style. The flipside is another Dubamine banger, this time sampling the unmistakable voice of an iconic British DJ, over a rolling riddim with righteous horn lines that channel Aswad. Mastered by Joker for maximum weight.

‘The Oakland band’s wide-ranging debut is a whirlwind of biting critique, nervy post-punk guitars, and absurdist humor. Rarely does a first record speak with such a trenchant voice.’ 7.5 PITCHFORK
‘Post-punk lovers have a new act to follow" - PASTE
Fake Fruit’s visceral indie rock operates so firmly in the present that it’s transportive and unmooring. The Oakland trio’s songs careen with volatile energy and lead singer Ham D’Amato’s lyrics are enveloped with acerbic humor and resonant perceptiveness. Though their new LP Mucho Mistrust is a sly reference to a beloved Blondie lyric, the title encapsulates both the anxieties of daily life, a bloodless music industry, and global capitalism as well as the clear-eyed skepticism needed to rebel against it. Across 12 propulsively unpredictable tracks, the album is both their most collaborative and most immediate yet.
Following the 2021 release of Fake Fruit’s self-titled debut LP, the band’s personal lives hit a turbulent and transformational period. “There were big life changes and I was so close to boiling over,” says D’Amato. “I left a bad relationship, entered a more stable and loving one, got diagnosed with alopecia, and I'm turning 30 soon too.” This personal upheaval was channeled into the explosive lead single “Mucho Mistrust.” The track is simultaneously disorienting and direct, with clanging guitars from Alex Post, off-kilter drums from Miles MacDiarmid, and D’Amato snarling, “How you gonna blame me / when you could’ve done something about it / it’s not right / How you gonna marinate me / in shitty things overnight.” She explains, “This song was a snapshot of how I got through a difficult year.”
Recorded live at the Bay Area’s Atomic Garden studio with producer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Home Is Where), the band’s palpable ferocity shines throughout the record. Single “Más o Menos” is searing punk, with buzzsaw guitars and surging bass. It’s a clenched-fist song, one where D’Amato sings, “I decided to assert myself / After I lost all my sense of self.” Later in the track, D’Amato, who is Chicana, sings in Spanish, “¡No me hables! / ¡No escuchare!” While some of these songs deal in heartbreak, they are charged with way bigger themes. “There's also wanting to break up with capitalism and feeling upset about things politically,” says D’Amato.
For the band, these themes are personal. “I'm managing us while I'm in between changing diapers in my day job as a nanny,” says D’Amato. “Everyone in the band still believes in it and is motivated to keep wading through the bullshit.” On this album, they had no choice but to bet on themselves and each other. No track broadcasts their evolution better than the single “Cause of Death,” which morphs from a gorgeous sax-laden banger to something cathartic and anthemic.
As adventurous and righteous as Mucho Mistrust gets, there’s still an inviting core that never takes itself too seriously. From the ripping “Cause of Death,” which self-deprecatingly takes aim at anxiety and indecision, to the searing title track, Fake Fruit imbue their songs with humor and heart. “Our band is fun,” says D’Amato. “My number one coping mechanism for all of life is to joke about it. Even when the album talks about serious things, I am proud of how funny it can be.”

While Duster went into hibernation in the year 2000, Clay Parton's four-track never stopped rolling. Recorded alone at home over several years, Birds In The Ground is an album of 30-something, post-9/11 malaise. Under his Eiafuawn (Everything Is All Fucked Up And What Not) acronym, Parton hides beneath layers of fuzzy and clean guitars, his hesitant, cottony vocal disappear into noise. This deluxe pressing is packaged in a gorgeous tip on sleeve and includes the complete lyrics for this cryptic entry of the Dusterverse.

Presenting 3+5, the long-awaited eighth album from Tokyo-based noise-rockers Melt-Banana on their own A-Zap label! The album showcases the duo’s visionary musical approach and extraordinary abilities as performers: Yasuko Onuki’s giddy, hyperactive vocalizing and Ichiro Agata’s glitchy, cyberpunk guitar, delivered at dizzying speed, bathed in aggressive electronic sounds. Their aesthetic approach is exultantly experimental, fusing diverse genres imbued with chaotic energy. As on their previous works, the music on 3+5 is unpredictable, always filled with surprises and excitement. 3+5 synthesizes elements of a variety of extreme music, hyper-pop, classic punk, vintage metal, and noise. It partakes of Japanese culture overall, especially the subcultures of gaming, anime and underground music. Melt-Banana seek to offer possibilities to musicians who won’t start a band if they can’t find a drummer, young women afraid to express themselves in their own unfiltered and unique voices, bedroom musicians and egg punks seeking to blend electronic noise with live instrumentation. 3+5 provides a fresh experience and perhaps inspiration for all. While Melt-Banana hasn’t explicitly explained the meaning behind the album’s title, 3+5, prime numbers symbolize mathematical integrity and independence, which could represent the band’s uniqueness and freedom. Why “3+5” and not “1 + 7”? One is left to ponder.

