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Hand Stamped and strong limited! Analog and organic textures, patient grooves, no pressure. Built for trippy nights, long blends and moments when doubt turns into clarity. Poul Verner celebrates his debut on Nowawes with “Change My Mind.” Laid back dub techno on limited hand-stamped vinyl, deep and steady, driven by a grooving bassline, produced in Babelsberg, once known as Nowawes. From the submerged chords and playful percussion of the A side title track to the stripped down, dreamy late night drive of the Lesterr Interpretation on the B side, this record stays close to the floor.

Produced by Masters At Work (Kenny Dope and Louie Vega).

'Collaboration is stimulating, it's in my blood.' Thus speaks Brian Jackson and his philosophy for making music and it's indeed collaboration that runs through this amazing album of reimagined and revisited songs from his artistic past. Featuring artists such as Black Thought, Rahsaan Patterson, Josh Milan, Moodymann, Omar, J. Ivy and others and being produced by Masters At Work, Now More Than Ever takes the enduring classic tracks that Brian made with Gil Scott-Heron and places them in the now over nineteen tracks and across a triple vinyl LP or double CD.

Songs such as Lady Day & John Coltrane, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Home Is Where The Hatred Is, Winter In America, The Bottle and more soundtracked a generational movement of Black Consciousness in the 70s and 80s. As Brian says, 'This album is one way to connect to what we were about in the 70s; we were about change and this is part of the lineage of resistance. These tracks mark a period of time when resistance was essential and now a younger generation has picked them up.'

'As young men in their twenties we (Brian and Gil) just wrote about what we saw and were feeling and people interpreted these songs in ways we never thought about but as Sly stone said the song comes from me but it's for you.' This statement from Brian perfectly sums up the collaborative nature of Now More Than Ever and the relevance of these songs in a contemporary perspective can be perfectly summed up by the songs themselves. The formidable stable of artists contributing to each track and the excellent production from Louie Vega and Kenny 'Dope' Gonzalez make this album an event in itself. However, these songs are there to be enjoyed as a canon or as individual masterpieces, whether on the dancefloor or on a home system. ‘Now More Than Ever’ just has to be in everybody’s music collection.

Forged from the fire of internal struggles, Loraine James was wrestling with confidence and a desire for change when she embarked on “Detached From The Rest Of You”. A guiding hand came through producing 2025's “Clandestine” EP with singer Anysia Kym, which gave her the experience of a more 'pop' setting and the tools and insight to work her instrumentals into more conventional shapes; a shift from club driven sounds and winding instrumentals into more precise song forms.


Loraine’s production is stripped to the bone, soundscapes of clicks and glitches inspired by Aoki Takamasa, Ryoji Ikeda, and the early-00s Clicks & Cuts school. Here, often with not much more than sparse keyboard chords to fill in with subtle colouring, she uses the space around the sounds and vocals to draw the listener in to a succinct and direct album, her most confident yet.


Guest contributors include vocalist Sydney Spann on “In a Rut”, Alan Sparkhawk (Low) on downcast anthem “Peak Again”, Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) on “Flatline”, Anysia Kim on “Score”, and Tirzah on “Habits and Patterns”. Finally her old spar, the rapper Le3 bLACK returns to spit fire with the jazz-indebted track “Ending Us All” with Fyn Dobson backing on tumbling drums.

“Dressed In Black” was curated and annotated by Cathi Unsworth, author of the book Season Of The Witch: The Book of Goth – a woman who considers herself fortunate to have had Siouxsie Sioux, Lydia Lunch and Diamanda Galàs for role models while she was growing up. For further illumination in Cathi’s own words, read on.

“The music gathered here is an aural manifestation of turbulent times, made by women possessed of supernatural abilities. The music I fell in love with emerged from the dark end of the 1970s: The Winter of Discontent of 1978-79, when intractable industrial action left the dead unburied and mountains of rubbish in the streets. All the promise of punk came to a brutal end with the deaths of Sid and Nancy in New York; IRA bombs exploded in central London and a seemingly uncatchable ripper roamed West Yorkshire with 13 murders under his belt. Ill omens that augured badly for the events of 3 May 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became our first woman prime minister. Dressed in blue and ready to whip the country to her heel.

“But at night, malcontent youth were united by forces of opposition, whose dissenting voices were aired across the land on John Peel’s Radio 1 show, set to the sound of slasher guitars, swirling fairground keyboards, loping basslines and percussion that recalled the echo of jackhammers or the march of insect feet. Here, punk’s unruly offspring distilled the dissonance of the times into a new kind of music. Flirting with the fetishist and taboo, drawing upon horror and science fiction imagery, they were the outlaw leaders of the greatest style tribe of the decade: the goths. Dressed in black, these kohl-eyed women voiced the alienation of their generation during the decade of the Cold War, the Miners’ Strike, privatisation and AIDS.

“To make sense of the absurd is genius enough. But to then cast the glamour of sublime music around those insights – I come back to my point about supernatural abilities. I hope you will find illumination within. You know the dress code.”

The Belgian producer delivers emotion driven melodic soundscapes across three originals.

DIM KELLY returns to Lee Burridge’s All Day I Dream imprint to release his three track Homily EP. On the heels of three acclaimed EPs released on the label - Nocturna Animal in 2021, Mangrove in 2022, and Pianologic in 2023, in 2024 DIM KELLY is back once again, delivering his signature melodic sensibilities that have become a consistent fixture of the All Day I Dream catalog. When DIM KELLY recently performed at the All Day I Dream of Summer Shimmer party at the Brooklyn Mirage on June 2, unreleased tracks played from the Homily EP created some of the most unforgettable moments of the show.

Deep, deep stuff on the debut album from K Wata. Long and dubwise, dark and detailed. With bass that fills and warms a space.

All noir. Cast shadows against the wall. Weight being shifted and distributed with singularly delicate poise, like a knife being balanced on the end of a finger.

There’s a silvery, loose flow state to this record that maybe reveals the way some tracks were first written to be deployed live at Sustain Release 2025. Then taken back to the lab and tightened up further into the album’s final form, with beautiful mixing work between Kenzo and Chris Botta.

With that in mind, Give U Space unfolds slowly and fluidly, giving the listener the chance to access and open up to the deepness of the sound, being led down a path. It rolls and builds momentum and groove, and ratchets tensions up toward peaks of energy "Whisper Dub" and "There Will Be Love".

The tunes feel architectural. Rooms to be in and settle into. Simultaneously stripped back and then etched with neat little details and characterful or atmospheric sound choices. The silhouette of slo mo Memphis and Houston trap is a leading influence, especially with the drums. Mixing with bits of click’n’cut sampling and psychoacoustic tricks, the penumbra of dub techno and drowsier dubstep, and SG’s soft vocals rising in the ether.

The presence and inspiration of the sound system is obvious in all of Kenzo’s work, the music can rattle when spun up louder or blended into the club. But K Wata’s uniqueness and signature comes from an often equally inward facing quality, touched by distance and longing and a sort of chiaroscuro incandescent light set up.



Written and produced by K Wata.

Mixed by K Wata and Christopher Botta at Fer Sound Studio.

Vocals on “Give You Space” and “Go” by SG.

Clarinet on “Radio Embrace” by Eugene Lai.

Mastered and cut by Mike Grinser at Manmade.

