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The debut Creation Rebel album, originally released on pre-On-U Sound label Hitrun in 1978. The original band, featuring the drummer Eric "Fish" Clarke, had been a studio outfit known as the Arabs, now primarily remembered for their work with Prince Far I, including the classic dub set "Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapter 1". The rhythm tracks for this album had been laid in Jamaica but the overdubs were worked up at Gooseberry Studios in London. The experienced Dennis Bovell was the engineer, with the young Adrian Sherwood on his very first production assignment encouraging him to make it “madder” and add more and more effects!

Hostile Environment is the first album in over forty years from the legendary Creation Rebel, who were the original On-U Sound house band and responsible for classics such as Dub from Creation and Starship Africa. The trio of Crucial Tony, Eskimo Fox and Magoo are back with producer Adrian Sherwood to create a modern spin on their heavyweight dubwise rhythms.

It is the seventh album credited to the group, who originally coalesced as a live backing group for the late, great Prince Far I, in the process sharing stages with the likes of The Clash, The Slits and Don Cherry. Vocals from their former band leader, preserved on archive tapes, feature on the new record, as well as guest contributions from the likes of Cyrus Richards (musical director for Horace Andy and the Dub Asante Band), Italian synth maestro Gaudi, and fast chat king Daddy Freddy.

The album title refers to former British Prime Minister Theresa May’s controversial policy towards asylum seekers, and the recent Windrush scandal, all too relevant to a group of musicians of Jamaican origin who have spent their whole lives operating in the darkening shadow of a former colonial power with a staggeringly short memory for historic wrongs.

Fully remastered and licensed, ltd to 500 copies 180 gr vinyl. Officially the latest album released by the british super group, Lows & Highs is the triumphant epilogue to these fascinating adventure in rhythm. Featuring vocals from Crucial Tony and Lizard Logan this is probably the most straight ahead reggae album in their whole discography. Producer Adrian Sherwood is in charge behind the desk while Style Scott, Eskimo Fox and Donald Campbell bring all their potential efforts on the drums. Deadly Headley and Dave’ Flash’ Wright are the top horn section here. The album features the bonus track Read And learn from 1982 single ‘Love I Can Feel’. A must have for any english dub worshipper.

First time available on vinyl since 1982. Psychotic Jonkanoo was the sixth Creation Rebel album in three years, originally licensed to the post-punk oriented Glaswegian label Statik. Another solid set of killer dub, albeit less instrumentally inclined than their previous efforts and more focussed on militant-style conscious chants. Bandleader Crucial Tony was aided on the vocal front by harmonies from other group members, in a style reminiscent of Black Uhuru, plus the occasional guest such as John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited providing backing harmony (!) on “Mother Don’t Cry”, and the legendary Deadly Headley Bennett adding saxophone to the opening track.

“Anybody searching Adrian Sherwood's catalogue for an easy point of entry would do well to start here, and everyone else can simply applaud Psychotic Jonkanoo as the last truly great roots reggae album of the 1980s.” All Music

Originally recorded in 1978 (following the recording of Dub from Creation), the mighty Starship Africa was already envisioned as the debut album by one DJ Superstar, toasting over a series of rhythms performed by the basic Creation Rebel unit, with Misty in Roots' Tony Henry on superbly melodic bass. These original tapes have long since vanished - the project was cancelled and it would be another two years before Adrian Sherwood returned to them, while casting around for the maiden release by a new label he was involved with, 4D Rhythms. Remixing and re-recording the rhythms saw Jamaican drummer Style Scott recruited to play live over Charlie Eskimo Fox's original tapes (played backwards through the desk!); an additional half a dozen percussionists, drawn from whoever happened to be in the studio at the time, were also overdubbed. Rumoured to be the planned soundtrack of a Don Letts-directed film about ‘alien dreads from beyond the stars’ (!) it’s mixture of interplanetary sound effects and heavy, heavy bass pressure still has the ability to astonish.