One of the greatest UK White Labels of all time. Terrestrial Funk brings you an absolute summer sensation over three decades delayed. Relegated to obscurity until now, this four track EP boasts the downtempo hit ‘Summertime’ alongside three electronic bangers… and mash. The dubbed out stabs of ‘Jennifer’ on the A2 and two never before heard versions of ‘Let’s Climb’. Feel the festival ready power of the ‘Come To Me Mix’ and lose yourself to the hypnotic squelch of the ‘Glad You Made It Dub’, ready for sweaty summer nights.

In the late eighties, Simon Akers and Jason Brown began producing in a quaint home studio. Later collaborating with likeminded talents through the early nineties. Terrestrial Funk has worked with the group to transfer all their old digital audio tapes and bring you a series of fresh music yet to see the light of day. Jacqueline Foster aka Jacquoda brought her stunning voice to the project on this massive single showcasing vocals that shine brighter than the summer sun. Grab your copy today!

Sara May grew up on a dirt road just outside a small Ontario town known for its Honda plant and Potato Festival. Over the course of ten indie-leaning, alt-country tracks on 'Legacy', her latest album as Falcon Jane, she expounds on that origin story through the great archetypes of country music: the drinker, the vagabond, the absent father. She presents these characters with a clarity and empathy that feels almost transgressive-a loving touch that crosses our rural / urban divides. But these are Sara's stories too: her rural childhood, her move to Toronto, her current home in the working class town of Shelburne, and her life on the road. She comes by it honest. And the transformation on 'Legacy' isn't just lyrical. Alongside producer José Contreras (By Divine Right), Falcon Jane refine their sound-pushing toward folk and country like contemporaries Waxahatchee and Angel Olsen. May's voice, the one constant from 2015's 'Alive n Well' EP, through the dream pop of her 2018 debut album 'Feelin' Freaky', to the sprawling indie rock of 2020's 'Faith', is more powerful here, sitting atop the warm, Nashville-leaning production. The result is both striking and blindingly obvious: Sara May has found her way back home.

Sara May grew up on a dirt road just outside a small Ontario town known for its Honda plant and Potato Festival. Over the course of ten indie-leaning, alt-country tracks on 'Legacy', her latest album as Falcon Jane, she expounds on that origin story through the great archetypes of country music: the drinker, the vagabond, the absent father. She presents these characters with a clarity and empathy that feels almost transgressive-a loving touch that crosses our rural / urban divides. But these are Sara's stories too: her rural childhood, her move to Toronto, her current home in the working class town of Shelburne, and her life on the road. She comes by it honest. And the transformation on 'Legacy' isn't just lyrical. Alongside producer José Contreras (By Divine Right), Falcon Jane refine their sound-pushing toward folk and country like contemporaries Waxahatchee and Angel Olsen. May's voice, the one constant from 2015's 'Alive n Well' EP, through the dream pop of her 2018 debut album 'Feelin' Freaky', to the sprawling indie rock of 2020's 'Faith', is more powerful here, sitting atop the warm, Nashville-leaning production. The result is both striking and blindingly obvious: Sara May has found her way back home.

10 years after its release, Lydia Loveless sits down at the piano for an intimate reimagining of her landmark album, Somewhere Else. Title track featuring guest vocals by Jason Isbell. “Over the last 10 years I’ve been told by countless people, emotional and earnest, that their favorite record of mine is Something Else. I love that, and I nod in amused reverence to it here. The me of 2012-2013 was drowning in pain and insecurity and my own press, pissed off that nobody could see me for who I really was, what I had really been through, and how hard it was to be me. I was walled in by fears and worries that I would never be good enough. I was struggling with my voice after a debilitating virus and a six week tour. I had rented a little room in the Grandview neighborhood of Columbus and was plugging away on my splintered acoustic guitar with a tape recorder.