Art by S. Gong

‘Black Butterfly’ is Brooklyn Funk Essentials eighth studio album and includes the bands recent hits ‘Never Give Up’, ‘Bust The Bus Stop’ and ‘Life During Wartime’. Playlisted on BBC Radio 2 and Jazz FM and supported by Craig Charles and Cerys Matthews at 6 Music as well as many stations across Europe and the Americas. The album was produced and co-written by bassist Lati Kronlund and features Alison Limerick, Ebba Åsman and Desmond Foster on vocals.

Kronlund and Limerick have been enjoying the recent renewed interest in ‘Where Love Lives’. Kronlund wrote and produced it for Limerick in 1990, it was remixed by Frankie Knuckles and David Morales and became a club classic and was featured in this year’s John Lewis Christmas TV Ad. Arthur Baker heard the original in a club in 1991 that he contacted Kronlund about working together and they then formed Brooklyn Funk Essentials.

Since then, Brooklyn Funk Essentials have built a devoted international following and notched up over 100 million streams. Fusing Soul, Hip Hop, Spoken Word, Jazz, Latin, and, of course,
Funk, the band’s journey began experimenting with drum machines and loops in Baker’s Shakedown Sound Studio in Jersey City—hunting for that perfect beat. The early recordings featured greats such as Maceo Parker, Lenny Pickett, Tower of Power Horns, Michigan & Smiley, and Dizzy Gillespie, leading to the acclaimed debut ‘Cool & Steady & Easy’ (1994). Fast-forward to April 2024, when Kronlund reunited with Baker in Miami, rediscovering recordings featuring percussion prodigy Bashiri Johnson, which inspired new creative sparks for the next chapter of Brooklyn Funk Essentials.

Irish drone-doom-folk act One Leg One Eye, the project of founding Lankum member Ian Lynch and veteran noise monger George Brennan, announce their new album, CRONE, out on 1 May on AD 93.

Today the group share the first track on the album, ‘Many are my Names Besides’, on which they are joined by the elemental force that is legendary actor, performer, writer and director Olwen Fouéré (Operating Theatre) contributing vocals.

Olwen Fouéré comments:

“When Ian and George first approached me to work with them, they were already creating the Crone album as a sonic invocation of the ‘sovereignty goddess’, who personifies the land and the legitimacy to rule it, in her darkest and most terrifying form. As we spoke, the triple goddess figure of the Morrigan entered my mind, reinforced by a marked presence of crows every time we met. The Morrigan is essentially a war goddess, frequently appearing as a crow in a battlefield, a death prophet, a guardian of sovereignty, and a very powerful figure in Irish Mythology.

So I invoked her energy as a starting point, using text extracts that Ian sent me from the Ulster Cycle and other sources. The voice recording was done in one day, improvising the source material while the already composed music occupied my psyche through headphones.

Listening back, at this time in our world, I can only wonder at how much blood and war the Crone/ Crow of sovereignty is preparing to unleash now. Watch out.”

CRONE is the second album from Lynch and Brennan, following on from 2022’s slowburn slab of ambient grit, …And Take The Black Worm With Me. Bewildering, psychedelic and ultimately transcendental, the four tracks of One Leg One Eye’s CRONE shapeshift and morph endlessly in a coarse miasma. Traditional song structures and vocal melody are eschewed, instead the trio directly channel energies from the rich seams of mythological significance submerged below the Irish psyche. The anger, rage and beauty of the sovereignty goddess burn a consistent and deliberate line through the album in the form of obscure incantations and dire pronouncements, the gnarled sinews that bind it all together.

Just as the subject matter of the tracks delve deeper into Irish myth and the remote past, the temporal reality of the album reaches back into the bands prehistory, with the majority of it the material being recorded by Lynch and Brennan in 2021 before One Leg One Eye was conceived of as an entity with Brennan working on the CRONE project while Lynch worked on …And Take The Black Worm With Me.

When they were there they saw a lone woman coming to the door of the Hostel, after sunset, and seeking to be let in. As long as a weaver’s beam was each of her two shins, and they were as dark as the back of a stag-beetle. A greyish, wooly mantle she wore. Her lower hair used to reach as far as her knee. Her lips were on one side of her head.

She came and put one of her shoulders against the door-post of the house, casting the evil eye on the king and the youths who surrounded him in the Hostel. He himself addressed her from within.

"Well, O woman," says Conaire, "if thou art a wizard, what seest thou for us?"

"Truly I see for thee," she answers, "that neither fell nor flesh of thine shall escape from the place into which thou hast come, save what birds will bear away in their claws."

"It was not an evil omen we foreboded, O woman," saith he: "it is not thou that always augurs for us. What is thy name, O woman?"

"Calib," she answers.

"That is not much of a name," says Conaire.

"Lo, many are my names besides."

"Which be they?" asks Conaire.

"Easy to say," quoth she. "Samon, Sinand, Seisclend, Sodb, Caill, Coll, Díchóem, Dichiúil, Díthím, Díchuimne, Dichruidne, Dairne, Dáríne, Déruaine, Egem, Agam, Ethamne, Gním, Cluiche, Cethardam, Níth, Némain, Nóennen, Badb, Blosc, Bloár, Huae, óe Aife la Sruth, Mache, Médé, Mod."

On one foot, and holding up one hand, and breathing one breath she sang all that to them from the door of the house.

Seven years after the haunting resonance of Voids, electronic pioneer Martyn returns to the album format with Music For Existing. Arriving on 15 May 2026, the record is more than a collection of tracks; it is a profound exploration of what it means to remain devoted to a craft in an era of relentless noise.

The album’s announcement is heralded by the lead single "Heavy Sound." The track serves as the perfect bridge between Martyn’s past and present - a masterclass in tension and release that previews the album’s dialogue between the producer, the musicians, and the audience. We live inside a culture that has prioritised and monetised restlessness. The modern apparatus runs on the continuous production of "next," driven by algorithms that value novelty over depth.

Music For Existing serves as a love letter to the communal act of making music - something that is both healing and inherently defiant. For Martyn, a musician often finds solace in musical conversation with others; in the moment we press record, we simply exist together. This record is an invitation to build human infrastructure around what we love, leaning into the fluid nature of community and seeing exactly where the music takes us when we choose to listen.

The album is a sprawling, "off-the-grid" tapestry that echoes Martyn’s profound appreciation for jazz - free, instinctive, and bursting in every sonic direction. This collection features an expansive cast of collaborators, including Duval Timothy, Dan Only, Lucinda Chua, and Mark Cisneros. The record is further elevated by the contributions of jazz talents Mischa Porte and Cees Bruinsma, alongside the evocative words of writer and poet Musa Okwonga.

While the acoustic textures and improvisational spirit of this record may feel like a departure, they represent a homecoming. Jazz has always been ingrained in Martyn’s work; even in his most stripped-back club tracks, the DNA of swing, syncopation, and free-form structure was always present, if not always visible.

