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Tetsu Umehara was born in Yokohama, Japan, but spent much of his childhood in Dusseldorf, and it was in the western German city that his nascent interest in architecture first blossomed. His debut album, Handwritten, is a personal journey that explores the intersection between architectural urbanism, acoustic ecology and human emotion. Formed from a diverse range of sounds created from field-recordings taken in, and inspired by, various cities and urban settings, Handwritten pairs guitar, piano and angular percussive elements to create a rich world of aural depth and intricacy. “If music is a site-specific culture, then the process of making music is nothing more than creating an imaginary place within oneself.” Whilst Tetsu learned to play music from a young age, architecture always remained a driving passion and he would go on to study architectural design at Tokyo University of the Arts. His studies have continued to create an inner dialogue around sound and space, imagining music for specific sites and visualising architectural designs in his own sonic creations. Handwritten is an ode to the diverse styles of architecture that have influenced Tetsu. From the modern urban planning of Yokohama’s harbour to the inorganic sprawl of Berlin, Tetsu sees the fluid hand of the artistic creator in a building’s immobile geometry. In an attempt to mirror the disciplined complexity of a city within music, Tetsu has found a way to talk about the interaction of spatial and auditory dynamics. “It is important that the Handwritten be a record of my musical journey. For me, making the album was like a short trip through the landscapes of my memory.” Handwritten is released by Métron Records on 08/06/22 with the album’s artwork a collage of various sketches taken from Tetsu’s time studying. A portion of profits will be donated to Human Rights Now (HRN), a Japanese organisation looking to improve human rights around Asia.

A historic meeting point between Ethio-jazz and ambient jazz. Born out of Bristol’s Bloom collective, the eight-piece Afro-jazz band Tezeta sees their 2016 debut album Seventh Place finally issued on vinyl via KLANG TONE RECORDS. Exotic Fender Rhodes lines recalling Hailu Mergia, the psychedelic shimmer of vibraphone and marimba, fiercely jazzy saxophone, and the driving force of contemporary Afrobeat converge into a sound that is both refined and full of fire. The 6/8 rhythms radiate the spirit of Ethio-jazz, while the group’s modern sense of crossover resonates with European ensembles such as Debre Damo Dining Orchestra and Langendorf United. A meditative Afro-jazz gem, and one to recommend also to fans of ambient jazz.

Liner Notes by Thandi Ntuli:

I travelled to Los Angeles and the USA for the first time in 2019. Although I had not met Carlos in person, we connected via Instagram where he saw a video of me playing a piano motif (titled ‘The One’ in this sequence) that he really liked and expressed a wish to record. This was around 2017. We tried a few times to get me over to Los Angeles, but the timing was always off. Through a performance organised by a creative collective called The Nonsemble at The Ford Theatre we finally got the opportunity to meet, play together and subsequently go into studio to record some improvisations as he guided the recording process.

Having been aware of some of his work – in particular his collaborative projects as Carlos Niño & Friends, as well as with his friend and long-time collaborator, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – I knew that, with Carlos as producer, the artistic direction of the album would likely take me to a place I’d never considered going. A fact that had me both curious and terrified (as one tends to be when stepping into the unknown) Lol!

Initially keen to record the song that he had seen/heard me play on Instagram, our performance a few days before the session drew him to the song Rainbow off my sophomore album, Exiled (2018). On that zen-like California afternoon in Andy Kravitz’s cozy studio in Venice Beach, he encouraged me to play around with various iterations of Rainbow. “Try it this way”, “How about adding that?”, “Can you breathe into the mic?”, “What if you focus on the last section?”, and many other explorations that eventually went through a few cuts, edits, yays and nays to become this body of work. Rainbow Revisited was birthed through that session, another session a couple of days later, and a series of many small synchronicities that led up to that moment.

A particularly special moment for me was when he invited me to play something from home, which lent itself to me recording a song originally written by my grandfather that we often sing when at family gatherings. The song is called Nomayoyo.

So much has happened since that session in late 2019. Many changes in our personal and collective universes. Losses and gains, births and transitions into the next life, Mother Nature’s ever-constant cycles reminding me that through all the chaos there remains, just beneath, this perfect order in Her ebb and flow. And most importantly, reminding me to feel for Her and to listen.