I was frustrated as could be, not coming up with anything that I felt was 'me' or even remotely song like. One day, when I finally thought I had a nugget of something, I read the lyrics aloud to my then husband and he looked at me confused and said, 'what are you even trying to say in this, though? Who is the narrator?' I don’t remember what I said to that but I’m sure it wasn’t kind. When I went back into the studio with my friend Caeleigh Featherstone recording me this go round, she looked at me at one point and said, 'Were you singing these songs in front of old dudes? Like, your husband?' Yes, I was, I told her. We both shook our heads and laughed at the hubris on 22-year-old Lydia Loveless.” - Lydia Loveless

Not everybody has not one, not two, but twelve producers attached to her debut release. Not everybody has her one and only album pranked by British artist Banksy (who substituted a topless photo for the cover). Nope, not everybody is Paris Hilton, who has lived in the public eye since, well, forever. She first announced plans to make an album in 2003, during her run on the reality TV series The Simple Life. Originally entitled Screwed, and then Paris Is Burning, the record—finally simply entitled Paris—came out in 2006. And it was…uh… good? Yeah, for real. This record goes expensively pedicured cuticle to cuticle with anything Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson or any other pop culture chanteuse of the like ever put out, and the Paris the heiress displays some real savvy both in her taste of material and the Madonna-like manipulation of her sex symbol image. And her voice? Definitely respectable despite what the haters said. Indeed, the single “Stars Are Blind” went top 20, and the album itself went all the way up to #6, selling over 600,000 copies worldwide. Since Paris has finally answered the pleas of her fans and made a second album, we thought the time was right for a revival of Paris, so we’ve taken the fetching photos from the CD package and given them plenty of acreage to show their stuff, with a gatefold jacket and 4-color printed inner sleeve. And for this release, we’re pressing Paris’ album in her favorite color, pink…and of course it’s hot! A pop culture keepsake from an enduring pop culture icon!

This new collaboration started by Dutch/Swiss baritone saxophonist Jeroen Visser and Ethiopian dancer and cultural ambassador Melaku Belay features nine musicians and dancers. Their album "GOJO" pays tribute to the golden age of the Ethio-jazz in many refreshing ways. Where the old recordings were played with western instruments, this release leans on traditional instruments like the Ethiopian lyre the kirar (Robel Solomon/Sentayehu Tadesse), a one-string violin the masinqo (Habtamu Yeshambel), and the kebero as percussion (Mesay Abebay). The additional saxes (Jeroen Visser/Steve Buchanan) go well with the soulful and funky arrangements. Changes in rhythm, some experimental improvisations and wild outbursts, and the mesmerizing voice of Nardos Tesfaw are completing the overall hypnotic mood.

Katya Shirskova - David Maranha - Le Héron / A Reuniåo

Stellagedelivers a compelling split LP fromKatya ShirshkovaandDavid Maranha, "Le Héron / A Reuniåo," set for release in July 2024. Created and produced in residence at La Box contemporary art gallery at ENSA - École national supérieure d'arts de Bourges in 2023, this album is a profound exploration of the two artists' respective voices, showcasing their distinctive approaches.

Katya Shirshkovaopens the LP with side-long "Le Héron." This piece is an unadulterated exploration of voice, devoid of any field recordings or added effects. Embracing minimalism, the work revolves solely around vocal loops and re-recordings, creating choral structures that evoke folk traditions while delving into experimental realms. The ASMR-like techniques employed serve not merely as an auditory gimmick but as an intricate tool to illustrate the delicate flight of birds, mirroring the ethereal quality of the entire composition.

"Le Heron" aptly draws inspiration from its avian namesake, weaving birds into its fabric through the concept of vertical polyphony. The piece is underpinned by a profound understanding of this polyphonic approach, demanding meticulous precision in its looping technique. Each fragile construction is crafted in a single, unbroken take, showcasing an impeccable blend of simplicity and complexity.

David Maranhatakes over on the flip side with "A Reuniåo," delivering seven suites of powerful, minimalist drone compositions. Maranha's mastery of sustained tones and evolving harmonics creates a mesmerizing, meditative experience that is both intense and transformative.A dynamic interplay of harmonics creates a dense, immersive auditory environment, a study in sustained tones and subtle variation, leaving a lasting impression.

Mixed and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi

Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joining their broad efforts in building networks of context and understanding that already includes the works by Werner Durand, Sarah Hennies, Bruce Nauman, John Butcher, Jocy de Oliveira, Mary Jane Leach, Valentina Magaletti, Alvin Curran, Julius Eastman, Alvin Lucier, and shortly after returning with the first ever vinyl release to attend to James Tenney’s legendary “Postal Pieces”, the label is now offering a brand new, ambitious work by the American composer Ben Vida, entitled “Vocal Trio”, conceived, performed, and recorded in Bremen, Germany, during the Spring of 2022. A truly stunning work of compositional conceptualism, combining the ideas of systems based synthesis with real-time vocal collaboration - issued in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score - it’s a landmark in contemporary experimental practice and arguably the most forward-thinking and exciting piece by one of the most exciting American artists working today.