Music For Existing marks the beginning of an exciting journey that will continue from the studio to the stage, celebrating the radical act of existing in the moment.

aja monet ist eine surrealistische Blues-Dichterin, Musikerin und Bandleaderin, deren Werk fließend zwischen Poesie, Musik und politischem Ausdruck wechselt. Aus der Spoken-Word-Szene der Lower East Side in New York City hervorgegangen, wurde sie die jüngste Gewinnerin des Nuyorican Grand Slam Poetry-Titels, bevor sie ihr Schaffen auf genreübergreifende musikalische Darbietungen ausweitete, die ihre Wurzeln im Jazz, Blues und experimentellen Sound haben. Ihr Debüt-Poetry-Album ,when the poems do what they do" wurde 2024 für einen Grammy Award in der Kategorie ,Best Spoken Word Poetry Album" nominiert und etablierte Monetas als einzigartige Stimme in der zeitgenössischen schwarzen Musik- und Performance-Szene. Das Projekt verbindet Poesie mit Live-Instrumentierung und Improvisation und erkundet Themen wie Widerstand, Liebe und Freude durch einen kollaborativen, ensembleorientierten Ansatz. Als tourende Bandleaderin ist sie weltweit bei großen Festivals und in bedeutenden Veranstaltungsorten aufgetreten, darunter das Newport Jazz Festival, das North Sea Jazz Festival, das Montreal Jazz Festival, das Guggenheim, das Lincoln Center, das Barbican Centre und die Fremantle Biennale. Neben ihrer musikalischen Arbeit ist monet eine gefeierte Dichterin und Autorin. Ihr erster vollständiger Gedichtband, ,my mother was a freedom fighter" (2017), wurde für den NAACP Image Award in der Kategorie Poesie nominiert. Ihr jüngstes Buch, ,florida water", erschienen bei Haymarket Books, schöpft aus mehreren Jahren des Lebens und der Organisationsarbeit in Südflorida und setzt ihre Auseinandersetzung mit Ort, Bewegung und kollektivem Gedächtnis fort. Zu ihren Auszeichnungen zählen der Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award für Poesie, der Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award, der Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award, der EBONY 100 Artist in Residence Award sowie der Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Vanguard Award. Zudem ist sie künstlerische Kreativdirektorin von V-Day, der globalen Bewegung zur Beendigung von Gewalt gegen Frauen und Mädchen, und Schöpferin von VOICES, einem Hörspiel aus dem Jahr 2022, das die Geschichten schwarzer Frauen in der Diaspora und auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent in den Vordergrund rückt. aja monet's zweites Studioalbum, ,the color of rain", wird im Mai 2026 bei drink sum wtr erscheinen.

Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express.

With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running through the glorious offering of sounds.

”I was especially interested in the idea of using Afrofuturism as a means of using the future in order to correct the wrongs of the past,” explains Joseph. “And so a lot of lyrics reimage or imagine an alternate black history. At the same time there are elements of autobiography.” The aforesaid cultural phenomenon, a view of the black experience through the prism of science fiction and ancient Egypt and Africa, as mapped out by visionaries from music and literature such as Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic and Octavia E. Butler, has previously inspired Joseph. His 2006 novel The African Origins Of UFOs was a multi-hued work, and the new music shows how Joseph

has, much like all significant artists, gone on to broaden his conceptual palette, creating beguiling new stories and images set to startling rhythms and tones. Tracks such as ‘James’, with its taut, crisp bass and dubbed-up brass, and ‘Transposition Of Space (Glissant)’, a potent evocation of the influential Martiniquan theorist set in a haze of jazz guitar and ambient synthesizers, are marvels of text-sound painting.

As for ‘Baron Samedi’, shaped by a languid, almost wounded guitar line and slow rise of horns that frame Joseph’s journey to the ‘mountain of fire, almost touching the sky’ it is an epic blend of commanding vocal delivery and dramatic sonic tapestry.

Joseph led the Spasm band in the early 2000s and recorded well-received albums such as Bird Head Son and Time, in which songs were largely based on spirituals or chants enhanced by improvisation. But his musical curiosity has naturally led to collaborations, and the new work is produced by Dave Okumu, the prodigiously talented guitarist-vocalist-composer known as the leader of Mercury Music Prize-nominated The Invisible, and who was also a member of the seminal band Jade Fox.

Having first performed together at a show curated by influential saxophonist-flautist Shabaka Hutchings at the storied Total Refreshment Centre In London during lockdown, Joseph and Okumu struck up a rapport that further developed when the former guested on he latter’s album. With the connection made Joseph knew Okumu was the ideal producer for this latest project, which has a freewheeling, almost black psychedelic thing. After sifting through demos and loops the guitarist made on pro-tools the poet started to live with the music. Many months later words began to take shape. Joseph then went into the studio with Okumu’s band and set about creating a magnum opus. Boasting a stellar cast such as vocalist Eska Mtungwazi, trumpeter Byron Wallen and keyboardist Nick Ramm, The Ark is a highly intricate musical mosaic framed by simmering funk grooves, wily jazz improvisation and haunting dub effects. Through the use of many genres the music has simply become its own genre.

The Ark can be perceived as a vessel or means of transport to new worlds, along the lines of Sun Ra’s Ark or Funkadelic’s Mothership, and the material it contains is a unique blend of who Anthony Joseph is and how he sees the world and society in these stimulating, challenging times. “It balances the personal with the universal in a much more vulnerable, accessible way than on previous albums,” Joseph explains.

“It has become less about a personal experience and more about a collective, communal experience in which the artist is conduit, messenger, urban griot.”

Nothing Left to Love is Counterparts' sixth studio album following 2017's You're Not You Anymore. Bookended by the powerful lyric “Will you love me when there’s nothing left to love?” — a desperate plea on commitment in the face of both mortality and morality — the album muses on many of the topics vocalist Brendan Murphy has in the past: life’s darkness, self-destructive tendencies and the self-flagellation they beget.

The 12th studio album from Death Metal Veterans, JUNGLE ROT. DAVE MATRISE (Vocals/Guitars): "Let's start off by saying what an amazing accomplishment it is to hit 12 releases in my career. Never would I think I'd still be doing this 30+ years later. I guess be careful what you wish for I'm very grateful to all of our fans that have supported us for so many years and for never giving up on us. To my bandmates for all of their hard work and dedication to me and JRot over all these year’s. Cruel Face Of War will not disappoint. It's full of crushing grooves and violent hooks that will surely break anyone’s neck. We have stood the test of time. We are still here playing our trademark style of Oldschool Death Metal that has carved a legendary name for us in the underground scene today." Produced by Chris Djuricic at Bell City Sound Company. Mixed and Mastered by Dan Swano at Unisound Studio. Artwork and design by Gyula Havancsak

DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present the striking debut EP of Spain’s FABLE, Long Hath the Night Dwelt, on CD and 12” vinyl formats. FABLE started as a solo-project by Jose Soler (Phantom Spell, Chantrice) influenced by ‘70s and ‘80s hard rock and heavy metal – a list as varied and idiosyncratic as Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Pagan Altar, Ashbury, and Hällas – along with hints of old US metal. Duly girded, the band bring forth their public debut, Long Hath the Night Dwelt. An actually-narrated prelude sets the stage for a cautionary tale about class struggle and revolution, FABLE indeed using fables and stories as a medium to tell an expansive story of the woodsfolk dominated under the iron claw of “The Owl.” Despite that, the band’s debut EP is exceptionally compact at five tracks in 22 minutes, moving with a simmering patience that’s heavy on mood and dynamic in its restraint. Never overdriven nor busy, warm and intimate but with a psychic distance that seems impossibly ancient, FABLE very much evoke the perhaps-centuries-old folklore that seems so central to their rustic rock; the wise-sage vocals almost seem an afterthought when the narrative flow of the music starts winding and wending like smoke from a tavern fireplace, so illustrative is its hushed power. However, each element here is equally important, and all work together to form a totality that’s unfussy but hewn with class and care. And this is just the start of this FABLE: discover for yourself how Long Hath the Night Dwelt!

