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Germany based MC Fava releases his first solo EP on Beatalistics, the imprint he co-runs with Freiburgs soulful tag team partner Enea. This has been a long time coming and it couldn't be more emotional. The 5 track strong "Destiny EP" reveals more of the hopeless romantic songwriter's soul and once again showcases his immense versatility. Finish Drum 'n Bass legend Muffler adds his inimitable minimal melodic touches to the title track and underlines Fava's personal lyrics with his trancy trademark signature. Shooting Star Mountain from Japan shows his unique talent and musical approach on the 80s Synth-Pop influenced "Midnight", a rock-bass driven song characterized by its harmonised vocals arrangement. Teaming up with British vocalist Becca Jane Grey and Slovakian Smote, "Sarah" is a soul touching piano based liquid roller with a long acoustic drum intro which perfectly leads into the highest emotions. Enea himself takes you into deeper shades of colour with the moody "Green Velvet". Hypnotizing pads complete the warm bassline pattern which wraps the simple but distinctive drums perfectly around Fava's mesmerizing vocals. The Green Man from Cologne, Germany concludes the emotional rollercoaster ride with the Downtempo Chill-Hop "Alone in the Dark". Smooth horns and breathy pads create the perfect atmosphere for the German vocalist who playfully mixes melodic singing hooks with calm spoken words and repetitive chants. Outstanding on all levels!

(180 gr vinyl) Musique Pour La Danse presents another collaboration with SF-based Jonah Sharp following the first ever vinyl release of his Reagenz LP with Move D in 2021. This time, the iconic Flurescence EP by his Spacetime Continuum solo project gets the reissue treatment, after being released on the Scotsman's own Reflective Records back in 1993 with an unforgettable holographic center label.

Musique Pour La Danse presents another collaboration with SF-based Jonah Sharp following the first ever vinyl release of his Reagenz LP with Move D in 2021.

This time, the iconic Flurescence EP by his Spacetime Continuum solo project gets the reissue treatment, after being released on the Scotsman's own Reflective Records back in 1993 with an unforgettable holographic center label.

There is a good reason why this EP, actually Sharp's debut release, was so hard to find at reasonable prices and why it has appeared in countless compilations and top lists in the last 3 decades with no sign of slowing down.

Truly timeless, this masterclass in forward thinking electronic music focuses on deeply textured, masterfully arranged, and skillfully morphing tracks with a cosmic tinge that feels warm instead of cold, and rewards repeat listens.

Prepare to bend the very fabric of spacetime during the 28 minutes of heavenly chill out and celestial techno/trance contained in this 12" black hole, remastered and repackaged for the 21st century. Title track Flurescence is one of the very few that actually captures the ambience of those magical floating years and a trip to the edges of outer space that never ceases to amaze, while Transmitter is a deep dive to the bottom of an ethereal ocean of fur suspended in time, with mysterious samples from the producer's answering machine to boot. Drift is a bona fide gem of rhythmic psychedelic electronic music, breaking down and projecting early trance, IDM and electronica ideas like a prism turning revealing a colorful spectrum of colours after being hit by light. Finally, the fast-paced dancefloor weapon Drug#6 is up there with Choice's Acid Eiffel, Resistance D's Cosmic Love, and Red Planet's Cosmic Movement in the intergalactic pantheon of narcotic, acid techno cuts.

Needless to say, zero gravity listening is strongly encouraged.

Many Worlds Interpretation is a collection of cosmic Americana for electronics, guitar, and percussion culled from Jon Iverson’s extensive home-studio archive. 1984, Los Osos, California. In a small cinderblock cottage, hand-painted with bright psychedelic flora, Jon Iverson created vibrant new worlds. He spent long days and nights immersed in sound, perfecting home recording on his 8-track reel-to-reel, combining his love for kosmische and Berlin School electronics with an infatuation with ethnographic sounds and expansive guitar music. In a duo with fellow sonic traveler Thomas Walters, Iverson released missives from the studio on a self-titled LP released on country legend Guthrie Thomas’ Eagle Records. That release featured
three electro-acoustic compositions (“Naningo”, “River Fen”, and “Fox Tales”) as well as a gathering of guitar duo tapestries. Many Worlds Interpretation re-imagines those interplanetary works alongside several unreleased compositions that also feature synthesizer, guitar, and percussion, creating a re-visioned album which leans into Iverson’s electronic studio wizardry.

All songs have been carefully transferred from analog tape to high resolution digital, retaining their vintage studio warmth, but mixed and mastered for modern ears and audio systems. The album is pressed at 45rpm, further enhancing the audiophile experience.

Artist Statement

I worked in a Harley Davidson parts warehouse in the summer of 1976 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The goal was to save enough money to buy transportation for college and a Teac 4 track 1/4" reel to reel tape machine. By September there was a rusting monkey-vomit green car in the driveway and shiny new Teac with a Sony condenser microphone in the bedroom. At this point I had been playing guitar for a dozen years and like most children of the sixties, dreamed of joining
a band.

Went to college instead to study business.

But all was not lost. 1978-1979 was spent as Weird Al Yankovic's roommate and we recorded and created enough songs to play shows around San Luis Obispo, California, where we were attending college. Many of those recordings have yet to be heard by the public, including the first performances of My Bologna and many other parodies of pop songs of the day. We sent tapes to Dr. Demento, we auditioned for The Gong Show and were barred from playing at the local college after one memorable performance. Wild times.

I, however, was more intent on working on "serious" music, with albums from Vangelis, Tangerine Dream and Jean Michel Jarre providing inspiration. DJing at the local college radio station and then public radio outlet provided exposure to an endless stream of obscure albums (Sky Records from Germany was a particular favourite). Most of them would never make it to the air, but my buddies and I would pass them around like exotic treasure.

Fast forward a couple more years and I had picked up a Mini-Moog and eventually a Prophet V synthesizer as well as starting a collection of instruments from around the world. The Teac and synths formed the basis for a growing DIY studio that had taken over a modest-size garage (pictured on the cover) that had been converted into a two room cottage in Los Osos, California.

The Teac was eventually joined by a rented Otari 1/2" 8-track and then finally a vintage MCI JH-100 2" 16-track. The compositions on this album were recorded on these three machines between 1982 and 1989. At some point an Apple II computer with Alpha Syntauri sound card and keyboard were added and then later the first personal computer sampling hardware/software kit, the Decillionix DX-1. The DX-1 forms the rhythm track for “Fox Tales” and the Alpha Syntauri was programmed to create the pulsing synth for “Naningo”. “River Fen” was tracked with both the Alpha Syntauri and the Prophet V.

I knew this music wasn't commercial, but didn't care. It was inspiring working with the first computer-based synths and semi-pro gear. Home studios were still rare in the early 80s until the Tascam Portastudio blew the DIY door wide-open. But I was more interested in sound quality so stuck with reels of tape instead of lower fidelity cassettes.

During the time these songs were recorded, I was also collaborating with my good friend and mandolinist, Tom Walters. “River Fen”, “Naningo” and “Fox Tales”, were solo recordings that also ended up on the first Iverson & Walters album, First Collection. The other four pieces on this new LP were never fully finished or released until now.

— Jon Iverson, September 2022

Helga Myhr is a highly regarded Hardanger fiddle player and singer
She has participated in a number of ensembles and has played in a variety of
genres. In this work, originally composed for the 2020 Osa Festival, she combines
her roots in traditional music from Hallingdal with her distinctive form of musical
exploration. This release unites music and visual art on glorious vinyl, designed
by the award-winning artist Solveig Lønseth.Helga Myhr grew up surrounded by
folk music. Today, fiddle tunes are what lie closest to her heart:
"Fiddle playing encompasses infinite possibilities, and it is these possibilities that
inspire me when I create new music. People who know fiddle music well might be
able to hear which tunes or 'layers' I have used, but sometimes it is more subtle" -
Helga Myhr.
The music on this recording was composed specifically for the outstanding
musicians who appear on the recording. Their exceptional musical and creative
qualities have had a profound impact on how the music sounds: "Malin Alander
has a fabulous voice that she can shape and stretch with amazing suppleness;
Adrian Myhr produces a warm bass sound, with lovely and intricate melodic lines;
Michaela Antalová has a superb groove, and she creates elegant tones on the
willow flute; multi- instrumentalist Rasmus Kjorstad adds compelling sound
variations and tasteful contributions on the Norwegian zither, octave violin and
Jew's harp", Helga Myhr explains.
Poems by Margit Lappegard (1918– 2011), from Leveld, Ål in Hallingdal, are
included in three of the tunes. Lappegard was a beloved poet who attracted
considerable attention with her poetry collection "Noko vil alltid lysa", first
published in 1988.
Helga Myhr's solo album "Natten veller seg ut" was released in the autumn of
2019 on the Motvind Records label, and was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy
Award (Spellemannsprisen). Myhr plays in several groups and ensembles,
including the band Morgonrode, which won a Norwegian Grammy in 2019. She is
also a member of Kvedarkvintetten, Dei kjenslevare and a duo together with Tanja
Orning.

Repress incoming...

Number 94 in the Brazil45 series is one for the Brazilian boogie lovers out there.

The vocal and instrumental group Os Carbonos from São Paulo had a long career that straddled the 60s, 70s and 80s. 'Pássaro Selvagem' is taken from the latter years of their career. Its a bass driven, boogie-funk groove (with a bassline not too dissimilar to Queen 'Another One Bites The Dust') that is Brazilian boogie at its finest. Taken from the B-side to a 7" campacto released in 1981 on Copacabana records, its proven to be a favourite of Luke Una and we foresee it becoming a staple in your DJ box for years to come too.