Released on Cherry Red in 1981, Threat To Creation spotted the collaboration between two mystical entities : Creation Rebel and New Age Steppers. Forerunners of the british dub scene the two bands shared several members, a who’s who of the On U-Sound school and key figures of the Bristol and London scene. Adrian Sherwood is – obviously – the man behind the desk a craftsman on its own, a character with no borders and one of the most sought after producer of the time. The supergroup is ran by post-punk stalwarts Bruce Smith (The Pop Group) on drums and Keith Levene (PIL) on guitar. Ari Up of The Slits sits on piano and organ, while masters Crucial Tony is both on bass and guitars. Members of African Head Charge – bass player George Oban, Eskimo Fox and Style Scott on drums – are welcomed addition to the line-up. Threat To Creation is still recognizable as an album ahead of its time, a futuristic blend filling the gap between the Jamaican heritage, the so-called (post) industrial revolution and the studio witchery of the whitey man.

A mutant beat manifesto from Miami luminaries Jonathan Trujillo (Jonny from Space) and Pablo Arrangoiz (El Gusano, DJ Fitness, Baüzer Vep), Crespi Drum Syndicate’s Colada Talk follows the duo’s debut on Sonido Isla with a freshly freaked collection of percussive oddities. Rooted in foundational clave rhythms and avant-garde experimentation, Crespi Drum Syndicate emerges from the amphibious underbelly of Miami’s Latin-infused club scene with their singular electro-acoustic vision. Extensive live recording sessions, free improvisation, and a ritualistic studio practice — countless hours spent twisting and rearranging sounds from found objects and Buchla modular systems — coalesce into new rhythmic forms. Atonal saxophone, bass clarinet, and slide whistle further expand upon Trujillo and Arrangoiz’s ever-evolving sonic palette, while NYC’s AceMo lends a hand on the heavily syncopated “Siu,” and closer “Boubow” might be the duo’s most hook-driven production to date with its mangled pop vocal and lewd drum-line bounce. Landing somewhere between Steve Reich’s polyrhythmic “Six Marimbas,” Moebius & Plank’s industrial Krautrock sessions, and Ricardo Villalobos’ hypnotic techno minimalism, Colada Talk delivers on a world of subtropical rhythmic futurism and experimental body music that’s as heady as it is culo-shaking. -Phil Cho

Special Guest DJ & Pontiac Streator are crimeboys, here delivering a debut album volley of ambient jungle and trip hop dub paying homage to influences including Vangelis, Burial, Silent Hill and the putative effects of N ₂O. ‘Very Dark Past’ is the pair’s immersive debut, with eight cuts that firm up a flux of etheric inspirations into a translucent body of aerosolised ambient and writhing rhythms primed for the back rooms. Working within etheric parameters established over recent years by their respective solo efforts and a plethora of collaborative projects by peers such as Huerco S., Perila, Exael, and Ulla,‘Very Dark Past’ digs into a now familiar vein of lathered cultural ephemera and rave nostalgia full of gauzy signposts and warm sentimentality that works a treat on stressed minds and bodies. Titled tongue-in-cheek in key with their mode of prophylactic rave safety, the crimeboys step off from the gentlest ends of LTJ Bukem or PS1-style jungle into pulpiest/soft focus ambient dance. Bladerunner vibes prompt the opening lushness of ‘holodeck blue’, and ‘trippin’’ trades in filigree ambient jungle delicacy, beside the caress of ‘deja entendu (dub)’ and frayed echoes of Timeblind in ‘red shift’, while a sublime highlight of spongiform subbass and fractalised breaks in ‘sex and drugs’ gives way to Burial-esque 2-step of ‘haunted tattoo’ and a weightless lushness approximating DJ Crystal or Photek underwater in ‘days go by’. Some hidden cuts on the vinyl edition too.

Good Morning Tapes salute 2025 with an opening gambit of textured ambient collage by newcomer Crust, fresh from Naarm’s fecund creative milieu.

A longtime dancer and partystarter, recently turning their hand to making music, Marcus Latcham aka Crust delivers a debut physical artefact on the back of mixes posted to soundcloud, which caught the attention of Biscuit and co’s Good Morning Tapes. Their maiden entry ‘Cell’ is intended as an abstracted metaphor for life and death, subtly deploying a palette of bittersweet, curdled ambient electronics in amniotic suspension before growing outward with a radiant new age plangency, weaving in 4th world brass tones and downbeats on its passage to a more disrupted jazzy ambient flourish. 