For decades, Dan Penn’s mid 60s Muscle Shoals demos were the Holy Grail among southern soul fans, feted by the likes of Rick Hall and Jerry Wexler as being better than the hit versions. When they finally became accessible to all, 40-plus years after they were recorded, they turned out to be just as good as had been stated.

Further acclaim awaits the recent discovery by Soul-4-Real of two more demo masterpieces, written and performed by Dan and Spooner Oldham while working in Memphis at American Studio in 1967-68. The tape box shows who they were intended for, and it’s a real shame that James Carr never recorded either as both would have been perfect for him. At least we got to hear fine versions of “Cheaters Never Win” from Tony Borders and Bobby Boseman in due course. The lovely “I’m Believing In You” seems to exist only in the version you hear here.

New ‘old’ music from Dan is always worth hearing and having. These wonderful performances are no exception…

For decades, Dan Penn’s mid 60s Muscle Shoals demos were the Holy Grail among southern soul fans, feted by the likes of Rick Hall and Jerry Wexler as being better than the hit versions. When they finally became accessible to all, 40-plus years after they were recorded, they turned out to be just as good as had been stated.

Further acclaim awaits the recent discovery by Soul-4-Real of two more demo masterpieces, written and performed by Dan and Spooner Oldham while working in Memphis at American Studio in 1967-68. The tape box shows who they were intended for, and it’s a real shame that James Carr never recorded either as both would have been perfect for him. At least we got to hear fine versions of “Cheaters Never Win” from Tony Borders and Bobby Boseman in due course. The lovely “I’m Believing In You” seems to exist only in the version you hear here.

New ‘old’ music from Dan is always worth hearing and having. These wonderful performances are no exception…

CASSETTE VERSION

AFTER DARK is the latest project from French producer Onra, conceived as the soundtrack to an imagined late-night film. Entirely self-produced, the album continues the sophisticated R&B and Modern Soul direction explored since his 2010 classic Long Distance and 2018's accomplished Nobody Has To Know, focusing on late 80's / early 90's inspirations.

Structured like a film unfolding between dusk and dawn, After Dark moves through themes of intimacy, urban solitude, distance, and quiet indulgence. Analog synthesizers, tight drum programming, understated basslines, and selective live saxophone textures shape a cohesive body of work that favors mood and narrative over excess. The sequencing reinforces its cinematic intent, opening and closing with intro and outro pieces that frame the record as a cohesive night-time narrative album.

Over 20 years since emerging in the mid-2000s from the beat scene, Onra has steadily evolved from sample-based Hip-Hop production toward polished, song-oriented projects rooted in contemporary R&B and Funk. With After Dark, he delivers one of his most focused and refined statements to date: a mature, immersive album built for late hours, and attentive listening.

Individually, each one is known as a first-call player capable of handling any type of musical situation, and their personal credits are simply too long to list. They've collaborated on a wide range of projects and session work, including recent live, recording, and touring work with jazz-funk globetrotters Incognito and the American guitarist Robben Ford. Every now and again, their packed schedules permit them to take time out to make their own music, drawing on their shared love of the Latin jazz tradition, and whenever this happens, they're collectively known as TRYPL. Recently, they've found themselves with some rarely shared downtime and the opportunity to commandeer the capacious Big Jelly Studios.

The next step was to assemble the tunes and contact their favorite singers and players, including pianists Alex Wilson and Ross Stanley, guitarist Giorgio Serci, bassists Javier Fioramonti and Davide Mantovani, and Roberto Pla, Edwin Sanz and Davide Giovannini on percussion, with newcomer Sophie Stevenson on voice and vibraphone. Family and friends dropped round to provide an informal in-studio audience. Drawing inspiration from their shared love of the classic salsa sound pioneered by Fania Records in 1970s New York, given a twist by their own individual musical personalities, they've created Phantasticus - an album of joyously uplifting music that distils all the conviviality and good humor with which it was created into a heady yet feel-good brew. It's the perfect antidote to our nervous, fragmented times.

Power began as a challenge.

Zachary Fairbrother began Countach to collect the unfinished scraps and fragments from his band GHÖSH, the digital hardcore duo that broke up in 2023. But when Feel The Four, the Philadelphia-based label run by Cristian Adams and Jarrett Dougherty (ex-Screaming Females), asked him for a proper 12”, he saw an opportunity to push the project in an ambitious new direction.

The result is Power - EP, which finds Fairbrother exploring the freedom of longer run-times and varied textures, all while maintaining the post-industrial vision of his previous work. Across 20 minutes, he runs through propulsive acid house, harsh electro, and ‘90s big beat, using 303s and 808s to build an upbeat but haunting record that’s as indebted to the forebearers of those genres as it is to the grim landscapes of Phillip K. Dick and Paul Verhoeven.

This record is built upon a desire to rave. To let out and absorb energy from the sounds and people around you. When the rave climate is on point you can meet curious characters, trippy minds floating around with an aura of good energy. We like to cherish them as Good Energy Trippers aka G.E.T.‘s. This EP is a tribute to those ravers who like to share good energy and understand that a party is made together, the better the mix of characters the better the party. EP consists of 4 tracks that blend tech-house rolling with more ravey energy!

Visionary producer Ibrahim Alfa Jr, who's been traversing the rave's farthest fringes since the late '90s, returns with his most focused and concise set to date, an anthology of undulating, bass-heavy experiments that surveys techno and its distorted history, printing fractured pulses and cybernetic synths over vanishing snapshots of jazz, funk, trip-hop, broken beat, dub and ambient music. It's a body of work that coalesced during a difficult time for Alfa.

After returning to Brighton and sobriety in 2022, he was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, subsequently suffering two debilitating heart attacks. With his immune system compromised, isolation was the only option, so for months on end Alfa devoted each waking hour to his art, recording samples, building digital synths and effects and meticulously sequencing some of his waviest, most experimental material to date. Over this period he finished over 500 tracks, writing impulsively and constantly challenging himself. "There was nothing to hold me back," he explains. "I just had music, I didn't know if I would see the next day."

Now recovered from his ordeal, Alfa looks back at this prolific period with optimism and fondness. It was a chance for him to reconnect with his art holistically, writing purely for himself without any outside influence. Because, at this stage in his life, Alfa has already been through a series of artistic evolutions. When he was still just a teenager, he penned a slew of grinding, jacking techno 12"s (under a variety of mysterious monikers) in the late '90s before re-emerging a decade ago with the acclaimed 'Hidden By The Leaves', an album made up of deeply personal archival tracks that were thought to have been lost. A few years later, Alfa returned wholeheartedly with a series of records for Mille Plateaux that redrew the boundaries of his "Black political music without words." And on 'Infinite Black Inside', those different strands are muddled with Alfa's profound life experiences and he expresses himself free of any self-imposed boundaries, writing quickly on a hybrid analog-digital setup to document as many ideas as possible.