She speaks!

If Rainbow in my initial birthing of it, expressed a discontent with what we have accepted as freedom in South Africa and, possibly, around the world, I’d like to think that Rainbow Revisited is some kind of a response. Where the idea of ‘the rainbow nation’, with all the baggage it carried, had hijacked the innocence and mystical nature of a rainbow, I now reclaim its meaning through going back, going inward, healing, and rebuilding with the hope of a less heart-breaking and more fulfilling tomorrow.

Lihlanzekile! 

Originally released on Blue Candle Records in 1977, Steppin' Out by the 13th Floor is a true treasure that deserves a cherished place in the collection of every soul and funk connoisseur. This long-awaited reissue brings back the original magic, preserving the essence and impact it had on the music scene. Its profound influence on bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers is undeniable, solidifying its status as an essential gem in the annals of musical history. Now, with this reissue, you have the opportunity to experience the same captivating rhythms and infectious melodies that captivated audiences decades ago. Are you ready to awaken your boogie spirit and infuse your living room with the long-lost spark of the mid-seventies? Brace yourself for an immersive experience as you surrender to the timeless grooves and soulful vibes that will transport you to a bygone era of musical enchantment. Allow the music to ignite your soul, reigniting the vibrant energy of the past and instilling in you an irresistible urge to groove like never before.

First chapter of a futuristic dub experiment series by The 18th Parallel. Geneva based collective invites engineer extraordinaire Roberto Sánchez to revisit 10 scorcher riddims from the Fruits Records vault to craft this inventive modern classic. Reminiscent of the greatest dub albums by King Tubby, Scientist, Prince Jammy, or Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.

Fruits Records presents the first volume of a series of dub albums by Swiss collective The 18th Parallel. Following in the tradition of Jamaican producers who revisited their catalogues in dub versions, such as Bunny Lee and his Aggrovators with King Tubby, Junjo Lawes or Linval Thompson teaming up with Roots Radics and Scientist, or Joe Gibbs and his Professionals with Errol Thompson, Fruits Records is launching a series of dub albums produced by the label's studio band, The 18th Parallel, which will invite different sound engineers to (re)mix the tracks throughout the albums: DUB AVALANCHE. This first volume offers a deep dive into the label's catalogue through ten classic or unreleased riddims revisited by Fruits Records' long-time partner, Spanish sound engineer extraordinaire Roberto Sánchez. The instrumentals are brilliantly performed by The 18th Parallel and punctuated by the voices of legendary artists such as The Viceroys, Lone Ranger, Cornell Campbell, and Dennis Walks, who appear fleetingly before disappearing into clouds of echo. Roberto Sánchez performs ten explosive, creative sound deconstructions, playing with stylistic codes to stimulate our memory and offer a timeless sensory experience.

Like the classics of the genre, the cover art evokes a quirky retro-futuristic imaginary space where, breaking with convention, the talent of Mexican artist Melissa Santamaría is expressed through a striking metaphor of a sonic avalanche.

DUB AVALANCHE VOL. 1 is already establishing itself as a future must-have for fans of uncompromising reggae and dub!

As soon as came back from a long concert tour in Asia, The Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet went in their Frankfurt studio to record many of the originals performed on the road. This session offers a splendid mix of Eastern and Western music. Featuring "Now, Jazz Ramwong," an enticing modal piece inspired by a Thai folk dance and "Three Jazz Moods?", a jazz adaptation of music by sitarist Ravi Shankar.

The Alien Dub Orchestra is ragtag collective of Bavarian musicians, featuring members of The Notwist and G.Rag y los hermanos Patchekos. The cohort formed around the idea of performing the standards of the fabled Breadminster Songbook, aka the back-catalogue of lone dubman Elijah Minnelli. Minnelli is known for constructing wheezy, forlorn odes to his hometown, both as highly sought-after self-released 7" singles, and a critically-acclaimed debut album, ‘Perpetual Musket’ for FatCat Records, lauded by the likes of The Guardian, The Wire, and The Quietus. ‘The Alien Dub Orchestra: Plays the Breadminster Songbook’ finds group covering Minnelli’s cumbia-infused dub reggae with full band, playing an eclectic array of instruments including: guiro, accordion, melodica, sousaphone, trumpet and assorted percussion.