The B-side manifests in a transitional flux of more brooding and melodic gestures that congeal, knot, and fray with an emotive cadence that emerges in its arcing construction, mirroring “parallel thought worlds, post human voids and emotional tides”.

RIYL Seefeel, Perila, Reagenz, 3XL.

Sparkling or Silent, by the duo composed of crys cole and Oren Ambarchi, is a moment apart in their respective artistic approaches, taking a step aside and marking a point of fixation around an electroacoustic method which, while always latent in both of their works, here asserts itself as a central compositional modality. However, the electroacoustic approach is not called upon here for its formal reasons, or even less as an aesthetic line to follow. On the contrary, it is seen as a writing tool, open to all possible sonic possibilities, a tool that allows the artist to draw, within the sound itself, an intertwined space where reminiscences, impressions and sensations weave a narrative on the edge of the imagination and the moments experienced together, a narrative in which a complex and sensitive layer of sound is embedded, blurring the boundaries between artistic project, intimate journey and shared dreams. — Derived from a live performance, unfamiliar music (paris) reveals the essence of the obsessions and sonic universe of Giuseppe Ielasi, a musician whose discretion is matched only by his talent and boundless dedication to musical creation over almost 30 years. unfamiliar music (paris) is a remarkable manifestation of Ielasi’s approach, an approach in which delicacy, sometimes nostalgia, and emotions know how, with discretion, to infuse a sound universe built around polyphony and reminiscence, around textures and motifs that intertwine, combine and drive each other with grace and inspiration. François J. Bonnet

crys cole returns to Black Truffle with Making Conversation, her third solo release for the label. After the intimate song-like constructions of Other Meetings (BT096), Making Conversation documents a different facet of cole’s work, presenting three rigorously conceptualised commissioned pieces, each of which extend her signature approach to highly amplified small sounds into new directions. The side-long title piece is a stereo version of an 8-channel sound installation exhibited in 2023 at the Tabakalera Art Center in Donostia / San Sebastian, Spain. The piece uses a multitude of instrumental, vocal, concrete and electronic sounds to evoke the soundscapes cole encountered during nocturnal listening session in Bali, Indonesia in 2018 and 2019. In this world of night sounds, she explains, she ‘observed the complex interplay between amphibian, lizard, bird and insect communication, domestic animals (roosters, dogs), man-made sounds (airplanes, vehicles, conversations and evening activities) and sounds that were difficult to place’. Drawing on field recordings as memory aids (but including none in the finished piece), cole’s piece uncannily reproduces the spatiality and pacing of environmental sound without attempting strictly to replicate it. We hear insect-like twittering and birdsong fragments, resonant thuds and distant roars, furtive crunches and taps, muffled breath and metallic scrapes. While at times it can be difficult to imagine the source of these sounds, at other points they are clearly instrumental or electronic in origin; in its placement and layering, though, the whole assemblage suggests the glorious, unthinking richness of a non-musical sound environment. Suggesting at once the electronic gardens of Rolf Julius and the little instrument expanses of classic AACM, the piece is a brilliant enactment of the Cagean drive to ‘imitate nature in her manner of operation’. ‘Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… (pt. 1)’ began as cole’s contribution to an Issue Project Room commission to realise a score from Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood’s Women´s Work, a 1975 collection of text and conceptual scores by women artists and composers. cole’s piece begins from Beth Anderson’s Valid for Life, a complex arrangement of the letter R in various typefaces. Where the composer suggests a realisation on a trio of acoustic instruments (playing rolls with velvet beaters), cole translates the piece into her characteristic sound and object language as a trio of rolling sounds on ‘two large similar paper things and one 5-pin bowling ball’. Rolling from one side of the stereo field to the other, the bowling ball’s uneven movement is the heart of this immersive textural array, created with the simplest materials, which generates phantom sensations of pitch and phasing effects solely through amplified friction. On ‘Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… (pt. 2)’, cole makes a first foray in translating her signature approach into conventional instrumental sounds, here in the form of a transcription for MIDI percussion ensemble. The result is refreshingly puzzling, comparable perhaps only to the sparsest moments of Keiji Haino’s classic “C’est parfait…” Accompanied with extensive liner notes, photographic documentation and a download code, Making Conversation is an exciting next step in cole’s work, extending her signature concerns in new sonic and conceptual directions.