There's a palpable sense of liberation that drives the album's opening track, 'Subutrax', lubricating polyrhythms that isolate the connective tissue between footwork and Detroit techno as they slip between looped electric piano vamps and vaporous synths. On 'Naked Lunchbreak' meanwhile, the beat generation's excesses are illustrated by mesmeric fast-paced acoustic drums that Alfa balances out with brassy drones and euphoric keys. He captures rubbery hits from a Ghanaian djembe on 'Drum Slinger', re-sequencing them into seismic waves that rumble underneath live woodwind blasts. And on 'Capture', decelerated breaks and garbled voices tumble into humid pads, suspending the album somewhere between the chill-out room and the night sky. It's a record of new beginnings and fresh narratives that collapses the hardcore continuum, revealing a sonic signature that's Alfa's alone.

The fifth release on Objekt’s Kapsela imprint is (re)weave, an EP of crystalline club tracks from Detroit-born, London-based producer Tristan Arp.

(re)weave was written during a prolonged period of flux for the artist. “When I started making this record, my life and the world felt like a maze,” he recounts. As he routed and re-routed through past and future homes – Mexico to New York to Detroit to Mexico and finally to London – his output bore the marks of this repeated uprooting. “I was thinking about making music that reflected these twists and turns, and the knotty pathways through them. I was also re-reading Borges around this time, which must have influenced my interest in labyrinths.”

Accordingly, the EP is a mycelial puzzle, a tangle of spidery, undulating ostinatos and earthy percussion, stitched through with syncopated kicks. Employing the sounds of multitudinous critters and kin – whales, insects, thunder, water, forests – the arrangements sum to a sentient mesh of organic matter, the compositions living and breathing like earthly beings. Kaleidoscopic tendrils explore in every direction but are always underpinned by a driving, percussive backbone. It’s not easily classifiable: it’s bass-driven, but to simply call it “bass music” would sell it short.

In keeping with the winding geographical paths traced over the EP’s creation, (re)weave saw Tristan Arp revisiting and reinterpreting unfinished sessions and incorporating them into newer ideas. Rhythms and sounds have been transplanted and self-recycled from previous projects and woven into the fabric of the record. In this way, (re)weave also describes a looping back over time, a recalibration of the self from past to present through interlocking rhythms, channeling and communing with versions of oneself from times gone by.

The closing track, Wish Server, slows the EP to walking pace and hints at tentatively emerging from the deepest jungle into a delicate, innocent light. Tristan Arp imagines it as a dialog with a baby-self. “Some of my earliest memories are of sitting at my mother’s loom,” he offers. “The sequence of these tracks traces these feelings and follows the thread back to the primordial soup… through mazes… to a feeling of levitation.”

LIMITED TO 350 COPIES! 2 x 12" Gold Vinyl w/ Gold Foil Embossed Cover, shrink wrapped.

‘Elevation’ is album eleven from High Focus Records founder and 1/4 of The Four Owls Fliptrix.

The latest instalment in a formidable run sees the lyricist further his vision of the world in the hope of elevating the collective mind and spirit of both artist and listener across 19-tracks.

Having worked with Forest DLG in some capacity across all of his records over the past fifteen years, from mixing and mastering, but also collaborating on multiple tracks as rapper / producer, it is surprising that it took so long for the pair to come together on a full-length collaborative project.

‘Elevation’ is that record.

Fliptrix reached out to Forest with a view to creating something completely different from his previous boom bap heavy outing ‘Dragonfly’, he is always looking to advance his craft and take things higher, and after Forest responded with a pack of 70+ instrumentals the direction of travel became crystal clear. The result is an album designed to lift the listener into a higher state of consciousness and trigger conversations about the state of the world, in the hope of enacting positive change during tumultuous times.

Fliptrix’s vision and Forest DLG’s style feel perfectly aligned. The album is truly collaborative; Forest going away and creating the artwork inspired by Fliptrix’s otherworldly experiences with the Shipibo tribe in the rainforests of Peru; from the single covers, to the album cover and merchandise as Fliptrix focussed on writing.

Having worked with all the greats in the UK hip hop scene, Fliptrix actively sought out new energies on ‘Elevation’, especially when it comes to the album features. Jungle forefather General Levy on lead single ‘ENERGY! ENERGY! ENERGY!’ Grime legend Frisco on ‘Visionaries’, Ayah Marar on ‘Transform’, Da Flyy Hooligan, Kamakaze, Coops, and a 19-strong HF posse cut in the shape of ‘Dangerous’ make this album a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate.

Adele has already left an undeniable mark in pop music. Now, the British songbird is receiving the electro-bossa treatment.

'Sometimes life can kick you in the nads,' says Dominick Martin (aka Calibre). 'When life does do that, I need to make music like this. With its tones of hope and gospel-level layers of self-recorded vocals. Raw, uplifting, soulfull... Even to the most ardent of Calibre follower, ' Grow' sounds like nothing else he's done before. Yet it's not actually on the album it gave a name to. Partly because its ultimately positive veneer (even though it was written in the midst of two toxic relationships - one personal, one with the bottle) doesn't quite complement the deeper, more contemplative aesthetic of the album. But also because this is the start of a whole new story for Calibre...

'A part of Dominick is a poet and a part of him is a man who's lived through Northern Ireland at its worst,' observes Craig Richards . 'There's a gentleness and a tension to him and his past and his experiences. Somewhere in that middle ground is his music.'

Taken from a interview by Dave Jenkins for DJ Magazine.

Mildred have announced their debut album Fenceline (out 24 April via Memorials of Distinction / Dog Day Records), they have also shared the Nick Roberts directed video for lead single ‘Fish Sticks’. Speaking of ‘Fish Sticks’ and the album, Mildred say: “Fish Sticks is a song of scenes from two worlds. Conversations with your boss. Acute workplace mediocrity. Riding home and eating fish sticks with your friends. For UK audiences, a fish stick is a fish finger, ideally Alaskan-caught cod. The song comes packaged in Fenceline, an album about conversations with old friends, little cousins, ceaseless piles of dust in your crumbling duplex, loves and theologians and their books. Fencelines mark two places but belong to neither. Neither nor, either or.”
Ahead of Fenceline, at the end of last year Mildred released their debut twin EPs mild and red, an insatiable collection of songs birthed before Mildred even knew they were a band. Arriving purposefully on the scene in that gentle, approachable Mildred way, the EPs picked up support from The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, Uncut (‘We’re New Here’), The New Cue, Clash, DIY and more. Mildred is a band from Oakland, CA of four equal parts. They don’t have a lead singer, no one person writes the songs. The songs that make up Fenceline come together as a group with their genesis sprouting from any one of their members - Henry Easton Koehler (vocals, guitar), Jack Schrott (vocals, guitar), Matt Palmquist (vocals, bass, woodwinds) or Will Fortna (drums, production) - each time.

The songs are often wrestled from the lead writer by the other three, a lyric might have been mumbled absentmindedly for a few days before one of the other three grabs at it. Summed up neatly by Clash “imagine if Pavement went Americana and you’d be close”, Mildred make music that is pure and poetic, gently addictive and never overwrought. The lyrics for their songs are written largely alone and often draw from their own individual lives and experiences but there’s a shared something there. “It makes sense when common threads emerge” they say, “because we do things together a lot as friends: cook, laze about on a weekend, listen to an album, go walkabout, read, go see movies etc.
Strikingly literal or intriguingly oblique, Mildred have a remarkable way with lyrics that lodge themselves in your head softly but with such determination that they begin to feel like shimmering memories from your own life. Fenceline is a collection of songs that you want to hold close and delve into, and yet play to everyone you know.