The B-side comes from one of our all-time favourite artists, the mighty Sandra Sa. Sandra is a wonderful vocalist, her intense and recognisable style is one of THE voices of the Brazilian boogie golden era. Check out her classic album 'Vale Tudo' (MRBLP230) on Mr Bongo for further proof of her credentials here. 'Palco Azul' is also taken off a 7" single from 1981 and is a feel-good dancefloor groover with punchy brass stabs, warm keys and uplifting chord changes. It contains all the right elements that we have come to associate with that knockout late 70s / early 80s Brazilian sound.

TONICO 70'S SOULFUL SIDE SHINES THROUGH IN NEW ALBUM CO-PRODUCED WITH PEPPE MAIELLANO (BANDA MAJE)

The cover of the new album by musician, rapper, DJ/producer and Banda Maje's co-founder Tonico 70 features an honest, unfiltered photo his mother took of him with a disposable camera – a photo that is as blunt and sassy as hip hop, but at the same time filled with the sweetness of soul music. The style of Antonico is all there, in that shot of a nine-year-old kid that was just beginning to discover and love music – a passion that, as he says now, "has been driving me for over thirty years."

Coming after many years of songwriting, beatmaking, MCing, live performances and collaborations, this new album, his first released on Four Flies Records, connects the dots between past, present and future, presenting Tonico 70 as a fully-rounded artist rather than just a rapper, and one aware of his own many facets.

Co-produced with Peppe Maiellano, Banda Maje's other founder, Antonico offers an intimate portrait of Tonico 70, who has put his 'tough-music-smuggler' persona aside to let his soulful side shine through, giving us a warm, funk-inspired and very original take on the so-called 'Napoli power' sound.


Lyrically too, the album takes us deeper into his world. Here, Tonico 70 evaluates his personal history, speaking about his joys and disappointments, his highs and lows, and the friends and lovers who are or were in his life.

Sometimes his flow is confidential and nocturnal – in "Vic'l", for instance, where the sound is smooth and sweet, rife with contrapuntal notes and harmonies that are clearly reminiscent of 70s soul, but also in the bluesy rap of "Doppia Chance" and the prayer-like song "For For". Other times he gets bolder and brasher, like in the reggae-inspired in "Quaqquara Qua", or in "The Revolution Will Not Be Telefonin", which is obviously a (cheeky) tribute to Gil Scott Heron.

A number of tracks feature long-time friends and collaborators: rapper Morfuco in "Italia 90" (a funky uptempo song with powerful gospel vocals in the chorus), the Funky Pushertz crew in "Sai Com'è" and, perhaps most importantly, the Salifornian soul-funk collective Banda Maje, who give new life to three songs from the artist's previous discography: "Vir Buon", "Gente Antica" and "Fantasie".

This album shows that Tonico 70 has reached a stage of maturity in his career, one where his music extends beyond rap and hip-hop to incorporate rich instrumentals and multiple genres that carry the echoes of his experiences and encounters in the lively alleys of Salerno's historic district, and of the people whose lives unfold there, in the heart of the Mediterranean.

Emanating from a ‘prehistoric’ existence near the end of the last millennium, Andy Votel and his slightly older college mates were once best recognised in Mancunian clubs and bars as teenage vinyl nerds and bum-fluffed battle rappers under the collective name Violators Of The English Language (which in acronymic form explains Andy’s own exotic pen-name).

As steadfast supporters of the 1980s / 90s Brit-core rap scene coming out of London, the multicultural Violators’ Mancunian accents were perhaps a bridge-too-far to secure dream job contracts for humble labels like Kold Sweat and Music Of Life. An unlikely constructive meeting with Gang Starr’s DJ Premier (while Andy helped out at a radio station), plus playing warm up DJ sets for countless US rap heroes might have temporarily added inspirational fuel to the fire, but after an active period combining graffiti, rapping, scratching, obsessive record digging and beat making into their daily operations, adulthood eventually began to rear its unwelcome head.

A decade later, Andy Votel and his digging skills would begin to provide direct sample material for the likes of Madlib, Mos Def, Jay Z, Nas, Dr Dre, Ghostface Killa and Action Bronson, amongst others, and the Violators’ black book of breakbeats and catalogue numbers soon began to feed a same-butdifferent rap beast.

For a project that has taken thirty years, it would be totally inadequate to call the formation of Hypocritical Beatdown Records a lockdown-project. There’s a deep history and psychology in these records by Violators Of The English Language and their spin-off groups Magnets (Rap Group) and ProVerbs, that combines stage-fright, loss, pride, creative-schizophrenia, racial inequality, surrealism, personal politics, brotherhood, artistic-constipation, better judgment, love, anti-love, soul searching and much more.

As well as Andy Votel taking care of both production and part of the microphone duties, some might recognise fellow MC and solo recording artist Figure Of Speech as a prominent voice here. The trio of Magnets (Rap Group) sees Andy also joined by local B-Girl legend Jeni Chan aka Penny Chew, and rapper and DJ Benjamin Hatton who has previously recorded with Kid Acne, The Mongrels and Sheffield’s Invisible Spies’ long-running squadron. Widely respected visual artist Rick Myers (now living in Massachusetts) also contributed scratches for many of these recordings via file sharing and custom dub-plates to keep the Violators’ authentic line-up intact, as well as galvanising the crew’s semi-reluctant art-school roots.

Extra production credits for the label also go to Sean Canty from Demdike Stare, and the late great Dan Dwayre aka Black Lodge (Mo Wax) who sadly passed away during the completion of these recordings. The members of Violators Of The English Language who you’ve not yet heard of will quickly make themselves known as the needle drops on this long-mooted debut vinyl release.

On the album Opening, Tord Gustavsen reveals a fresh angle to his
particularly unique trio investigations into Scandinavian folk hymns,
gospel, chorale and jazz, as he introduces a different voice on bass
With a new fellow- traveller on board and its recording premiere in Lugano's
Auditorio Stelio Molo, the trio discovers inspired new ways to interact with each
other, using innovative approaches to sound and technique in the process. Made
up in equal parts of intricately textured improvisations and understated melodic
hooks, the group's conversations bring an enticing unfamiliarity to the language
the Norwegian pianist has developed over almost two decades of collaboration
with ECM.
Tord Gustavsen: piano, electronics
Steinar Raknes: double bass, electronics
Jarle Vespestad: drums
Press:
"Vibrates between the introspective and the dramatic in rich and singular ways.
Scene-setting opener 'The Circle' sees Gustavsen exploring a modal melodic line
of beguiling simplicity, with the trio's sotto voce approach creating an atmosphere
of hushed intimacy." - **** Jazzwise (Editor's Choice)
"The focus of Opening remains the playing from Gustavsen and the rich
accompaniment from his fellow musicians, creating an atmosphere perfect for a
walk by a cabin at dawn, with the sun peeking in through the trees." - Pitchfork
"Norwegian piano star Tord Gustavsen's long-honed recipe of low-key folk songs,
gospel, classical music and jazz gets a graceful makeover on Opening - with new
bassist Steinar Raknes, a player of uncannily responsive precision alongside
regular percussionist Jarle Vespestad, while subtle electronics sometimes create
ghostly horn-player effects." - The Guardian
"For Gustavsen, pieces such as Floytelat and Vaer Sterk, Min Sjel are routes into
the sort of cerebral mysteries that the former church pianist has made his own.
The first is a funereal theme where the notes he sprinkles like raindrops build into
a fatalistic flood. The second, from the Norwegian Hymnal, is played with an
innocent simplicity. Both are equally powerful...Remarkable music, Norwegian
blues." - The Times
"Quietly beguiling release...With lesser artists the uniformity of mood and
reluctance to turn up the volume would pall. But there's an artistry to Gustavsen's
compositions, a skill in their execution, and a warmth to their spirit that keeps the
listener engaged." - LondonJazz News

The Person is back on the dancefloor and she brought the delicious Australian version of a good old Italian recipe - ITALOZ DISCO. Mouthwatering rhythms spiced with everyday hustle, cosmic boogie and the extra dose of synthesizer! Changing the Meatballs for Oddballs to worship the Magic $ properly. Sull' alto lato (aka on the B-Side) we're changing the Oddballs for the Mothballs as the one and only Hysteric warms up the magic ragout in his unique steam-powered kitchen. Now go to work!

You still need to be convinced? Take these great lines by Patrick:
"Magic $" beams into the discotheque direct from deep space; a shimmering body of squelching bass, nebulous pads and snapping percussion which hosts Minna's bewitching vocals. The arch delivery and vintage sequences flirt with kitsch, but that playful genius particular to The Person pushes this into wonderfully wonkier territories. Basslines climb, keys collapse and the whole thing chugs and bubbles through a flawless arrangement. We thought they didn't make them like this anymore, but we were wrong. Stepping in on remix duty, renowned (Moth)baller Hysteric turns out a treatment that's worth a million bucks, boosting the bottom end with an acidic sequence, supercharging the percussion and punching in some strange sampler fun to guarantee utter club chaos.
Every superhero needs a theme song, and "The Person" sees Minna step away from the dancefloor to deliver a synthetic ballad for lucid dreamers everywhere. Jamming on top of a malfunctioning Jomox, Minna channels chimes, piano and a gentle chug into the classiest chord progression this side of Mike Francis. Closing cut "Go To Work" gives us neon lights and nighthawks as The Person indulges in a little Antipodean electro, proving once and for all that Australians Do It Better.