Ben Vida first emerged during the mid 1990s within a loose constellation of experimental musicians, centred around a performance series of improvised workshops at the Myopic Bookstore in Chicago, alongside Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Chad Taylor, and the other future members of Town and Country - Jim Dorling, Joshua Abrams, and Liz Payne - the band within which he would gain widespread recognition over the following years. Like many other members of that scene, Vida remains a restless product of a fleeting context - Chicago during the 1990s and early 2000s - continuously undermining concrete notions of idiom and signifier within a practice that witnessed him rendering bristling abstractions within Pillow, glacial melodies with Town and Country, the art-rock mayhem of Bird Show Band, and the angular, driving indie rock of Joan of Arc, before becoming immersed in a practice of systems based synthesis, beginning in the 2010s, that guided much of his first decade of output as a solo performer and composer.

As early as 2013, he began to incorporate acoustic sound sources - specifically the human voice - into his work. It was this shift, evolving and refining itself over the last decade, that underscores radically the leap in his practice represented by “Vocal Trio”, a work that encounters Vida composing for the human voice with the ideas that allow for synthesis - transferring the underlying concepts and structures of both subtractive and additive synthesis to the acoustic realm - without using a synthesiser.

During the Spring of 2022 Vida was in Bremen, Germany, collaborating on a dance piece with the choreographer Fay Driscoll, when the production fell into delays. Finding himself with time on his hands, a space at his disposal, and the company of two dancers - Amy Gernux and Lotte Rudhart - who were also singers, the idea for the piece - to utilising the larynx as audio paths (multi-harmonic or harmonically pure) while conceptualising each person’s mouth as a filter to sculpt the timbre and resonance of a given tone - began to take shape in his mind. Considering how typographical scores might be developed into a non-linguistic social framework, Vida drafted a single page of text - what became the score for “Vocal Trio” - accompanied by a set of harmonic suggestion and loose parameters, seeking a core meaning from each word's phonic make-up by each of the three singers (Vida, Gernux and Rudhart) singing as slowly as possible.

At the core of the pulsing vocal drones - intoxicating, harmonically rich long-tones - that make up the duration abstraction of “Vocal Trio”, is Vida’s regard for music as a social space. It is an experiment that seeks liberation through the act of collective music making, by challenging the terms through which the act of composing is perceived and then relinquishing control. The piece’s rehearsals were simply the three performers hanging out, allowing their knowing each other and natural dynamics to contribute to its form as the score, before recording during a single afternoon at the end of a number of days sharing company and space.

Creatively visionary and groundbreaking on numerous terms, as well as being intoxicatingly beautiful and remarkably listenable, Ben Vida’s “Vocal Trio” represents a striking step forward for one of the most ambitious and outstanding sonic artists working in the United States today. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score, this is hands down one of the most important contemporary records we’re likely to encounter in 2024.

Biomes are little worlds of organic relationships, full of struggles, symbiosis, and sheer obsolete noise. In "De Silenti Natura," Henrique Vaz is meticulously crafting synthetic auditory biomes, sprouting from their own fuzzy logic. Unfolding across two distinct acts, the Brazilian artist interprets and replicates the complex, often ambiguous sounds of (un)natural environments, creating imaginary systems to inhabit over two sides of tape. The soundscape of the first side and title track is entirely algorithmically synthesized, with no samples used, leveraging Supercollider for real-time sound generation. The environment thus built is a flourishing one, seemingly unable to escape its own grandeur as insect-like buzzing and crackles expands into mountain ranges and forests of erupting sonorous drama. The second side introduces 'hydrophone' water synthesizers, submerged in a goldfish bowl to interface with the unfurling waves of electronic chords, creating a unique blend of damp and unwieldy sloshing movements, prismatically scattered into a luscious soundscape, and resembling everything from the bridge of a starship to the echoed drip-drip of stalactites.

Both sides of the album slowly unwrap and uncrinkle, revealing layers of hisses, distant digital choirs, warm enveloping chords, and juddering bleeps. Despite their unwieldy and strange nature, myriad elements convey a familiar sense of environment, flitting between the blossoming of new (manmade) life and the doom and destruction of the (real) world.