The tale begins in 2022, when Minnelli was invited to lend his unique dubbing style to a pair of remixes for The Notwist, and what followed was an ever-flourishing relationship between the Breadminster native and the wider Munich scene. The seeds of the Alien Dub Orchestra were sown during a support gig for The Notwist, where assorted musicians joined Minnelli for a encore, reinterpreting one of his dub remixes across woodwind, brass and assorted percussion.

“The idea of real, competent professionals playing something you’ve muddled together on a computer in a damp basement is quite overwhelming,” reflects Minnelli on the process, “hearing them interpret and improve these melodies is a real joy and privilege.”

Despite the non-traditional origins of the source material, the inherent musicality of Minnelli’s songwriting shines through across his releases, and this creative kinship is what attracted the Orchestra to reimagining his work. The first live collaboration led to recording sessions and further gigs, with the Orchestra building a full set of Minnelli’s music.

The resulting album puts forward the strongest case yet of the shared musical throughline between the acts, where cumbia, dub and folk sensibilities coalesce to something all together unique. The tracks are wrought new, with melodies fleshed out and broader instrumentation expanding the sonic possibilities of the compositions. The tactility of the tracks is perhaps best demonstrated on the gorgeous ‘Vine and Fig Tree’, with it’s layed vocals and expressive bassline returning as a cavorting sousaphone line. Elsewhere, fan favourite ‘SLATS’ sounds as if it was simply written to be performed this way.

To further instill the cylindrical nature of these collaborations, the entire second half of the album is made up of dub versions of the Orchestra’s renditions. For these dubs, Minnelli is joined by Raimund Wong, who had caught his ear with his ambitious live sets, a daisy chain of tape machines and FX pedals. Again, despite their differing creative processes, the two bonded over a shared love of dub music. Each dub was a one-take, with Minnelli riding the faders and Wong’s filters and FX supplying a sound that doesn’t seek to imitate dub, so much as it tries to be it’s own chaotic self. The droning, psychedelic hypnosis of ‘Pundit Dub’ stretches the material to a whole new realm that feels outside of anything else Minnelli has produced before, an ode to the benefits of recycling sound if ever there was one. The whole second half is a perfect closing note to an album that is undoubtedly a love letter to folk tradition, dub ideology and, most importantly, the joy of uninhibited collaboration.

Gathered here are The Fun Of Watching Fireworks, From Our Living Room To Yours, and The Golden Band albums, garnished with period b-sides, outtakes, and demos. Remastered from the original analog tapes, this early-career spanning 5xLP box includes lyrics, photos, and ephemera from the before times.

The dreamy debut album from Texas's new wave of American krautrock. Recorded at home in 1996, The Fun Of Watching Fireworks straddles the aerodynamic drag between lo-fi and Living Stereo, huffing hypnotic chem trails, Ampex 456 polyfibre dust, and subtropical ozone while the Farfisa warms up. Remastered from the original analog tapes as a reminder of what life was like in the before times. Trespassers encouraged.

The ethereal third album from Texas's slowcore first wavers. A lethargic, sparse, and autumnal album, The Golden Band is where The American Analog Set developed the courage to drive 40 KPH on the autobahn.

Originally released on Tiger Style in 2003, Two Conversations stands as The Appleseed Cast’s crowning achievement. Arriving during the second-wave emo backlash, the Lawrence, Kansas band sidestepped genre clichés in favour of widescreen indie rock shot through with atmosphere and emotional depth.

Dreamy keys and synths drift over intricate steel-string guitars, carrying lyrics that explore love, loss, and the spaces in between. It’s an album that favours reflection over angst, unfolding with a cinematic sense of space and texture.

Hailed by Pitchfork as sounding “trapped on Polyvinyl Records circa 1996,” Two Conversations remains a landmark — a soul-baring, beautifully constructed record that has only grown in stature with time.