Goldmin Music label founder Romain Lanteaume alias EinKa meets Detroit minimalism master Terrence Dixon aka Population one for a truly conceptual techno 12".. Terrence Dixon is one of our favorite artists and biggest inspiration.. Detroitborn artist released his first 12" back in 1994 followed by several quintessential records and 2 epic albums "From the far future" on legendary Berlin-based label Tresor. Terrence is not only a great techno producer who makes subwoofers roar in clubs, he is a man obsessed by a concept, an idea that he's following from the very beginning.. "Minimalism" in the reaaaaal sense of the word.. For example, when thousands producers are wondering what's eventually missing in their new track, Terrence is rather wondering what's useless, what could be removed and that's definitely what he gets to share on his own "Reduction" imprint. After the release of Terrence's track "Steve Austin's mile" on Goldmin Theme Lp, Romain got to meet him in Detroit during summer 2014. The aim was to make an abstract record that could still be linked to a feeling or a situation.. A1 The edge track is probably a good example as it's designed and built to make you feel like you get closer and closer to the edge while the track is slowly growing until you fall.. Can you feel it :) As for the other tracks, there is also a special idea behind them but we better let you interpret it your way

Another massive offering from the one and only Mick Harris, continuing on in his Culvert Dubs Sessions experimentations with a new 2xlp. Once again Mick delves deep into the shadow realm of slow beat, psychedelic heavily textured, grinding dub techno. Eight tracks of absolute industrialized, delay swept, full pressure, sound system shaking murk ridden, dark water dubs. Top form work when Mick lets loose in this wild style, just the right balance of beauty, restraint and brutality. Total heavy weight music!

We’ve all experienced that feeling when a song instantly transports us back to the moment we first heard it and became completely hooked. For Linda & Norm, “Moments to Want You” by the Jerry Lillard Band carried the warm vibes of a Parisian summer in 2019. Fast-forward to 2025, they revisited the track with a complete twist, nudging it toward an AOR resurgence for the label’s Soft Rock for Hard Times series.

The original version by the Jerry Lillard Band was released in 1981 on a German rock sampler, created in protest against the closure of their rehearsal space in an old school building. “Moments to Want You” stands out for its haunting melody, heartfelt lyrics, and compelling arrangements. Inspired by these elements, Linda & Norm cast the song in a new light, leaning into ’80s-tinged guitar pop à la Trevor Horn, with hints of psych bedroom pop in a distinctly Californian fashion.

Joining the release are two favorite artists of theirs, further expanding the song’s potential into dancefloor territory. Sydney’s own DD Mirage delivers the smoky, dubby disco blend we’ve admired since their debut album, while seasoned producer Justin Van Der Volgen brings the B-side magic, echoing the authentic stripped-back dub approach in the vein of Pettibone and Baker. To round it out, an instrumental version, along with an extended mix courtesy of Justin, complements the release, making it a 12” worth pulling out whenever the moment calls.

REPRESS ON SILVER VINYL . COMES WITH 24”x24” POSTER + DOWNLOAD CARD + GATEFOLD JACKET.


On The Beths’ album Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships – platonic, familial, romantic – and more importantly, their aftermaths. The shapes and ghosts left in absences. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life?

The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. With Expert, The Beths wanted to make an album meant to be experienced live, for both the listeners and themselves. They wanted it to be fun -- to hear, to play -- in spite of the prickling anxiety throughout the lyrics, the fear of change and struggle to cope.

Most of Expert was recorded at guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) -- and sometimes in the building's cavernous stairwell at 1am -- toward the end of 2021, until they were interrupted by a four-month national lockdown. They traded notes remotely for months, songwriting from afar and fleshing out the arrangements alone, the first time they’d written together in such a way. The following February, The Beths left the country for the first time in more than two years to tour across the US, and simultaneously finish mixing the album on the road. That latter half felt more collaborative, with everyone on-hand to trade notes in real time, until it all culminated in a chaotic three-day studio mad-dash in Los Angeles. There, Expert finally became the record they were hearing in their heads.

Expert is an extension of the same skuzzy palette the band has built across their catalog, pop hooks embedded in incisive indie rock. The album’s title track “Expert In A Dying Field” introduces the thesis for the record: “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time ‘til you’re an expert in a dying field.”

The rest is a capsule of The Beths’ most electrifying and exciting output, a sonic spectrum: “Your Side” is a forlorn and sincere love song, emotive; while “Silence is Golden,” with its propulsive drum line and stop-start staccato of a guitar line winding up and down, is one of the band’s sharpest and most driving. “When You Know You Know” skews a bit groovier, pure pop and a natural addition to the band’s live set. “Knees Deep” was written last minute, but yields one of the best guitar lines on Expert. There’s a certain chaos across the 12 tracks, the palpable joy of playing music with long-time friends colliding with the raw nerves of pain.

Stokes strings it all together through her singular songwriting lens, earnest and self-effacing, zeroing in on the granules of doubt and how they snowball. Did I do the wrong thing? Or did you? And are we still good people at the end of it? She isn’t interested in villains, but instead interested in just telling the story. That insecurity and thoughtfulness, translated into universality and understanding, has been the guiding light of The Beths’ output since 2016. In the face of pain, there’s no dwelling on internal anguish - instead, through The Beths’ music, our shortcomings are met with acceptance. And Expert In A Dying Field is the most tactile that tenderness has been.

Sixteen killer 70s reggae funk and soul cuts from the likes of John Holt, Lee Perry, Cornel Campbell, The Cimarons, The Chosen Few and more featuring superb reggae takes on songs by artists including The Jackson 5, William DeVaughn, Diana Ross and The Supremes, War, The Temptations, Roberta Flack, The Stylistics and others!

Well-documented is the influence of American black music on Jamaican styles of the 1960s – from the birth of ska music, when The Skatalites ska-ified the jump-up southern USA rhythm and blues music of Rosco Gordon, Louis Jordan and Fats Domino, through to the creation of rocksteady when Jamaican artists like The Techniques, The Paragons, Alton Ellis and The Melodians turned to the slower rhythms and soulful harmonies of groups such as The Impressions and The Drifters for inspiration. 

Less-well established is that in the 1970s Jamaicans didn’t (shock!) stop listening to American black music styles, with many 70s reggae artists as invested in soul, funk and the proto-disco sounds of Philadelphia, as was the case with rhythm and blues in the previous decade. In the 1970s, while Jamaica promoted its own roots reggae styles around the world, powerhouse USA soul labels such as Motown, Philadelphia International and Stax Records were at the same time all popular on the island.
This interaction between American and Jamaican music was not limited to Jamaica. In Britain, first-generation Caribbean-émigré children in the 1960s and early 70s grew up with an equal love of both soul and reggae, which manifested itself in the home-grown arrival of lovers rock in the mid-1970s.
Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Reggae Island Soul’ tells this story of how soul and funk-infused reggae in the 1970s united the sounds of Jamaica, USA and the UK into a highly addictive cultural hybrid of styles.