TELE MUSIC is a label of Éditions Musicales Sforzando now owned by BMG Production Music. It is entirely devoted to the music library, that is to say, music for sound illustration used in audiovisual productions. Created in 1966 by Roger Tokarz,
just before advertising was allowed on French television, Editions Sforzando specialized from the outset in sound illustration for radio and television.
This collection, soberly entitled “Volume 2”, is the sequel to “Volume 1”, produced with equal care, passion and fervour by Lord Funk & DJ L.C. In the mid-90s, Tele Music vinyl was sold at ridiculously low prices. Often disparaged by collectors and record shops, considered by some as lift music or vulgarly called “music by the meter”, the music store was only of interest to fans of instrumental music! But in the 2000's, it had a second life and saw its prices soar on Discogs, thanks to sampling and digging in Hip-Hop mainly. This advent of the library is an era that Lord Funk, curator of this compilation, experienced when he brought several music library collections to New York City (NYC) to his A1 Records stronghold in 1997.
In this 2nd volume, Lord Funk & DJ L.C. have chosen a range of music from 1969 to 1983, from psychedelic jazz to electro funk via rnb, soul and jazz-funk. Most of the titles in this collection were recorded in the magic place that was the famous CBE recording studio set up by Georges Chatelain, Janine Bisson and Bernard Estardy. Bernard, nicknamed the giant, was a sound genius and a mixing perfectionist. Georges Chatelain was an electronic engineer. Together, they brought a sound,
a colour, a trademark. Bernard Estardy was also considered as one of the greatest French sound engineers and an energetic organist for Nino Ferrer or Nancy Holloway. We warmly thank Julie Estardy for her total and unreserved involvement in these reissue and compilation projects.
The combination of all these prodigies has given TELE MUSIC a phenomenal and unique sound colour in the service of a sound repertoire that is now part of the French heritage.

Toronto’s Dan Lee steps out of the spotlight and into the producer’s chair on the new collaborative Lee Paradise LP, Lee Paradise & Co., due October 28 2022 on Telephone Explosion. Lee Paradise & Co. follows 2020’s critically acclaimed The Fink LP, and finds Lee flipping the shadowy nihilism of the project’s previous releases upward into a sort of cybernetic universality. This is Dan Lee in producer mode, veering away from the pursuit of a singular musical direction rooted in personal vision, towards of a process rich in collaboration, emotional expansion and tonal exploration.

Starting off as a set of mood-focusedinstrumental sketches drafted by Dan on his own, the compositions began coloringthemselves in after he started sending the tracks out to collaborators, asking them to contribute without much in the way of direction or intention. With help from an ensemble cast of artists including Carlyn Bezic (Jane Inc.), Jonathan Pappo (Scott Hardware, No Frills, Ducks Ltd), Scott Hardware, Isla Craig, Victoria Cheong (New Chance), Jay Anderson, Charise Aragoza & Lukas Cheung (Mother Tongues) and Daniel Woodhead (Moon King), nearly every aspect of this album’s creation eventually became open to collaboration, from musical performances, lyric writing, and vocals all the way through to mixing and mastering.

Sonically, the record is still unmistakably Lee Paradise: a widescreen polyrhythmic psychedelia that melts, bubbles, whirrs and klanks; the sound of the human and the machine grooving in accordance towards new futures. The album’s sonic palette is at once synthetic, warm and extraterrestrial. Arpeggiated square wave melodies dance in lockstep with crunching hi-hats, digital bells and chimes fall like crystal rain in stereo above plush pads and gurgling bass figures. Used to finishing the records on his own, Lee mixed this album with Montreal’s Asher Gould-Murtagh and the results are spacious, dusty and dubbed out. “Carnival” sets the scene with it’s stuttering, busted funk groove and ribbons of aqueous vocal harmony from New Chance’s Victoria Cheong. “Raffles”(featuring one of Daniel’s two vocal performances on the record) radiates a mellow optimism in its solar-warped balearic bliss. The album’s final track, “Youngish” is a gliding, melancholic downtempo instrumental thumper saturated in a kaleidoscopic array of lysergic tones. As always, the record anchors itself to the dancefloor with the screwed-down electro of “Cement”, the swinging midnight afterglow of “Leaving” and “CS2X”’s fluttering rave arpeggios.

Lee Paradise & Co. is the sound of an expert producer and sound sculptor conceding to the elusive flows of inspiration, knocking genre conventions askew and hopscotching between a variety of styles, musical identities and sound worlds with absolute panache.

Saft's X series signs up accomplished French house artist Pablo Valentino for a new EP that features Patchworks and includes a remix from Seb Wildblood. Valentino hails from East France but his work has made a global impact. He runs FACES Records and is A&R for the cult MCDE Recordings. Next to that he DJs around Europe and has produced both solo and as part of collectives such as Creative Swing Alliance and Hipster Wonkaz for labels like MCDE, Eureka and Room With A View.

Atmospheric opener "Look Deeper" is a rough and steamy deep house cut for cosy basements. The drums are raw and alive, the lead synth is haunting, and the keys bring a jazz feel while vocal coos add some serious soul. French jazz, soul and deep house artist Patchworks guests on "X Rousse", a freewheeling jam with loose-limbed drums and funky chords. It channels the spirit of Moodymann and is sure to bring heat to any party. The final original is "Bagaco"; a bubbly and percussive number underpinned by warm bass stabs. The dynamic groove never rests and raw claps amp up the energy throughout.

Seb Wildblood is a driving force in the South London scene thanks to running Church, All My Thoughts and Coastal Haze. From house to downtempo, leftfield to techno, he has a broad stylistic range that always looks forwards. His remix is a celebratory broken beat workout. It's all about big stabs, soulful smeared chords and cutting loose on the dance floor without a care in the world. Once again, The Saft X

A meeting of the minds between two Israeli DJs and producers. Adam Ten & Mita Gami release a combined two-tracker in September on Crosstown Rebels, dipping into dark and hypnotising waters while maintaining a club-cut aesthetic.

The pair pen a slow-burning chugger on the title track, merging tones of tech house, progressive house and techno. A high-pitched vocal weave’s throughout, in tandem with a distorted synthline and oddball sound FX—one for a wavey dancefloor. On the flip, Night Shift glistens with emotion as tribal-tinged percussion collides with long, drawn-out piano notes. A cosmic creation that blurs the line between melancholia and warmth.

Adam Ten is a Tel Aviv-born producer and resident DJ of institutional club The Block, located in his home city. Ten is a key artist on the Israeli scene, recognised for his all-night sets that blend a myriad of moods in electronic music. He’s played worldwide, spanning stints in Miami, Cape Town and Mykonos, amongst several other regions, and he’s channelled his compelling sound on labels like Diynamic, Multinotes, Disco Halal and Selador. As a co-founder of the event series TERRA, Ten curates some of the finest nature-orientated parties in Israel. Mita Gami hails from Tel Aviv. A multi-instrumentalist from a young age, he goes beyond the trope of entertainer. Instead, Gami invites his audience into immersive and almost trippy journeys during his performances via a hybrid set-up and enticing energy on-stage. Releases on REALM Records and Diynamic display his metaphysical approach. Beyond producing, Gami co-runs the label Blue Shadow Records and the Sunrise Kingdom area in Midburn Festival, based in the Negev Desert in Israel.

Deron Miller gives his life to the riff. Unrestrained by industry expectations and genre limitations, the boundlessly prolific guitarist and voice behind multiple beloved projects is best known as the founder, frontman, and songwriter in CKY. His authentic and effortlessly hooky heavy rock obsession returns with 96 BITTER BEINGS. Reinvigorated and ready to rumble all over again, Miller roars back with the same reverence for riffage that made underground hits out of CKY anthems like “Flesh Into Gear,” “Escape from Hellview,” and “Disengage the Simulator” from 1998 till 2011.

The familiar warmth, feel, groove, and unapologetic honesty which drove the song “96 Quite Bitter Beings” to 54 million streams (on Spotify alone) permeates the pair of albums unleashed by 96BB.

A successful crowdfunding campaign saw Miller, guitarist Kenneth Hunter, bassist Shaun Luera and Shaun’s brother, drummer Tim, conjure up 2018’s Camp Pain in limited release. North American and European touring followed, wrapping up shortly before the COVID-19 shutdowns.

“After CKY and a short break, I decided to continue, without changing the sound,” Miller explains. “Because that’s what I do. It’s what I love to do and what people say I do well. All of the guys who got in the band with me are great musicians. And each of them is hungry. They have priorities and ambitions about being in a rock band, no matter the grim state of pop music out there. If we can bring rock and metal back to the mainstream, in some way, that’s the dream.”