A flawless downbeat diamond is back in circulation with 10 year repress of Conrad Standish & Sam Karmel’s 1st EP as CS + Kreme - an essential jewel in the Naarm (Melbourne) crown along with fellow greats HTRK, Tarquin Manek, YL Hooi, Carla Dal Forno, Laila Sakini, et al Among our favourite records of the past decade, ‘EP1’ has become a true go-to when nowt else will suffice. For half an hour it caresses the senses and bathes bodies in blissed-out vox and velvet stroked textures that glisten with a certain, far-away Antipodean romance that simply transports and beautifully hurts every time. A case in point is ‘Devotion’, with dawn-break synth pads and calm heartbeat introducing a gorgeous Hindustani-style string motif and Clare Wolnick’s flute, before Conrad’s mantric vox just sets it off to a whole other plane. Or ‘Basic Instinct (Club Scene)’ that follows it, a track that to our ears always felt like a time-warped refraction of The Style Council’s sweaty, debonaire ‘Long Hot Summer’, pitch bent and pitch-fucked to absolutely heart-melting perfection; the care and attention to floating, dub-wise space and everything measured in its right place just leaving you with your heart-in-mouth like little else.

CS + Kreme’s utterly sublime 2nd EP is mercifully made available again, doubling down on their brand of melancholic tristesse with achingly beautiful songwriting gilded by Conrad’s serpentine basslines and elevated by Sam’s slinky atmospheric suspense, with cameo by HTRK’s Nigel Yang. Partner to their 2016 debut, ‘EP2’ can be heard as the other half of what is effectively an album when paired with their eponymous first move. It is a masterclass in slow, dreamy world-building that skilfully distills myriad modes of downbeat suss into songs that warrant play on repeat - just ask any owner of the record or those who’ve drooled over it for nearly a decade; the verdict will surely be unanimous, harmonious. One of a clutch of modern classics on Total Stasis along with likes of Elysia Crampton’s ‘The Light You Gave Me To See You’ and early Ramzi joints, ‘EP2’ would stealthily reveal new aspects to strains of modal downbeat sound that can be heard in context of DIY folk, new age ambient or adult contemporary, and with faintest echoes of off-peak club music in the rearview. But the real magick lies in the way they pare everything back to its most salient substance and allow it to breathe, sway, get lost-and-found in itself. Fair to pick fan fave ‘Roast Ghost (Swimming Thru The Pillars Mix)’ as a highlight, practically undressing the senses with 9 mins of candle-flicker 808 and purling bass with Conrad’s vox luring deep into its glowing lustre. Yet the rest is equally midas-touched, from Nigel Lee-Yang’s plaintive guitar motif on ‘Whip’ firming up the HTRK link, to Sam’s dub wise tekkerz coming into play like prime Massive Attack on ‘Sisters’, and again with Conrad’s bass rolling down the off ramp ‘Portal’ into billowing keys, congas and Jack Doepel’s sax like some detail of a panorama described by The Necks and Bohren Und Der Club of Gore. Don’t sleep, you may be waiting another 8 years…