Life Goes On Records present a reissue of The Beat Of The Earth's The Electronic Hole, originally released in 1970. Second album from the cultish experimental jam band formed in 1967 in Orange County, California. Their second effort from 1970 -- The Electronic Hole -- takes a step away from their earlier work, being composed with definite song structures versus the earlier drawn-out freeform jams. Sounding much like a west-coast version of The Velvet Underground & Nico, the album has melodic motifs but is much more primitive and mysterious than its cousin, with loads of fuzz, haunting organ, Phil Pearlman vocals, and even some sitar, acoustic strumming, and ballad-like moments ("Love Will Find A Way, Part I"). The album includes even a wild cover of Frank Zappa's "Trouble Every Day". Had the story ended here it would have been a real tragedy, as Pearlman's finest hour was yet to come. Six years later (with who knows what in between), recording commenced on the majestic Relatively Clean Rivers album with an entirely new band and musical vision.

This album celebrates the Beatles as a live act, at the peak of their fame. Presenting material drawn from several thrilling appearances broadcast in Japan.

ノース・マイアミ・ビーチを拠点に活動した知られざる10代のガールズ・ロック・バンドであり、男性的な影響を全く排した60年代の多文化主義的なサウンドを展開していたThe Bellesによる激レア音源が我らが〈Numero〉からアナログ再発！ヴァン・モリスンも参加した名バンドThemの”Gloria”を男女入れ替えでアレンジした唯一のシングルである”Melvin”と、ガレージの少女たちの純粋な表現が詰まった”Come Back”を収録。

Black Dog's two important early <WARP> titles to be reissued!
Black Dog's second album, "Spanners," released in 1995, is now being reissued on vinyl for the first time since its original pressing in 1995!
With a total of 19 tracks featuring mechanical and rough sounds, clear synths, and somewhat cynical sound production, this masterpiece is finally back, a must-have for anyone who wants to experience the experimental techno of the 90s!

A compilation album of early best recordings released in 1978 by The Blackbyrds, a jazz-funk band consisting of students of Donald Byrd. A standard album containing sound sources sampled in numerous albums, and the same long mix as the 12-inch.

The Caretaker is a dark ambient who has been making cross-border music under a number of names including The Stranger and V/Vm. The Caretaker is a dark ambient gentleman who has been making cross-border music under many names, including The Stranger and V/Vm, etc. The first half of the album, which was romantically sparkling with cheerful sampled melodies from pre-war SP discs, has been blown away, and the cruel noise sounds that are beyond decadence and collapse are exchanged. As time progresses, the darkness and depth deepen, and you can only sink into the face of this overwhelming music that is so isolated.

The Caretaker returns with a long-in-the-making soundtrack to acclaimed filmmaker Grant Gee's documentary about German writer WG Sebald. 'Patience (After Sebald)' is a multi-layered film essay on landscape, art, history, life and loss - an exploration of the work and influence of German writer WG Sebald (1944-2001), told via a long walk through coastal East Anglia tracking his most famous book 'The Rings Of Saturn'. The source material for 'Patience' was sourced from Franz Schubert's 1827 piece 'Winterreise' and subjected to his perplexing processes, smudging and rubbing isolated fragments into a dust-caked haze of plangent keys, strangely resolved loops and de-pitched vocals which recede from view as eerily as they appear.

'Persistent Repetition Of Phrases' success comes from the attention it pays to the function of 'the loop', not only as a narrative ordering system in modern music, but as a means by which the brain itself recalls and interprets information; it's as old as recorded sound itself, but in this context the repetition of small shards of auditory information becomes an elegy to fading memory and the worn-out synapses of old age. The track titles offer signposts through Kirby's labyrinth of faulty remembrances, pointing their way towards the peculiarities dictating the manner by which the mind stores and attempts to recover information.

Swell Maps / Television Personalities affiliated C86-era indie pop rescued from sheer obscurity and thrust into semi-obscurity by FELT. The Catburgers were a short-lived Scottish group, this recording initially primed for release on Dan Treacy’s Dreamworld imprint yet placed on the perennial backburner as so many creative projects inevitably are.

Soundcloud uploads dating back over a decade ago and the odd blog/twitter post aside, the group lived on only in the memories of those who happened to catch them on the Edinburgh scene back in the day. Until now! With the help of the National Sound Archives, the original master tape containing these three tracks has been rebaked, cut and mastered for seven-inch.

‘Holiday House’ sounds immediately at home in the Postcard Records nexus, the influence of 1980 particularly tangible. Slower paced and with a touch more melancholy than its companions, the song sounds both in and out of time, as if some young teens raised on a hand-me-down diet of Pastels CDs might have laid it down yesterday.