In 2022, 96 BITTER BEINGS unleash the long-awaited Synergy Restored, 11 songs of relentless power and vibe. Four-on-the-floor, fuzzy and visceral, proper rock n’ roll made by an actual band, rather than a bunch of overprocessed samples and otherwise stale shenanigans. Songs like “Vaudeville’s Revenge,” “90 Car Pile-Up,” and “Wish Me Dead” offer vivid reminders of the truth-telling prowess of guitars, bass, and drums. Miller is on fire, weaponizing the same knack for memorable musical epiphanies behind projects like Foreign Objects, World Under Blood, and CKY.
Miller co-founded Foreign Objects and later Camp Kill Yourself (a name born of his love of VHS slasher classics) in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in the ‘90s. Written by Miller, 1999’s Volume 1 appealed to metalheads, skaters, stoners, and punks. The album led to a stint on Warped Tour and a deal with Island Def Jam Music Group, which issued Infiltrate•Destroy•Rebuild• in 2002. Axl Rose chose CKY to support the ill-fated Chinese Democracy tour, and they also played with Metallica.
An Answer Can Be Found followed in 2005, producing the Billboard Mainstream Rock Top 40 single “Familiar Realm.” Extensive touring with Avenged Sevenfold and the like-minded Clutch followed. Carver City, in 2009, would prove to be Miller’s last album with the group he created and led. Across the four albums, Miller indulged his love of everything from ‘80s thrash metal to doom, as CKY blended high-octane ruckus with occasional bursts of Moog synths and cinematic storytelling.
Miller never stopped creating, with a handful of full albums written and released, a foray into horror movies, and parenting three children with his wife, scream queen actress Felissa Rose. Like Galactic Prey, the most recent Foreign Objects album, the 96BB records were recorded and produced by Miller and Hunter at Manifest Productions. Camp Pain was explicitly made for diehard fans who supported the creation of both albums through 96BB’s Indiegogo campaign. Synergy Restored was always intended for wider release, which it sees now via Nuclear Blast.
“I want my work taken seriously. I thank God every day that I was never overexposed, or even exposed enough commercially, to where I’m resigned to a specific moment,” Miller says. “I would rather have my self-respect, the respect of the audience, and a dedicated cult following.”

“Every time I go out, I see Nirvana, Metallica, and Misfits t-shirts. These kids may not know the music, but at least they are displaying a visual interest,” he adds. “Corporations spend millions of dollars promoting certain styles of music, but history proves that true rock will always sneak in.”

Fronted by brothers Peter O'Doherty and Reg Mombassa, Dog Trumpet have been playing, writing and recording their
music since the early 90s. Reg and Pete were founding members of iconic Australian band Mental As Anything, who hit
the charts around the world with “Live It Up”. The band made a mark with their left field mix of music, art, video and
humour and leading eventually to ARIA awards and induction into the Hall of Fame in 2009.
• Recorded and produced by Peter at home in his 'South Road' studio, the brothers have created an inventive and original
body of work distinguished by an eccentric and offbeat harmonic warmth and melodic drive propelled by Reg's distinctive
slide guitar and Peter's elegant acoustic guitar and mandolin. Their poetic, yet at times absurdist lyrics are set against a
sonic backdrop that could loosely be described as a meld of rock and roll, psychedelic folk, country and semi-abstract
blues.
• “Shadowland” is the duo’s brand new album, recorded earlier this year, with the guys playing all the instruments
themselves. Amidst a group of songs with all sorts of subject matter (including the sheep of New Zealand, and Nina Simone)
is the very direct “F***ing Idiots”, about the human race and its continuing desire to wage wars.
• The inner sleeve features all the lyrics and wonderful paintings by both Reg and Peter.

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

repress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red vinyl LP. Lars Finberg, confirmed genius guy and poet laureate of sunken 21st century Rock, acts as manager in perpetuity of THE INTELLIGENCE, primary vehicle for his prolific creative swirl and a project that has taken on new shapes across myriad trials and shifts. The project began in his Seattle bedroom – a lad and his Tascam cassette 8 track – with the classic Boredom & Terror and has now landed in his Los Angeles studio apartment – an urchin and his Tascam digital 12 track – with Lil’ Peril, a new album that finds Finberg 1000% back at the controls. Over the course of 11 albums (!), The Intelligence has established a backbone that boogies through revolutions, allowing each jam-crammed dispatch to feel and sound admirably unique. The angular sharp shocks heard in earlier years have steadily evolved into the ballooning grooves heard on more recent releases (including Finberg’s recent solo work). Lil’ Peril is a dreamy gamble that captures this current bubbling penchant in The Intelligence’s inaugural homemade mode. With inspirational templates as far-flung as LES PAUL, THE SPECIALS, LEE PERRY and MARY FORD, Lil’ Peril pulls off the absurd shift “from ‘No-Wave SANTANA’ to ‘SCREAMERS recorded by JON BRION’”. Playing shoulder parrot to studio engineers has no doubt informed Finberg’s approach to home recording, specifically in how much further he can go without wincing budget-minded eyes staring him down. This is immediately sensed on the opener “Maudlin Agency,” which begins with canned minimal bleep and closes with a full recreation of the “Brass Monkey” hook. These surprise-attack conclusions are a running current throughout the Lil’ Peril’s program and demonstrates that the main lesson Finberg has learned in The Intelligence is to never reel it in. Centerpiece banger “My Work Here Is Dumb” ranks among the finest Intelligence moments existent and an apex in Finberg’s songcraft, boasting a bonkers arrangement and a thematic gnaw that is both brutal and playful. The collection closes with the epic “Soundguys,” a suite cut-up that fuses CAN and STEELY DAN into one of the most dastardly tunes available for consumption in the plague age. As Finberg himself states, “They may say this is ‘lo-fi’, but I say it’s ‘no-CGI’”. “The band disintegrated, so it devolved back to the core idea: if I do every aspect, it’s indestructible.” 20 years on and Finberg has finally let everyone know what The Intelligence actually means! All those wily experiments and warm flubs have come back full circle and the shit’s pure goddamn gold. Proof positive that there is always some sort of cute trouble, farcical tragedy and Lil’ Peril at play with The Intelligence. - Mitch Cardwell, 2022. Tracklisting: 01 Maudlin Agency 02 70's 03 Keyed Beamers 04 Purification 05 My Work Here Is Dumb 06 Lil Peril 07 Frog Prints In Preset City 08 Portfolio Woes 09 Soundguys

For Fans Of Garage Punk, Power Pop, Cheap Trick, Dollyrots, Suzi Moon, Pretenders, Blondie, The Muffs, 5.6.7.8’s. One part pop, one part poison, all “poolside glitter punk,” Hayley and the Crushers offer up a tsunami of bad girl power. Anointed “the naked embodiment of power pop punk” by New Wave icon Josie Cotton (who signed the band to her Kitten Robot Records in 2021), Modern Adult Kicks is their most ambitious and self-possessed album to date. Produced by legendary LA punk producer and ex-Screamer Paul Roessler (TSOL, Josie Cotton, Richie Ramone), the album conjures up the electricity of first-car freedom, the woes of suburban isolation and the lurid pleasures of Y2K chat rooms all wrapped in the warm glow of a late-night infomercial. While the content is no doubt “adult,” there’s no shortage of kicks to be had. The California-to-Detroit transplants have injected even the most bummer of subjects (addiction, heartbreak) with a potent venom of caffeine and heart. Sure, BUST Magazine once likened the band to a bag of Sour Patch Kids, but this new album reveals fresh depths of flavor. Crafted in a post-Covid world, Modern Adult Kicks is exactly what it advertises to be: a more put-together, wiser “big sister” to the band’s sunny 2020 release, Vintage Millennial. Like finally being old enough to party with the babysitter, Kicks is a shining example of how growing up can actually rule. In the Crushers’ world, growing jaded isn’t an option and there’s never a good reason to stop dancing. Tracks 1 Taboo 2 Cul de Sac 3 She Drives 4 Broken Window 5 I Fall 6 Click and 7 Act Now 8 Lost Cause 9 California 10 Sober 11 No Substitutes 12 Overexposed

One of the most unique albums to ever come out of the Miami soul scene of the 70s. Milton Wright has a really jazzy groove to his music - and he mixes his own acoustic guitar lines with warm keyboards and a bit of synth or moog. Milton's vocals have the chops to live up to the heady batch of soul artists. This record feels like nothing else you've ever heard, but which you can't live without once you've heard it!

The sun, kissing the forehead through half-closed blinds; the night, coming uninvited through a windowpane like a damp, sticky shroud. Light and darkness, solid foundations and elusive glimpses of parallel realities. Armies of digital insects - taken aback by warmth of one brave heart, 90s chillout rooms updated for todays vast and desolated space full of fragile souls desperate in their look for any kind of communion; “artificial intelligence” after three decades of wandering, trying to finally find a helping hand, solace and peace. Shimmer and shine. Welcome to “Pristine”, a new recording from the mind of Jacek Sienkiewicz.
For the past years Jacek has been escaping his image of relentless producer and performer of driving, multi-layered club music. His most recent works include deep ambient records, abstract electro-acoustic experiments, and super smart, stripped-down yet incredibly complex contemporary electronica. The last few records, mostly on his own label Recognition include albums with Max Loderbauer and Atom™, reinterpretations of works by Bogdan Mazurek of the legendary Polish Radio Experimental Studio, scores for radio plays and last year’s massively overlooked “Krasz”, music for theatrical performance of Ballard’s/Cronenberg’s “Crash”.
“Pristine”, a labour of love, is at times abstract and atonal, at times breathtakingly beautiful and tender.
8 tracks written and performed in Jacek’s unmistakable, singular style, and covering many grounds - abstract, electronic forms, neo-classical wonders, super tight compositions and freeform, jazz-like improvisations and stripped-down rhythms. Different moods, machine-translated and reverseengineered in a variety of recording locations, make up this exceptional record.
Shimmer and shine, immerse and enjoy.
Co-Financed By The Minister Of Culture And National Heritage of Poland.
The project has been implemented in co-production with Recognition Records and the National Centre for Culture of Poland