Chart topping British singer-songwriter Maisie Peters returns with much anticipated third studio album ‘Florescence’, co-produced with 2x Grammy Winner Ian Fitchuck with collaborators including Marcus Mumford and Julia Michaels. Florescence reflects on how the right love can help heal the wrong ones. It’s an album about perspective, self-realisation, healing, and ultimately, learning how to flourish. This lands as Maisie’s first new LP since she became the youngest solo British female artist in almost a decade to land a UK No.1 album with ‘The Good Witch’ back in 2023. Since then, she’s had the A-list co-signs via Phoebe Bridgers, Sam Smith and Olivia Rodrigo. She’s had a fiercely devoted fandom flock to headline tours around the world. And she’s played shows from Wembley Arena, to Glastonbury, to stadium slots with Taylor Swift and Coldplay.


“Florescence means ‘the process of flowering, of developing richly and fully’ and to me, this album describes exactly that. These 15 tracks depict a blossoming of myself from ages 23 to 25 and a blossoming of a true real love that anchors both me and this record. It tells the story of the last few long winters, with all of their villains and thorns, heartbreaks and rains, and it leads you, by the end, into a perfect English spring, into the hope and catharsis that comes when the first wildflower blooms. It’s a true representation of healing, of finding hope and peace and strength not just in somebody else, but in yourself. It is clear skies, cherry pits on the grass, windows flung open - it is Sussex country roads and London corner shop wine that leaves a stain when you kiss. It is the feeling of flying, then falling, then flying again. It is knowing that there was a point to all the sadness of before, and the point is the woman you see in this mirror now, and the person you see by her side. Love is weaved into every strand of every song on this album and for good reason - love is timeless, love is pure, love is organic and simple and effortless and real. I hope you find this album to be that as well.”

Chart topping British singer-songwriter Maisie Peters returns with much anticipated third studio album ‘Florescence’, co-produced with 2x Grammy Winner Ian Fitchuck with collaborators including Marcus Mumford and Julia Michaels. Florescence reflects on how the right love can help heal the wrong ones. It’s an album about perspective, self-realisation, healing, and ultimately, learning how to flourish. This lands as Maisie’s first new LP since she became the youngest solo British female artist in almost a decade to land a UK No.1 album with ‘The Good Witch’ back in 2023. Since then, she’s had the A-list co-signs via Phoebe Bridgers, Sam Smith and Olivia Rodrigo. She’s had a fiercely devoted fandom flock to headline tours around the world. And she’s played shows from Wembley Arena, to Glastonbury, to stadium slots with Taylor Swift and Coldplay.


“Florescence means ‘the process of flowering, of developing richly and fully’ and to me, this album describes exactly that. These 15 tracks depict a blossoming of myself from ages 23 to 25 and a blossoming of a true real love that anchors both me and this record. It tells the story of the last few long winters, with all of their villains and thorns, heartbreaks and rains, and it leads you, by the end, into a perfect English spring, into the hope and catharsis that comes when the first wildflower blooms. It’s a true representation of healing, of finding hope and peace and strength not just in somebody else, but in yourself. It is clear skies, cherry pits on the grass, windows flung open - it is Sussex country roads and London corner shop wine that leaves a stain when you kiss. It is the feeling of flying, then falling, then flying again. It is knowing that there was a point to all the sadness of before, and the point is the woman you see in this mirror now, and the person you see by her side. Love is weaved into every strand of every song on this album and for good reason - love is timeless, love is pure, love is organic and simple and effortless and real. I hope you find this album to be that as well.”

**ON RANDOM COLOUR VINYL** PRIMITIVE RING consists of Bert Hoover (bass/vocals), Charles Moothart (guitar/vocals), and Jon Modaff (drums). The Los Angeles power trio formed in September 2024 when Hoover and Moothart came together seeking a new creative outlet. In 2025, the band released four 7"s on four different labels (Greenway, In the Red, Reverberation Appreciation Society, and Fuzz Club UK). They hauled amps and drums into bars to hone the sound of the newfound brotherhood that is Primitive Ring. Rock and roll is in its essence a primal experience, and the name reflects that. Three individuals collide and egos rattle, shedding layers and growing new limbs. Archetypes flash to the rhythm of a freight train and the crown is passed hand to hand like a good luck charm, symbolic and communal. Rock and roll is for the people and Primitive Ring is for the taking. At least it will be when the band's debut LP is hurled into the future via In the Red Recordings. Primitive Ring is 11 tracks coming in just under 42 minutes. It was recorded by Mark Rains in December of 2025 at The Station House in Echo Park. The album is the genesis story of a lightning bolt flashing in the eternal drama of creation and destruction. The album showcases the distinct writing styles of each member, but the overall aesthetic is a woven tapestry demarcating the timeless meridian. The record is the spawning of a collective vision. This is something we all share, and we must remind one another how electric humanity can be.

Schwarzes Vinyl! Doppel-LP im Klappcover. Ursprünglich 2017 rausgebracht und jetzt zum ersten Mal in Europa über Sub Pop erhältlich! Pure Comedy, das dritte Album von Father John Misty, ist eine komplexe, oft sarkastische und ebenso oft berührende Reflexion über die verwirrende Torheit der modernen Menschheit. Father John Misty ist das Projekt von Singer-Songwriter Josh Tillman. Wir könnten viel über Pure Comedy sagen, zum Beispiel, dass es ein mutiges, wichtiges Album in der Tradition amerikanischer Songwriting-Größen wie Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman und Leonard Cohen ist, aber wir denken, es ist am besten, wenn sein Schöpfer es selbst beschreibt. Los geht's, Mr. Tillman: Pure Comedy ist die Geschichte einer Spezies, die mit einem unvollständig entwickelten Gehirn geboren wurde. Die einzige Überlebenschance dieser Spezies, die sich auf einem grausamen, unberechenbaren Felsen wiederfindet, umgeben von anderen Spezies, die in dieser ganzen Sache viel geschickter zu sein scheinen (und für die sie eine Delikatesse sind), besteht darin, sich auf andere, etwas ältere, halb ausgebildete Gehirne zu verlassen. Diese Abhängigkeit bekommt im Laufe der Geschichte verschiedene Namen, wie ,Liebe", ,Kultur", ,Familie" usw. Mit der Zeit und da sich ihre Gehirne als bemerkenswert gut darin erweisen, Bedeutung zu erfinden, wo keine ist, wird die Spezies zum Lieferanten immer bizarrerer und raffinierterer Ironien. Diese Ironien sollen helfen, mit der abscheulichen Verletzlichkeit der Spezies fertig zu werden und zu versuchen, ihre Fantasie mit der Monotonie ihrer Existenz in Einklang zu bringen. So in etwa. Pure Comedy wurde 2016 in den legendären United Studios (Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Beck) in Hollywood, Kalifornien, aufgenommen. Produziert wurde es von Father John Misty und Jonathan Wilson, die Tonarbeit übernahm Mistys langjähriger Tontechniker Trevor Spencer und die Orchesterarrangements stammen vom bekannten Komponisten und Kontrabassisten Gavin Bryars (bekannt für seine umfangreichen Soloarbeiten und seine Zusammenarbeit mit Brian Eno, Tom Waits und Derek Bailey). Black Vinyl. Originally released in 2017 & now available for the first time in Europe via Sub Pop! Pure Comedy, Father John Misty's third album, is a complex, often-sardonic, and, equally often, touching meditation on the confounding folly of modern humanity. Father John Misty is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Josh Tillman. While we could say a lot about Pure Comedy including that it is a bold, important album in the tradition of American songwriting greats like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and Leonard Cohen we think it's best to let its creator describe it himself. Take it away, Mr. Tillman: Pure Comedy is the story of a species born with a half-formed brain. The species' only hope for survival, nding itself on a cruel, unpredictable rock surrounded by other species who seem far more adept at this whole thing (and to whom they are delicious), is the reliance on other, slightly older, half-formed brains. This reliance takes on a few different names as their story unfolds, like "love," "culture," "family," etc. Over time, and as their brains prove to be remarkably good at inventing meaning where there is none, the species becomes the purveyor of increasingly bizarre and sophisticated ironies. These ironies are designed to help cope with the species' loathsome vulnerability and to try and reconcile how disproportionate their imagination is to the monotony of their existence. Something like that. Pure Comedy was recorded in 2016 at the legendary United Studios (Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Beck) in Hollywood, CA. It was produced by Father John Misty and Jonathan Wilson, with engineering by Misty's longtime sound-person Trevor Spencer and orchestral arrangements by renowned composer/double-bassist Gavin Bryars (known for extensive solo work, and work with Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Derek Bailey).