As the ringing of bells (fully synthetic; no samples were used) hove into view during the closing movement of side one, a simulacrum cacophony of voices is ushered in. It’s a reminder of the holy nature of sound itself, beamed into our heads intangibly. The flipside’s water ritual, frantically dunking ‘water synthesizers’ to birth swooping melodies and yawning tones, is jabbing at sleeping giants. It’s pushing and pulling the stars in the night sky into place. It’s both a simple act of beautiful creation, and a storm in a teacup.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce a reissue of Chico Mello and Helinho Brandão’s self-titled release from 1984, the first return to vinyl of this classic of Brazilian experimental music with its original cover art and complete track listing. An under-recognised figure whose work inhabits a singular terrain where radical new music techniques and music theatre meet musica popular brasileira, Mello has lived and worked in Berlin since the late 1980s. A student of Dieter Schnebel, Mello played in the 90s iteration of Arnold Dreyblatt’s Orchestra of Excited Strings alongside compatriot Silvia Ocougne, with whom he produced a radical and hilarious deconstruction of MPB classics on Musica Brasileira De(s)composta (an early and rather atypical release on Edition Wandelweiser).

On this release, his only recording predating his move to Europe, Mello works with the alto saxophonist Helinho Brandão, who appears to be otherwise unknown outside Brazil. The record’s six tracks range from solo saxophone improvisation to densely layered ensemble works bridging minimalism, acoustic sound art and a plaintive melodic sensibility that calls up Edu Lobo or Milton Nascimento. Beginning with a dramatic, dissonant wind and string surge from which emerge ominously pounding piano chords, opener ‘Água’ slowly builds in intensity, a halo of clustered vocal harmonies gradually closing in on Brandão’s squealing sax until the piece opens up to reveal a gorgeous passage of melodic singing. The piano accompaniment reduces to tolling bass notes as the voice begins a repeated incantation, suggesting a ritualistic atmosphere reminiscent of parts of Xenakis’ setting of Oresteia. Dissonant, sawing tremolos on the strings climb to a crescendo before disappearing into the sounds of water being poured and splashed into metal vessels, presented not as a field recording but as a percussive element performed by the ensemble. A child’s voice then appears, singing to piano accompaniment the same melody heard earlier in the piece. After a brief solo alto improvisation from Brandão, working with the guttural pops and fleeting melodic gestures of Braxton or Roscoe Mitchell, the remainder of the first side is dedicated to the leisurely unfolding of ‘Baiando’ over the course of twelve minutes. A trio for Brandão on soprano saxophone, Mello on a very period-appropriate phased nylon string guitar and Edu Dequech on bongos, the performance eases its way hypnotically through subtle variations on a set of rhythmic and melodic patterns, almost derailed at points by Brandão’s wild forays into extended technique but held together by Mello’s droning guitar notes.

The second side opens with another multi-part epic for a larger ensemble, ‘Matraca’, which makes use of strings, electric guitars and a wide range of South American percussion instruments. Rasping violin harmonics hover as drum hits, repeated guitar notes and triangle accompany a slowly descending bass glissando. A sudden change in direction introduces a thrumming, incessantly repeated bowed bass tone, beginning a series of episodes of minimalist phasing and pattern variation, the combinations of electric guitars and orchestral instruments giving the ensemble an ad hoc charm like the early Penguin Café Orchestra but with more percussive drive. Eventually the piece is overrun by a cacophony of the titular matracas (a kind of ratchet/cog rattle). Following a lyrical trio improvisation by Mello, Brandão and Gerson Kornin on bass, the final ‘Danca’ focuses entirely on Mello’s layered acoustic guitars and vocals, using this restricted palette to build up a haunting piece of almost orchestral density, reminiscent of the 70s work of Egberto Gismonti in how it thickens a folkish ambience with harmonic sophistication.

Arriving in a starkly beautiful gatefold sleeve and sounding better than ever in its new remaster, one might call the stunning music contained on Chico Mello/Helinho Brandão ahead of its time. But what (other than some of Mello’s own work) produced in the years since its initial release has really touched the organic fusion of minimalism, free improvisation, radical instrumental technique and popular song achieved here? Forty years after its first release, Chico Mello/Helinho Brandão remains music of the future.

Isabell Gustafsson-Ny joins Warm Winters Ltd. with Rosenhagtorn, a suite of short pieces for piano, violin and voice. Absorbing in its profound focus on listening, this collection is a striking exploration of these sound sources; their repetitions, harmonics and oscillations. Conceiving of the release as a house, a different song is playing in each room, Gustafsson-Ny was able to explore the rawness and fragility of each instrument with incredible freedom and sensibility. She describes the album in the following words: "In the music there is both repetition and flow, but also the creak of the pedal organ. Here are Radigue traces and slow slow piano. Here is the violin again, resumed after many years of almost fallow. Here are the overtones and the scratchy strings. Here I dare to open the door to the voice." A unique kind of dusty, intimate folk music.