Written and recorded in the midst of a dizzying stretch in which nearly everything about the way the band lived and worked was turned on its head, Motel Radio's "The Garden" is indeed a work of relentless hope. The songs are profoundly vulnerable here, and the performances are warm and breezy, calling to mind everything from Andy Shauf and Cass McCombs to Beck and Tame Impala with an easygoing demeanor that belies the deep emotional work underpinning them. Motel Radio generated early buzz in their adopted hometown of New Orleans on the strength of their 2015 debut EP, Days & Nights, which helped land them dates with the likes of Kurt Vile and Drive-By Truckers in addition to festival slots at Firefly, Jazz Fest, and more. The band followed it up with the similarly well-received Desert Surf Films in 2016 and their first full-length, Siesta Del Sol, in 2019, touring the country on a seemingly endless loop as they built up their devoted following one night at a time. Since then, the band had set a goal of becoming more self-sufficient and learning to record on their own, and when it came time to cut The Garden, they dove in headfirst, cutting half the collection in an old fishing camp south of New Orleans with the help of engineer Ross Farbe (Video Age, Esther Rose) and the other half fully remotely while engineering themselves. "There was this real creative freedom that came with working remotely and learning how to run the sessions on our own," explains co-lead singer Ian Wellman. "Synths, samples, beats, plug-ins; suddenly these whole new worlds of sound were at our fingertips and the possibilities were limitless." That creative liberation is easy to hear on The Garden, which opens with the mesmerizing "Wise." Like much of the album, it's a gentle meditation on finding joy and fulfillment, on spreading love and positivity. "I've gotta open my eyes," co-lead singer Winston Triolo sings over dreamy guitars and a hypnotic digital drum loop. "I only get one life, well now how can I live it wise?" The airy "Outta Sight" celebrates the simple pleasures of letting go and being present, while the washed-out "Sweet Daze" revels in the warmth of human connection, and propulsive "Happiness Pie" looks for ways to share the comfort and contentment that comes with self-acceptance. On The Garden, they've realized there's no sweeter garden than the one you grow yourself.

Back from a hot summer we are presenting you this great new release by Steve Mill who truly captures the sun and warmth in these new jams for us. The Greek born artist who lives between Berlin and Thessaloniki just released his “The Mistake EP” on Tensnake’s own True Romance label where we could already hear his soulful and groovey disco infused sound.

The opener “Love Attack” is a real “good times” tune with catchy vocal snips and a bad ass funky arpeggio bass line topped with spaced out strings and pads, this one reminds us a lot of Krystal Klear material and our own Lorenz Rhode. Saying that, we of course could not think of anyone better than him to take on this tune and drawing the inspiration to create his own super funked up version! As always all parts are played and recorded live in his Cologne studio with the same hot summer vibes on this one as well! You can find the vox version on vinyl and an instrumental as bonus digital track to get your party really started. On repeat!

“Make Me Feel” featuring the Berlin based vocalist Tee Amara has disco flavors all over it and is just an irresistible house tune, majestic and soulful. Followed by the slow and developing “Next to You” that’s steadily building towards a crescendo “heaven” gem, much in the tradition of disco edits from back in the 80’s. It reminded us a lot of our old Ben La Desh records we put out some good 10 years ago. Maybe this one is our personal fave, for sure a tune you could drop on any floor: disco, electro or house.

Get in the groove with Steve and Lorenz and let us surprise you with a truly funky, groovey and above all positive vibes only release to reminiscent the summer time. Enjoy!


All tracks have been mastered by Salz Mastering in Cologne. Photography & Art by Break 3000.

Oscean comes out firing from the outset on their new 12” entitled Multirays. The Argentinian duo of Andrés Zacco and Sebastián Galante are following up on the first release of their collaboration, Ideoma, also released on Tresor Records. With Multirays, this burgeoning collaboration reveals a promising evolution, moving into
more rhythmically diverse environments and playful structures.
The opening track, Multidimensional, strikes with confronting beats and a searching, woolly bass sound.
Constantly growing, it moves confidently with its skittering percussion work, ebbing and flowing through filter movements and expansive synths. Invisible Rays draws in breathing techno pulses, as Zacco and Galante cast drenches of feedback across the spectrum. A
deceptively mellow melody, recalling Spiral from their debut EP, teases at a deeper melodic progression, but the focus stays locked on the animated rhythms, tempting towards divergent grooves but expertly keeping feet on the floor.
In Drivion, Oscean investigates electro territories, simultaneously bubbling and driving. Echoed arpeggiations and upfront beats funnel impulses between neurons. Broad synth gestures oer gateways into abstraction before, without barely a hint, the rhythms beat once more.
On the closing track, Horizonsz, the duo drive forth through skipping rhythms and soul-searching bass murmurs. Synth pads beckon with fresnel lens reflections and rising warmth, motioning towards a
stunning moment of euphoria, where futurist mirages coexist with distant memories.

Wonky noir specialist, Kercha, is back with five spun-out cuts, merging dubstep, jazz, garage, techno and a whole lot of weird.

‘Disarray’ is as discombobulating as its title suggests, a slinky beat hidden among umpteen odds and ends from Kercha’s cabinet of curiosities. A subby wiggle here, a far-off siren there, the warm tinkling of a Fender Rhodes, and was that someone falling down the stairs? Our only constant allies are a vaguely disturbing vocal and a bass clarinet that’s definitely up to no good.

‘Witness’ employs a similar palette but switches tactics, stripping back to the basics as faint whispers and the ever-growing presence of a whirring alarm suggest something dangerous might be lurking around the corner.

‘Conjugate’ is more direct, the percussion elevated from its usual backseat as thudding kicks and taught snares make their presence felt among the digi-dub wobbles — a theme repeated on digital bonus track ‘New World’, though there, jagged mid-bass lines provide an extra dollop of screwface-inciting muck.

And bringing this leg of DNO’s journey to a close is ‘Long Way’, which rumbles along like a lonely night train, its chugging bassline matched with eerie engine whistles, the rhythmic clink of a cowbell and, somewhere deep in the mix, the familiar clickety-clack of tracks.

Weaving together disparate worlds like some interdimensional architect, Kercha simultaneously places us among the inebriated haze and freewheeling expression of a basement jazz club, and the 10-tonne rhythms that have fuelled DNO’s parent party The Mine for the past decade, and will continue to do so into the future.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

With Panorama, Frank Maston pays homage to the classic era of library records and Italian soundtracks of the 70s. A blissed-out, grooving collection of filmic cues, it continues the unique brilliance of Tulips and Darkland. Elegant and easy, subtle and stylish, breezy and beautiful; this is his Maston-piece. Commissioned by legendary label KPM, Panorama cements Maston as a master of modern classics and the most mesmeric of contemporary composers.

In early 2020, Be With suggested to Frank that he should make a KPM record. He wasn't aware that they were still putting out new library records - but he was super keen: "It was completely surreal and it still hasn't fully sank in that I have a record in that catalog, sitting alongside those incredible albums that were so influential to me."

Frank was visiting family in his hometown of LA in March 2020 when the world ground to a halt so the KPM project arrived at a fortuitous moment. Having fantasised about committing to a record with no distractions, with a proper budget, access to his gear and space to work in - to really dig in and try to write and arrange the best work he could possibly make - it was a real "be careful what you wish for" moment. But, as Frank explained, "it completely saved my year and sanity to have something to focus on and get excited about. It was my lifeline." He spent seven months on it, working almost every day.

Maston had already been making library-influenced music so when KPM outlined the criteria for the tracks it was exactly what he had been doing all along. He thought the best approach would be to make a follow-up to Tulips that had a parallel life as a KPM record. Enjoying complete creative freedom, “gave me the drive to power through and dig in deep. I'm not sure if I could have kept myself on such a rigorous recording schedule under my own steam, and I think the momentum I had writing and recording it is part of the strength of this record."

Maston’s sleek retro-groove instrumentals emulate the classic KPM “Greensleeve” reel-to-reel recordings that provided mood-setting music for mid-century cinema, television, and radio programs. Apparently in close conversation with the John Cameron-Keith Mansfield KPM pastoral masterclass Voices In Harmony, Maston's Panorama could be heard as that record's funky follow-up. Yes, it's *that good*. Another reference point from the hallowed library would be Francis Coppieter's wonderful Piano Viberations.

Opener "First Class" is a blissed-out groove, featuring the soothing vocals of Molly Lewis and a glistening harp over drums, a two-note bass motif (from Eli Ghersinu of L'Eclair) and an assemblage of guitars, synths, French horn and glowing vibraphone. Acid Lounge, anyone? The irresistibly funky "Easy Money" is a gorgeous cut led by more of Molly's vocals, pastoral flute and Rhodes, underpinned by drums and percussion, grooving bass, chilled guitars and synth strings. Kicking the tempo up, the percussive "Storm" is a vibin' filmic-fusion jam where psychedelic guitars (courtesy of Pedrum of Allah Las/Paint) organ, jazzy flute, Rhodes and vibes all compete for a place in the sun, over drums and walking bassline.

The heavenly "You Shouldn't Have" is a delicate, melancholic wonder; a dreamy instrumental where the melody is shared by a whistle, harpsichord and celeste, over a cyclical piano chord sequence and bass, synths, guitars, organ and distant French horn. The tempo rises again with the passionate, sticky "Fling", a summery, nostalgic groove with skipping drums and percussion, warm bass and electric guitar, yearning flute and synth strings. The brilliantly titled "Fool Moon" has that Voices In Harmony sound down pat. A romantic slow-mo dreamscape of Rhodes and harpsichord, piano, light drums and softly strummed acoustic guitar.