After delivering one of this decade’s early classic LPs, Naarm’s brilliantly incomparable CS + Kreme morph into modal jazz electronic mutations on a deadly cool but restless new album exploring the fissures of Detroit beatdown, early ‘00s electronica, contemporary midnight jazz and ambient rituals, featuring contributions from Bridget St John and James Rushford. Adored around these parts since their 2016 debut 12” with Total Stasis, Conrad Standish & Sam Karmel’s duo really dominated our listening lives during the pandemic with ’Snoopy’, a heady elision of downbeat styles that crossed borders between lysergic Coil rites and illbient trip hop with a snug intimacy and emotive grip that rewarded deeper with every listen. One of their last live shows before the pandemic was held at The White Hotel in Salford, where the formative, physical experience of performing their music on a finely tuned sound system stuck with the duo as they caught one of the last flights back to Australia, where they endured one of the harshest lockdown protocols in the world; not allowed to travel more than 5 miles from home, and only for limited amounts of time. During lockdown the residual glow of the preceding months buoyed their spirits and prompted a new slant on CS + Kreme music, urging them to get deeper into it, with melody taking more of a backseat to texture and groove as the recordings manifested a more built-in, metaphoric and circular, organic quality that feels very much in-the-present, but also gently dissociative, evoking the interstitial states of mind of natural highs and nostalgic reminiscence ‘Orange’ arrives as the ideal sibling to ’Snoopy’, blessed with a touch-sensitive emotional intelligence and sensuality that oozes therapeutic vibes. The swirling energies of their first LP here feel settled into a quietly profound psychedelic experience, with longer track lengths allowing their feelings to grow and slosh over the senses with a groggier suspension of disbelief from the snaking rustle of ‘Baseline’ thru the extraordinary 20 minute depths of oily ambient invocation to ‘Storms Rips Banana Tree’ featuring James Rushford on portative organ, Wurlitzer and harpsichord. The spirit of Arthur Russell's "World of Echo" looms over 'Shred', as moody, viscous strings roll over reduced, machine-gun drum machine patterns and deranged lite-jazz electric piano. Any links the mind makes are inevitably blotted into surreal shapes almost immediately; just as you think you have an idea of where the track's coming from, bizarre vocals and unsettling flute blasts wrench you into a different locale. Even on the relatively austere 'Voice of the Spider', what starts as a baroque minimal techno slowly mutates into glassy FM modernism, with vocal chants and delirious, curvaceous instrumentation that plays like Kemetrix and Detroit Escalator Company on a dank one. If there's one element that lashes each disparate composition together, it's CS + Kreme's use of voices. On each track there's inevitably a wordless breathiness that roots us in the duo's sonic philosophy; their instrumentals might flutter between vastly different forms of expression, but their transient principles are moored by the most human expression of all. The whisper turns into a murmur (sung by legend Bridget St John) on 'Would You Like a Vampire', and lyrics form a near-song, sounding like Hood's rainy electro-indie variations supplanted into CS + Kreme's psychedelic headspace. It's as close as the duo get to pop, and they follow it by embarking on the album's most uncompromising moment, a 20-minute finale that lurches from transcendent ritual drone into jerky electronics, freeform doom jazz and growling basement noise. If you've made it this far then you've been initiated into Standish and Karmel's musical coterie, and this final mutated gesture feels like a gift from the duo to their most dedicated listeners.

The latest album by Melbourne, Australia-based experimental unit CS + Kreme, "The Butterfly Drinks The Tears Of The Tortoise", will be released on vinyl by the renowned London label, The Trilogy Tapes, run by Will Bankhead!

For the past 10 years, it has been a sacred place that has expanded the horizon of the underground scene in Copenhagen, Denmark, to the world, and defines one of the current experimental lifelines represented by and . A new catalog of the sacred place , which depicts the shoegaze sound of a new era that is a prestigious and prestigious spectacle of the beauty of nonexistent things, is in stock at once! !! 2022 by CTM, an experimental pop project that is also known as Posh's work with Croatian Amor, Varg² ™, Frederik Valentin & Loke Rahbek, and is a major authority in the Danish music world. The latest album "Babygirl" of the year is released in analog form. Produced by Holger Hartvig, Malthe Fischer and Cæcilie Trier. An ambitious work by gorgeous people such as Ydegirl, Coco O., Johan S. Wieth (Iceage), ML Buch, Jakob Littauer (Yangze), Emil Elg, Claus Haxholm, who were in charge of vocals and instruments. Containing years of recording and composition fragments, this work is positioned as a musical platform that incorporates many voice expressions, relationships and time. An ethereal and avant-garde daydreaming electronic music piece that floats melancholic between light and dark shadows! Mastering specifications by Malthe Fischer.