Sultans Ghost Ship LP was originally released on Sympathy For The Record Industry in 2000. While RFTC looked for a new drummer, Speedo (armed with an 8 track tape machine and 3 microphones) devised yet another alias as “Slasher” and concocted this primordial ooze of moped scuzz, punk rock and roll. Ghost Ship was met with enthusiasm by those seeking blistering relief from the weak, whiny, wretched and wimpy wannabes du jour.

The sound is full on, straight ahead with only starting gates and finish lines between songs. The band played some shows around California and would slightly evolve on their second LP Shipwrecked. Ghost Ship is Sultans at their most thuggish and hairiest. Taking inspiration from Australia’s Chosen Few, Ramones bootlegs, Misfits bootlegs and then challenging themselves to be as thrifty and impatient as possible, the songs are intentionally brief, similar and burly. After this was recorded these tapes lay dormant in a shed for over 20 years. When the tapes were recently unearthed it revealed unreleased songs recorded after Ghost Ship yet before the band’s follow up LP Shipwrecked. Some of these songs would later be absorbed by RFTC and re-recorded. These songs are included here as bonus tracks and offer no relief to the record’s unrelenting pace.

"Tapping into a shared affinity for early trance – as in short for transcendental – Function and Nastia Reigel come together on Dekmantel with ‘Devocion’. Bridging the past and the future, this partnership draws deeply on brooding, melancholic early-90s sounds and supercharges it with the immensity of modern techno.

The project began when Nastia Reigel shared a series of discoveries with David ‘Function’ Sumner – records rooted in the rave-leaning edge of the era, spanning labels like R&S, FAX and EXperimental. He responded that this was precisely the music he had been absorbing while coming up in the thick of New York’s club and rave scenes and beginning his journey into DJing. The excited exchange of deep digs around this niche of dance music history naturally led to a conversation about collaborating on music in this vein, and Devocion is the result.

Familiar genre touchstones are everywhere, from the plaintive bleeps and understated breakbeat roll of 'Eternity' through the sad-eyed arpeggios strafing on the edges of 'Reverence' and on to 'Flowstate's blue-hued acid lines and 'Orion's sky-scraping gated pads. But Reigel and Sumner deploy these strongly coded elements with poise, feeding into a richly rendered production that feels anything but old-school. The emotive streak is wielded with care, spelling out the mood without losing the steely, shadowy sensibility that tracks through their respective catalogues.

In a perfect demonstration of honouring the past while embracing the present, Devocion EP lands as a distinctive artistic statement on its own terms."

In Sheep’s Clothing announces the long-awaited vinyl pressing of Marc Leclair’s beloved 2005 album Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes. The album will also be available on streaming for the first time via Community Music Group.

For years after Marc Leclair released Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes, he heard from listeners who had lived with the record in an unusually intimate way. Many described how the music became part of the emotional landscape of the months leading to birth. “I never expected that,” Leclair says. “Many women told me they listened to the record throughout their pregnancies. They said it made a real difference, that it helped them. It became more than just a record.”

First issued on CD in the early 2000s, Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes (Music for Three Pregnant Women) now returns in a new edition from In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi, appearing on vinyl for the first time as a double LP. The record is being pressed in Detroit at Archer Record Pressing, the historic plant behind deep-groove classics by Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Underground Resistance, UR’s Jeff Mills, and J Dilla.

Listeners who know the Montreal-based Leclair through his better-known work as Akufen might be surprised by the tone here. During the same years he was shaping the intricate micro-sampling tracks that made Akufen a cult figure on labels including Perlon, Force Inc. and Trapez, Leclair was quietly developing this far more personal project. The meticulous craftsmanship remained the same, though the focus shifted from the hyper-detailed cut-up rhythms of his dance records toward something slower and more atmospheric. “I always compare my work to a jeweler,” Leclair says. “It’s really very precise. I’m a bit of a detail freak. I can spend hours or days on just one phrase in one song. Everything has to be perfectly put together.”

The project began almost accidentally. A few members of Leclair’s circle became pregnant nearly simultaneously, including one who had long believed she couldn’t conceive. The first track he recorded for the project wasn’t meant to advance a larger concept, he says. “It was meant to highlight the fact that three of my closest friends became pregnant at exactly the same time.”

Leclair was already a father with a three-year-old daughter, so the emotional terrain of early parenthood was familiar. Gradually the idea expanded. “I began thinking, why not make a whole album that celebrates this and also follows the entire pregnancy, the nine months,” he says. The music developed piece by piece, including a track originally commissioned by the Berlin experimental duo Rechenzentrum that would later become the album’s opening movement.

Nearly seven years passed between the first composition and the finished album, and the music mirrors the strange arithmetic of pregnancy itself. What begins as a single idea multiplies outward, sounds layering and branching until the album feels less like a sequence of compositions than a living process unfolding in time. “I work very slowly,” Leclair says. “Everything has to be something I’m completely behind. I never want to rush anything. I want things to come naturally.” Across its 72 minutes, the album blossoms with the patience of a long meditation on time, growth and emergence.

When Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes first appeared via Mutek, it circulated quietly but steadily. Critics who discovered it later recognized its unusual scope. In a 2006 Pitchfork review, Mark Richardson gave the record an 8.1, calling “150e Jour” “an unfailingly gorgeous and tightly sequenced quilt of guitar and piano samples reminiscent of Tangerine Dream,” and describing “85e Jour” as infused with “viscous pop ambient drift, the gauzy synth pads ebbing and flowing with rhythm.” Boomkat described the album as “a majestic opus from a producer that's always promised so much — here delving into a panoramic construction of almost visibly radiant music that works so beautifully through each and every second of its 72 minute lifespan.”

The new In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi edition finally presents the record in the format Leclair long imagined. “I always thought that record deserved a vinyl edition,” he says. Spread across two LPs, the music now has room to unfold at its natural pace. More than twenty years after it first appeared, Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes remains what it was from the start: a carefully shaped meditation on transformation and the quiet miracle of life beginning.