Jowe Head of Swell Maps joins the group for ‘The Acid Tree’, whilst EP closer ‘Diving For The Brick’ sees the band ruminating on weak knees, sore lungs and stinging eyes down at the local swimming pool.

Recorded at Electro Rhythm Studio, London on 28th February 1987

Guitar & Vox: Robert Jones
Bass: Stuart Macgregor
Drums: Jeff Duffy
Producer: Jowe Head
Engineer: Wilson Sharp
Mastering: Mark Klon
Audio Restoration: Conor Walker
Cover Photo: Gerard Livett
Sleeve Design: Andrew Beltran

A companion to “The Catburgers - Dreamworld Sessions”, this cassette-only release was recorded at The Rocking Horse Studios in Bathgate in Autumn 1986. The audio is restored from a demo tape owned by journalist Simon Reynolds and contains some of the tracks that made it onto the FELT003.

“We were like Coca Cola, we were the real things.” —Albert Canadien Billed as “Canada’s All Indian Band,” the Tsimshian Nation garage band The Chieftones stormed the U.S. in the mid-’60s with their own brand of native rock n’ roll. Led by guitarists Billy Thunderkloud and Albert Canadien, the band was filled out with Jack Wolf on lead guitar, Barry Clifford on bass, and Richard Douse on drums. Their repertoire was a heady mix of guitar instrumentals; Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Duane Eddy, and Brazil’s Los Indios Tabajaras, but through the lens of the American sock hop. After a brief stint at Edmonton’s Alberta College, The Chieftones hit the road, eventually setting up a home base in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where they reportedly worked as ranch hands in between tours. “From Sheboygan we made our way to Madison, Wisconsin, La Crosse, Cedar Rapids and on over to down south, like that. Indianapolis, Peoria, Illinois, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indiana back to Chicago,” Canadien told Pat Braden. “We had a circuit like that. We played two weeks here, one week there, like that. And finally after a year of doing that, we weren’t going anywhere.” It was in this nascent state that they tracked a single and an album’s worth of material with Jim Kirchstein. More Buddy Holly than Link Wray, The Chieftones lone Cuca single—1966’s “Do Lord” b/w “I Shouldn’t Have Did What I Done”—expressed the group’s radio-friendly ambitions. The rest of their Cuca recordings, however, explore their indigenous roots. Tribal drums keep time under a wash of surf-y guitars. Ceremonial dance numbers are reimagined for the Elvis generation. When the single failed to light up the phones, the album was shelved, discovered only recently by Numero’s crack team of magnetic tape sleuths. The New Smooth and Different Sound collects 12 unreleased demos and their sought after Cuca single, all recorded at the Sauk City recording mecca. The group’s time in the Dairy State was short-lived—they set off on a decade-long road run shortly after. Performing in their traditional regalia—white buckskin outfits and head gear—The Chieftones dumbed nothing down for The Beach Boys’ screaming fans at various sports arenas on the east coast. “After a while we got to speak in our own language, like when we started the show,” Canadien said. “I would just speak to them in Slavey and then we’d start our playing. The boys I had talked in Gitsan and Nisgaa, they spoke these languages from northern B.C., that’s what they spoke. They introduced themselves in their own language so that people understood that we were for real.”

あまりにもインフォメーションが不足している短命な女性ソウル・ヴォーカル・グループThe Contessasによる激レアな楽曲を搭載した再発シングル盤が〈Numero Group〉から登場。亡霊の様なストリングスとソウルフルな唯一無二のヴォーカル・パフォーマンス、ファンキーなリズムが力強くポップに弾ける大変グレートなトラックを全2曲搭載！

New album of peaceful explorations by The Cosmic Tones Research Trio. This, their second record, maintains the space and long tones that made their debut, "All Is Sound" a successful anecdote to the loud and fast times we live in. It also expands their musical palate with powerful rhythmic elements.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio have been breaking new ground with healing / meditation music that also honors their roots in Gospel and Blues...and hints at forward looking Spiritual Jazz. Through their Cello, Saxophone, Piano and Flute playing they bring a new sound to the table. Ancient to the future.