Vind is 12 pieces written and performed by CTM and produced by Jakob Littauer. The album consists of cello compositions with few exceptions - a daf enhancing the rhythm, a distant memory of the kora, a pensive flute or folly sounds. The softness of the acoustic instruments is counterplayed by concise compositions and hyperreal productions. The music presents itself as part spirit, part form; the movement in the moment, repetition, anticipation, what happened and what is to come. It's a sensuous search into stretched out moments, captured and held in one’s hand for a little while. It finds play and devotion, love and light. Dedicated to Jannis Noya Makrigiannis

Cucina Povera and Ben Vince’s debut full-length collaboration deploys an engrossing suite of noirish nocturnes based around Maria Rossi aka Cucina Povera’s muzzy vocal loops and Ben Vince’s accompaniments on saxophone, synth and piano. Born out of wonder, innocence and creative discovery, it’s the sound of two exploratory collaborators swimming into each other's ideas, from Terry Riley-esque transcendence to late-night sax swirls shrouding Rossi’s distinctive voice in dimly lit psychedelic smoke. London’s abundant waterways and parks provide an oneiric muse for Cucina Povera and Ben Vince’s resounding debut full-length collaboration, an engrossing suite of weightless sax, synth and disklavier-bedded soundscapes that land somewhere between Grouper and Terry Riley. As a newcomer to London, Rossi was caught up in a sort of wondrous reverie - a feeling that seeps through every movement of thia almost hour long album. Vince's plasmic echoes and Rossi's aerial delivery form a poetic union, twisting and painting each sound in pearlescent shades, finding a musical confluence between Rossi's words - fluid, dreamy, hazy ideations - and Vince's shadowy renditions. Rossi's folk roots shine through like cracks of dawn sunlight on 'Sumu Puistossa' ("fog in the park"), reverberating over organ and dream-zone sax; her words tip into muted surrealism thanks to the controlled chaos of Vince's bleak treatments. His grasp of jazz is transfixing: bending sax motifs like ghostly memories of music from another timeline, smudging them into the soundfield. It’s most effective on the title tracx, where sickly, dissonant notes flicker like an almost-extinguished candle alongside motorised furniture music courtesy of a Disklavier. From the Terry Riley-esque transcendence of '∞' to the sacred incantation of long-form closer 'Pikku Muurahaiskeko' ("little anthill"), the pair expose a new layer of creativity with each turn, gradually zooming out from discreet, vulnerable beauty to encompass a gently orchestrated chaos of sustained, sublime tension. Stunning.

ike an unsent love letter to a psychedelic London where everyone is trying to find their way to a secret Television Personalities gig, Cuneiform Tabs emerge with an astounding debut of lo-fi pop and DIY experimentation. A hazy collage of joyful heartaches, twisted children's TV themes and sing-song melodies, the album echoes the sounds of '60s AM radio from a dozen narrow alleyways to the North. Over 18 months, the Tabs' Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon traded 4-track tapes between the Bay Area and the UK. While they previously played together in indie band Violent Change, the duo's physical distance and their songwriting process of building, blurring and distorting across the Atlantic would create something no one saw coming. Grabbing any instruments at their disposal and splitting vocal duties, Bleyle and Mackinnon pushed their Tascam to its limit to make glittering, odd-shaped gems. There is an insular feel to Cuneiform Tabs, suited for late nights after the entire city has stumbled into dreamtime or lazy afternoons when you can't quite recall where you need to be, but you know you won't make it there on time. It's like a pirate radio show where Bob Pollard alternates Swell Maps and Cleaners From Venus records while randomly unplugging various bits of gear and reading passages from a book on R.D. Laing.。