Side B opens with "Medusa", a hopeful, mellowed-out track with shuffling drums, feel-good flute, muted horns, glowing Rhodes and synth strings. The soft and gentle "Morning Paper" is an elegant way to start the day; a beatless blend of flute, guitar, percussion, ambient synths and vibes. The upbeat head-nod jam "Scenic" has that widescreen car-chase feel, uptempo drums and percussion, grooving bass, piano, synths and ambient electric guitar. "Adieu" is a smooth summer vibe, relaxing with brushed drums, Rhodes, flutes and horns. Molly Lewis's gorgeous vocals steal the show, alongside vibes, jamming organ and synth strings.

"Hydra" is another laid-back 70s-sounding retro cinema cue with light drums and percussion, walking bass, spacey synths, clavinet, glowing vibraphone, vintage organ and electric guitar. Closer "Jet Lag" is a laconic bow out; bass-driven drum machine soul, featuring hand percussion, Rhodes, vibes, synths and organ.

Multi-instrumentalist Frank played a bit of everything across Panorama. Yet, humble as ever, he believes the time, energy, and enthusiasm of all of the musicians invited to the sessions helped him realise his vision: "There were two Italian flautists who really understood what I was going for. Two french horn players, cor anglais, a vibraphonist and a flügel horn player. I've never involved this many people in my projects before, and yet the result is the most "me" record I've ever made."

Musically, a strong Italian theme runs through the record. Frank is fascinated by ancient Rome and both his parents are Italian (Maston was originally Mastrantonio before anglicisation). So, it felt natural to fully embrace these strands and tie everything together with the striking artwork. The Romans were influenced by Greek culture, emulating their art and architecture, which, in turn, influenced Renaissance era artists. Frank acknowledged this tradition when reflecting on his place in the lineage of library and soundtrack composers. He then asked his friend Mattea Perrotta, a painter and sculptor, for some sketches. What he received was exactly what he had in mind: "Especially the theater mask, which really captures the range of moods on the album". Frank arranged them as per the cover and it soon felt right: "I wanted to make a cover that was reminiscent of the classic KPM albums without making it too pastiche - so it has its own identity and looks at home alongside other library records, while still fitting in nicely in the KPM catalogue." The last step was for us to introduce Frank to Be With-KPM’s Rich Robinson, who helped put together the back and centre labels and align it all within the KPM standard.

Panorama is a perfect title for the album. With no opportunity to travel for tours or recording projects, Frank arranged postcards from his collection on his desk with beautiful views of the mediterranean coast, the Roman Colosseum and Cinque Terre. These also served as visual prompts: "That was part of the sonic concept - imagining myself driving down the mediterranean coast with this music on, with the top down." Additionally, the range of moods and vibes - "I tried to make each song very different from the previous one in terms of tempo and arrangement and feeling" - speaks to the idea of a Panorama of music and sounds and emotions. The last track was originally called Panorama, but KPM already had that title in their catalogue so it was changed to "Jet Lag", which, as Frank notes, "is perhaps even more fitting, since the trip is over".

From an offshoot of Salifornian funk/soul collective Banda Maje, here comes a new 7" single penned by the rapper, producer and band's co-founder Tonico 70. "Vic'l / Fantasie" is a tasty prelude to Tonico 70's forthcoming album "Antonico", due out this November on Four Flies Records.

Like the rest of the album, the two tracks on the single have been co-written and co-produced by Peppe Maiellano, Banda Maje's other founder, and offer a more intimate portrait of the artist. Tonico has put his 'tough-music-smuggler' persona aside to let his soulful side shine through.

"Vic'l", on side A, is a very autobiographical song. The flow of words you hear, almost a stream of consciousness, took place late one night in the privacy of home and was recorded on the spot. Tonico 70 evaluates his personal history, speaking about the people who are or were there for him. The sound is smooth and sweet, rife with contrapuntal notes and harmonies (those played on the Fender Rhodes and the flute especially stand out) and clearly reminiscent of 70s soul.

In the funky, uptempo "Fantasie", on the flip side, Tonico 70 lets his Salifornian flow roam free totalk about the strong bonds that bring us together and make us feel good.

Both tracks evoke images and stories while enveloping you in a warm embrace. Not unlike Banda Maje's music, they have a strong cinematic quality that Tonico 70's rap adds to nicely. We can't wait to listen to what's coming next!

San Francisco band touches upon black metal, blues, ambient and more. Of all things, it’s laughter that pervades Mamaleek’s Diner Coffee, the San Francisco metal deconstructionists’ sonically crushing ode to the humor found within catastrophe, American diners, and “the little things.” Featuring a mix of live performances, samples, and field recordings, Diner Coffee laughs through its harsh songs in an attempt to reflect the camaraderie found at the heart of global calamities and changing personal situations. It’s an homage to the quotidian set to the backdrop of the mythologized, sanctuary-like properties of a diner, reveling in irony-less nostalgia. Mamaleek embodies this ethos on and off the record. Originally two anonymous brothers, the past few years have seen Mamaleek adding members and venturing into live performance. Diner Coffee, following in the footsteps of 2020’s Come & See, features new, unfamiliar, unknown voices—including expanded experiments with horns, woodwinds, and strings and a Bay Area-local blues harmonica player who improvised recorded selections during practices. The resulting tracks touch on signifiers from black metal, blues, ambient, and more. Diner Coffee simultaneously represents the band’s artistic progression and the state of the world. Taking a surprisingly optimistic perspective, Mamaleek once again puts forward a project of left-field, wholly unique compositions, eluding easy categorization and furthering their abstraction of genre. “The group cloaks its music in the kind of warm, hypnotic distortion that defines shoegaze, and underneath that haze is a style that’s conceptually abrasive yet altogether beautiful.” Forbes //

Tracklist 1 Libations to Sacred Clowns 2 Boiler Room 3 Badtimers 4 Save Your Poor Wicked Soul 5 Grief and a Headhunter's Rage 6 Wharf Rats in the Moonlight 7 Diner Coffee

TV Blonde is a veritable triple threat—singer, songwriter, producer. Bear witness to the LA native's infectious bedroom soul masterpiece entitled Ghost In My Mirror. Whether your tastes call for harmonics, punchy rhythms, or both - best believe this LP has them in spades. Smoky vocals deliver deep vulnerable expressions, while rolling dreamscapes stain these fluttering reverb laden tracks. The LA native transfixes us with infectious groove after infectious groove. The icy heat of Fuck It Up’s plucked harmonics bleed into warm synth lines with biting vocals. With snares shuffling seismically atop a pastiche funk ground, Fool’s driving percussion pulsates towards a breakdown that emanates a quiet, slick cool. Idyllic soundscapes are in no short supply either and are tenderly crafted; A pillowy bassline sitting beneath crisp high-mids on Where is My Baby adds depth, with liquid synthwork drizzled atop the break. Plucked strings slide underneath grounded musings on Come Back Again, slowly taking the album’s built-up energy and distilling it into slowed down concentrate. While maintaining an aged realism, TV Blonde weaves dreamlike aural tools into inviting and entrancing cuts on Ghost In My Mirror. Soulful and beat-driven tunes lie ahead on this 11-track scape - savor the journey.

TRACKLIST: 1. Ghost 2. Fuck It Up (featuring Palmer Eldritch) 3. Pick Up Your Phone 4. Fool 5. Where Is My Baby 6. My Love Is The End 7. Before The Lie (Prelude) 8. Why Do I Lie 9. Searching For 10. I Feel Ugly Today 11. A Song For My Little Woeful Sinner 12. Don't Break My Chest

Purple Vinyl

Concentric Records present this special edition EP by the Berlin-based duo YHDESSA - composed of Dutch-Italian composer and poly- instrumentalist Grand River and Sardinian electronic music experimentalist Enrica Falqui.

Entitled Along The Simple Line, the 5-track EP is a unique sonic journey that merges in pure form the distinct worlds of the two composers, exposing a warm and delicate essence. Perfectly punctuated, and in a pace of its own, the album gently and precisely unfolds through touching musical spaces, dramatic textures, entrancing rhythms and unexpected vocal lines, revealing a wonderful depth. The result is so perfectly uniting as if woven by the same two hands.

Yhdessa is a collaborative project made up of Grand River and Enrica Falqui which was conceptualised in 2017 while the duo shared a music studio and were living as a couple in Berlin. Their first piece, released in 2018 on the label One Instrument Records, was named after the Vermona E-Piano and is composed entirely using the analogue synthesizer that was built in 1978. Following this came their lingering soundscape Waldorf Micro Q featured on the record “One Instrument Volume 01” as well as an impelling remix of Dunes by Jiska Huizing and Rudi Valdersnes.

Aimée Portioli is a Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer who records and performs as Grand River. The name Grand River evokes nature, scale, and movement, all key forces in Portioli’s work. Her first release as Grand River was the resolute 2017 Crescente EP, which includes Flies, a composition named by XLR8R as one of the best tracks of that year. She followed this with her melodious debut album Pineapple (Spazio Disponibile, 2018), which garnered praise from The Quietus, amongst others. The moving and dynamic subsequent album, Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (Editions Mego, 2020) was lauded by Resident Advisor and The Verge, and was elected among the best albums of 2020 by Inverted Audio. Separately, Grand River’s work has appeared on compilations by Ghostly International, Tresor, Longform Editions and has composed an official remix for Tangerine Dream.

Enrica Falqui is a Sardinian music producer and DJ currently based in Berlin. With artistic versatility as one of her defining traits: she comfortably traverses between the dimensions of electronic music. For over a decade she has dedicated herself to the study of sound and the relentless excavation of lesser-known music, which has earned her bookings all over the world and commissions for her productions from some of the most respected labels including Marignal Returns which released Plexus, a mini-album of cool, divergent compositions. Enrica is also part of the coveted duo, ERIS, whose debut and sophomore EPs, Moments and Champions League, found their home on the illustrious Cabaret Recordings. The releases entwine the forceful with the ethereal and create an original, future-facing and club-orientated sound. Moloko, a drum-focussed track laced with weaving synths, was considered by Resident Advisor as one of the best tracks of 2019.

Aimée and Enrica’s musical union through Yhdessa, is one of colour and warmth. It expresses an experimental electro-ambient side of the two composers, to form a style that is meditative, other-worldly and at times introspective. Although, the two are now, no longer romantically engaged, they maintain a passionate friendship to match this profound musical partnership.

Born in Juazeiro, Bahia, Brazil on June 10, 1931 (and 87 years .old at this writing), singer/song writer Joao Gilberto is a living legend of bossa nova. While Antonio Carlos Jobim set the standard for the creation of bossa nova in the mid-’50s (with songs like “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Desafinado”), it was Gilberto who brilliantly reimagined (and, arguably, defined) the genre. The first bossa nova song, titled “Bim-Bom”, was written as Gilberto watched passing
laundresses on the banks of the Sao Francisco River balance loads of clothes on their heads. In 1956 he went to Rio de Janeiro and struck up old acquaintances, most significantly Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was by then working as a composer, producer and arranger with Odeon Records. Jobim was impressed with Gilberto’s new style of guitar playing, and set about finding a suitable song to pitch the style to Odeon management. In 1959 Gilberto presented his first LP, Chega de Saudade. The title song turned into a hit, launching Gilberto’s career and the bossa nova craze. Besides a number of Jobim compositions, the album featured older sambas and popular songs from the 1940s and 1950s, all performed in Gilberto’s distinctive style. This album was followed by two more in 1960 and 1961, by which time the singer featured new songs by a younger generation of performer/composers such as Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal.
By 1962, bossa nova had been embraced by North American jazz musicians such as Herbie Mann, Charlie Byrd, and Stan Getz, who invited Gilberto and Jobim to collaborate on what became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, Getz/Gilberto. Chega de Saudade was issued in the United States as The Warm World of Jo o Gilberto.

Black Screen Records is excited to announce that Damián Sánchez' chill and joyful orchestral soundtrack to Crema's massively multiplayer creature-collection adventure Temtem will be available on limited edition 3xLP Picture Disc vinyl. You get 47 songs and the three starters Crystle, Smazee and Houchic in one beautiful trifold set with gorgeous artwork by Alex Muñoz and Cristina Jiménez. The vinyl and CD both come with a download card for the full digital soundtrack including all tracks. ABOUT THE SOUNDTRACK: Temtem's original game soundtrack is a melodic journey through the adventures on the Airborne Archipelago. A mixture of musical styles and flavors ranging from the chill and joyful orchestral sounds from Deniz to the most vivid and chrer-ish celtic dances from Arbury, through the folk and peacefulness of Omninesia, the mysterious glassy mallets of Tucma, the warm drums and flutes of Kisiwa, and the modern-versus-traditional Asian tunes in Cipanku. Discover the traditions of each isle through its instrumental palette and melodies, and vibe with the rhythms of the combat themes while you become the greatest Temtem tamer. The aim of this physical edition it's always been to give our fans not only another way of listening to Temtem's soundtrack, but to make a piece of art they would love to display on their shelves or even hang on a wall. Both teams at Crema and Black Screen Records worked really hard for a long time to cherry-pick the best ideas and come up with these incredibly beautiful editions. We are really proud of these products and we really hope you enjoy them! - Damián Sánchez ABOUT THE GAME: Temtem is a massively multiplayer online adventure where you'll get to explore the colorful and exciting Airborne Archipelago with all your friends and other players! Discover, tame and battle the Temtem that inhabit these islands, and maybe save the Archipelago in the process? Temtem offers a lengthy story campaign in a fully online world, and the possibility of playing the entire adventure in Co-op with a friend; a rich, complex, RNG-free combat experience, and competitively oriented gameplay, with challenges for all play styles; a bustling economy and trading environment; advanced character customization, housing and a myriad of ways to express yourself!

Saib is the prolific producer and guitarist whose insatiable desire to create comes from his childhood: passionate about Bossa Nova, Japanese Anime Soundtracks, Jazz as well as old school Hip-Hop, he draws his inspiration from composers and musicians such as Yoko Kanno, Joe Pass and Nujabes. Bathing in the cosmopolitan culture of Casablanca, a melting pot at the crossroads of the two African and European continents. This diversity is a constant in his music, where groove and melody are skillfully mixed in a style inspired by the classic hip-hop productions of the 90s. Hip Hop beats form the backbone of Saib’s musical palette, as his style skips from Jazz flavors to lounge experiments and to upbeat four on the floor grooves ... and sometimes within a single track.

Saib’s hyper-productivity has allowed him to release, over the last five years, seven albums and more than a dozen EPs and singles, including releases on labels such as Chillhop Music, Cold Busted, Majestic Casual and Blue Note Records. Saib’s tracks are a regular fixture on Editorial Playlists including Spotify’s “Jazz Vibes” (2 million Likes) and “lofi beats” and have accumulated more than 500 million plays on streaming platforms.

Saib’s new LP, “Unwind” maintains the stupendous head-nodding grooviness that listeners have come to love from the young producer with a healthy added dose of Tropical and Lounge/Bossa-jazz influence. Album and single artwork done by star-Moroccan photographer Ismail Zaidy (IG: @l4artiste) who has seen his work featured in GQ Middle East, Art Basel, BASE Milano, Vogue Arabia, and has done partnerships with The Sims and Adobe. LP design work done by Jakarta label mainstay, Robert Winter. “Unwind” also includes features by Rotterdam’s ØDYSSEE and legendary Hip-Hop MC Masta Ace. Jakarta is ecstatic to share such a career-defining work, arriving digitally and physically September 16th, 2022.

The albums 1st single, “Mushroom Samba” arrives Wednesday, June 29th along with the vinyl pre-order announcement. The track is deliciously groovy, and is a perfect example of the kind of sunny, jubilant grooves to be encountered on the LP. Saib takes the lofi-expertise he’s become known for since his 2015 debut and brings a freshness to the beat-genre. The song is perfect for the onset of summer and will have you humming along to the brass refrain by the songs end.

2nd single, “Pennywise,” will be released July 13 and features legendary Hip-Hop MC Masta Ace on the album’s only vocal track. The track is a surefire splash of hip-hop that’s both nostalgic and forward-moving. Ace sounds as fresh as ever, flowing over a head-bobbing beat with lush, tropical guitar inflections. While the beat brings to mind sandy shores and sun rays, Ace’s two verses invoke skyscrapers and boomboxes, making “Pennywise” a perfect track for your summer hip-hop fix.

Saib’s 3rd single is the stunning, swirling, and utterly smooth “Cosmic Dust” with Rotterdam producer ØDYSSEE arriving August 10. Keeping with the tropical essence, the track comes and goes like waves on a beach. Soft sounds flow like water before the drums and bass wash in, building to a saxophone and piano heavy crescendo. Like the tide, the beat recedes and the track ends as gently as it began, leaving you wanting to hear it all again.

Single 4, the moody “Suave” arrives August 24 and is bossa nova at its core. What starts off with a familiar Brazilian groove quickly takes a hip-hop turn, with a smooth bass drop and crisp drums layered over bossa nova keystrokes. Warm / timeless saxophone punctuate the track, providing a mellow break between basslines and closing out the end. “Suave” is a sunny and soul-soothing fusion of bossa nova, jazz, and hip-hop, perfect for closing out the summer with.

“Unwind” is a project steeped in the beats that keep you moving and grooving but with a sonic and visual aesthetic palette that goes deeper and groovier than the surface level lo-fi artists that have proliferated in the last 5 years. Ranging from FloFilz and eevee imbued vibrations to Jonwayne-styled beats, Saib brings forth a sonic spa session that invokes a state of calm that leaves you an uplifting and energetic plateau. Dig it.

“Klangstof are conducting deliciously evil experiments on indie rock.” – Clash. Klangstof recently returned to attention with the ‘Ocean View’ EP, which was one of two projects they recorded simultaneously in 2021. Its release added to the anticipation for the bigger set that was recorded at the same time, their third studio album ‘Godspeed To The Freaks’, which will be released on September 16th. The band today launch the album by sharing its lead single ‘Disguiser’. ‘Godspeed To The Freaks’ will see the Edison Award (the Dutch equivalent to the Grammy or BRITs) winning band add to the widespread tastemaker attention that has greeted their previous two albums. It’s an album which focuses on self-reflection; finding the courage to confront your inner self and being at peace with your demons. There’s a power that comes with the acceptance that every good day might have a touch of darkness to it. And in a further contrast to the electronic-orientated 2020 set ‘The Noise You Make Is Silent’, this record is focused primarily upon the warmth of its live instrumentation and the intuitive interplay between the band members. Remarkably, the bulk of ‘Godspeed To The Freaks’ was recorded in just two weeks. The trio - Koen van de Wardt, Wannes Salomé, and Erik Buschmann - were boosted by the addition of their touring guitarist Wouter Van Nienes and channelled the energy of their live show, an approach further amplified by recording in a temporary studio in De Bolder, a music venue on the tiny Dutch island of Vlieland. Klangstof essentially rehearsed, recorded and produced the core of the record themselves in that serene environment, giving them a bubble of freedom amidst a world in chaos. Any outside input only followed later, with additional mixing by Sam Petts-Davies (Radiohead, Frank Ocean) and mastering by Heba Kadry (Björk, Slowdive, Big Thief). The album campaign’s visual aesthetic features band portraits courtesy of the iconic photographer and director Anton Corbijn. His timeless photography includes shoots for R.E.M., U2 and Nick Cave, while Nirvana, Metallica and Depeche Mode lead his numerous renowned music videos. He is also a feature-length film director who is best known for the Ian Curtis / Joy Division biopic ‘Control’. Klangstof will play several European shows this summer as guests to Pixies, including Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl on July 5th. They will again link up with Pixies in December for a tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Repress of the the debut album of synth-pop pioneers La Roux.

Originally released in very limited quantities on vinyl in 2009, the album, La Roux, contains the UK No. 1 single Bulletproof as well as Top 3 smash In For The Kill. La Roux was shortlisted for the 2009 Mercury Prize and won Best Electronic/Dance Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2011.

La Roux was a refreshing addition to the world of pop. Brixton-born Elly Jackson was inspired more by the music of Nick Drake and Neil Young than synth pop, and when Ben Langmaid first heard her, she was playing her songs on an acoustic guitar. Together, they updated the template for the synth duo, Langmaid resolutely in the background, while Jackson became the face and mouthpiece for the group.

Their debut single, Quicksand, was released on Kitsune Records in December 2008, and soon after Polydor signed them, and amid a flurry of press attention, In For The Kill came out in March 2009, rising to No. 2 in the UK. In June that year, Bulletproof topped the charts, paving the way for the album, which was received warmly in the UK and made huge inroads into the US charts.

Jackson's androgyny and the duo's musical style evoked the 80s, yet this was no mere pastiche. The songs had heart and soul and were delivered with matchless panache. "People don't just want R&B girls thrusting their groins at them," she told The Guardian. "It gave me hope. People bought the record even though it was fronted by this odd boy-looking ginger girl."

La Roux is presented with scrupulous attention to the detail of the original UK first pressing and available in audiophile 180gm vinyl. Whether replacing a much-loved original copy, or adding to a collection afresh, this is a superior way to enjoy such enduring and influential music.

The 40th Anniversary Edition of Fairytales is the final of many incarnations of singer Radka Toneff and pianist Steve Dobrogosz’s jewel of a duo album. In the course of the 40 years that have passed since its release – on LP in 1982, CD in 1986 – Fairytales has sold well over 100 000 units, making it the top-selling Norwegian jazz record ever, and was also voted Norway’s best album of all time in a poll of Norwegian musicians in 2011. For four decades the sometimes delicate and sometimes robust melodic intimacy between the singer and the pianist, and the fragile strength with which they imparted their lyrics and music, has cast a spell on listeners from all music scenes. Constantly new generations are enthralled by the 41 auditorily minimalist but eloquently narrative minutes, and this final version, with improved sound quality, brings us closer to the magic of the Toneff/Dobrogosz duo than ever before. Fairytales had a solemn epilogue when Radka died under tragic circumstances a few weeks after the album was released and had begun to go from strength to strength. In retrospect, though, it is not the memory of the loss of an incomparable singer, but rather the content of what Radka accomplished together with her American duo partner that keeps Fairytales alive. “It’s not just the sound itself, but it’s also about how Radka sings, about the sensitivity in her voice,” Steve Dobrogosz has said. The pianist describes Radka as a superb, forthright and genuine interpreter who was “at her best” with Fairytales, and he rejects any implication that she sounds especially lonely or depressed, or that the album can be construed as part of any autobiographical timetable. The sum of singer Radka Toneff was, naturally, more than the parts she was able to display on Fairytales. But when practically all subsequent singers in Norway, from Sidsel Endresen up to the young talents of today, get a warmth in their voices and eyes when they talk about Radka as an artistic ideal and a source of inspiration, it is not least because they heard Fairytales at some point, and were sold. The fact that the album has also been the impetus for an interest in Radka that has produced posthumous records, books, radio documentaries and countless articles only confirms the strong position the album still occupies in the Norwegian music scene, a position that this 40th Anniversary Edition will further reinforce. Terje Mosnes, January 2022 01 The Moon Is A Harsh Mistres (Jimmy Webb) 02 Come Down In Time (Elton John/Bennie Taupin) 03 Lost In The Stars (Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson) 04 Mystery Man (Steve Dobrogosz/Fran Landesman) 05 My Funny Valentine (Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart) 06 Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez) 07 Long Daddy Green (Blossom Dearie/Dave Frishberg) 08 Wasted (Radka Toneff/Fran Landesman) 09 Before Love Went Out Of Style (Dudley Moore/Fran Landesman) 10 I Read My Sentence (Steve Dobrogosz/Emily Dickinson)

Deluxe 180gram vinyl edition comes in a foil-embossed and die-cut cardstock jacket with printed inner sleeve and additional 12x12 art cards featuring the collages of Maciek Szczerbowski. All the art interacts with the die-cut jacket framing. Edition of 300. Rooted in a distinct and immediately identifiable sound_with the cello of Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Set Fire To Flames, Thee Silver Mt Zion) and the marimba of ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron at its core_Esmerine has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson, who joined the group in 2012, has furthered Esmerine's melodic and ethnomusicological sensibility ever since, expanding the ensemble's palette as its third core member with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, brass horns of all sorts, and more. Since 2003, six stately and filmic instrumental albums have inscribed compositional landscapes through epigrammatic miniatures, longform multi-movement chronicles, and all manner of evocative musical prosody between. Marked by an inimitably turbid yet tempered pastoralism, alternately lit by dappled dawn and disquieted dusk, Esmerine's musical narratives balance asceticism and romanticism, melancholy and hope, stillness and wanderlust. Esmerine now shares Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, its seventh full-length album and first in five years. The band surprise-dropped the full album digitally on 06 May 2022, with the CD and Deluxe 180gram LP editions hitting stores on official release date 26 August 2022. Following an acclaimed run of mid-career records on Constellation through the 2010s_the last three of which have all been finalists or winners of Juno Awards for Instrumental Album of the Year and/or Album Packaging of the Year_Esmerine began working on new music at decade's end. Under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and a summer 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon (an artist commune in France where the band has cherished long-standing spiritual, creative, and personal connections), compositional seeds were planted_and then pandemic rooted everyone in place. In between lockdown waves, at the respective rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Bernard Lakes) began capturing the band in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment. More fulsome arrangement and overdub sessions at Foon's converted barn during the summer of 2021 brought the album to full fruition_where a notable increase in the use of acoustic piano also poured forth, with just about every band member having a go. The record also signals the definitive integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau_having joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic, he plays throughout the album on upright and electric bass, with turns on piano and synth, as well as sound design contributions via tape echo and other processing. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More grapples with the existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and coalescence. In many ways it is one of Esmerine's most restrained records. Only a few passages are driven by full percussion. There is palpably less Sturm and Drang or overt crescendos compared to its recent predecessors. The new album roils with a different sort of dynamic intensity, where instrumental densities ebb and flow within an overtonal centre, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around a saturnine gravitational force. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More is like a dark forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier's Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Escola Records is back in the game with their second release, a Broken Beat & futuristic Deep House odyssey.

On the first side Karmasound & Sara Bee open the EP with the uplifting soulful summer anthem “Esperándote,” full of choppy live drums, jazzy keys and sweet, melodic vocals.

Next, musclecars deliver a dreamy remix of “Esperándote,” putting a futuristic twist on classic soulful NYC deep house. Lush and sensual, with a beautiful vocal outro, the remix has a warmth reminiscent of nighttime summer heat.

“Trencacintures” (“waist breaker”) is the second original track of the EP, by Barcelona’s JP Sunshine & Guim. The title of the track is a playful reference to its “broken” rhythm. Magical keys and intergalactic pads create a cosmic atmosphere on this fun tune.

On remix duties we find the house producer Hugo LX taking the original on a deep excursion to the dance floor, adding breaks that make the track irresistibly groovy.

For Thee Sacred Souls, the first time is often the charm. The band’s first club dates led to a record deal with the revered Daptone label; their first singles racked up more than ten million streams in a year and garnered attention from Billboard, Rolling Stone, and KCRW; and their first fans included the likes of Gary Clark Jr., The Black Pumas, Princess Nokia, and Timbaland. Now, the breakout San Diego trio is ready to deliver yet another landmark first with the release of their self-titled debut on Daptone Records.

“Every step of the way has just been so organic,” says drummer Alex Garcia. “Things just seem to happen naturally when the three of us get together.”

Indeed, there’s something inevitable about the sound of Thee Sacred Souls, as if Garcia and his bandmates—bassist Sal Samano and singer Josh Lane—have been playing together for a lifetime already. Produced by Bosco Mann (aka Daptone co-founder Gabriel Roth), Thee Sacred Souls is a warm and textured record, mixing the easygoing grace of sweet ’60s soul with the grit and groove of early ’70s R&B, and the performances are utterly intoxicating, with Lane’s weightless vocals anchored by the rhythm section’s deep pocket and infectious chemistry.

Hints of Chicano, Philly, Chicago, Memphis, and even Panama soul turn up here, and while it’s tempting to toss around labels like “retro” with a deliberately analog collection like this, there’s also something distinctly modern about the band that defies easy categorization, a rawness and a sincerity that transcends time and place.