Sublime psych drone and gauzy chamber pop by Oakland, CA duo Cuneiform Tabs, unmistakably on a plane shared by everyone from Flaming Tunes to Jane Arden & Jack Bond, Cindy Lee, Animal Collective. “Quickly on the heels of their debut, Cuneiform Tabs return with Age, an LP that takes a massive leap forward in both melodic sensibilities and inventiveness. Bathed in late night psychedelia and the looping repetition of a drone sample, the group's experimental penchants remain, yet this time wrapped around tunes too sweet to be denied. In pulling back a little of the crackle and haze that made their first album so inviting, the Tabs have revealed more of their pop instincts. The overall effect is a perfect set of early Animal Collective demos or Syd Barrett attempting a Television Personalities cover at 3am. The duo of Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon continue their system of trading 4-track tapes between the Bay Area and London, a furtive correspondence until sonic nuggets are fully formed. While these songs are very much the product of the Tascam and rudimentary software that is integral to the band, this album is truly the embrace of their songwriting talents – not unlike the recent breakthrough of labelmate Cindy Lee. With the dream-like strum of "Ivy," slow shimmer of "Orbital Rings" and enchanting, madcap swirl of "Blended Medal," this is hypnagogic pop at its finest. Age is the record Bob Pollard hears in his head every time he steps down to the basement to pick up a guitar. This is the sound of riding in an elevator hearing McCartney singing "Blackbird" in the distance, only to have it draw closer and closer with each floor as you finally race down the hallway, putting your ear to each door searching for the source. This is Leonard Cohen smoking in the middle of the street outside a Suicide show. If all of this sounds phenomenal, it is.”

Crucial listening if you're into Still House Plants, caroline, Tara Clerkin Trio, Moonshake or even This Heat, London-based duo Curbside Lambsear's debut upsets the foundations of post-rock, slowcore, noise and folky prog by adroitly integrating electronics and studio techniques; there's songs in there, but there's far more going on than that. Made up of caroline violinist Magdalena McLean and The Umlauts' Annabelle Mödlinger, both Austrians who found themselves in London, Curbside Lambsear arrive fully formed. Best friends, they met while studying in Vienna before properly connecting years later when they were moving in the same musical circles. They were both motivated by London's unstuffy experimental pop scene, particularly Mica Levi and their acolytes, but also obsessed with fringe post-rock like Tarwater and Duster, so they decided to develop something far enough away from their regular ensembles that they could work on a signature sound. Indeed, the EP emerges from a course of experimentation when McLean and Mödlinger decided to adapt on the go, fixing a sound while they learned new instruments, shared poems and voice notes and getting themselves comfortable with the process of working in a DAW. Where this might have lead to a sequence of demos, McLean and Mödlinger were confident enough and skilled enough to rustle up one of the best post-rock EPs we've heard in a while. The chugging, processed guitars and loping drums of opener 'No Ordinary Word' might lock into the capital's underground family tree at first, down the line that gave us Dome, Disco Inferno and Bark Psychosis, but McClean's effortlessly cool, insouciant vocal delivery puts it alongside gear from Tirzah or Raisa K. And on the keyboard mashed 'Jjochstubn', the duo spend a good four minutes pulling apart the traces of a song; "the winter takes it all," McClean hums, the voice timestretched across crooked, slowed-down drums and buzzing A/C on-the-fritz soundscapes. Even when the tempo picks up, the smoke doesn't fully clear - Curbside Lambsear thankfully don't seem particularly interested in clean sounds. Best of all is 'Avril', where McClean's casual words are dropped over euphoric noise, hyper-compressed drums and feedback forming what might as well be a pop song. Brilliant stuff, beginning to end.

Yaphet is the new album from rapper Curly Castro- also known as one half of the dynamic duo Shrapknel- out September 18, 2026, on Backwoodz Studioz. On Yaphet, Castro draws inspiration from the Blaxploitation film genre of the 1970’s; using that era’s black heroes and antiheroes as a launching pad for his cinematic lyricism. Flows switch as effortlessly as camera angles; verses are saturated with references and entendres; it’s an endlessly rewind-worthy rap masterclass. But Yaphet is also Castro’s first solo album since 2021’s Little Robert Hutton, and beneath the fireworks, this album reflects the depth of his experiences in those intervening years. “I didn’t set out to be so honest about my life, but that’s what came out and the album is better for it,” Castro explains, “from facing the death of my infant daughter, to my father’s death, to facing my own impending mortality, these are my most vulnerable blades, on my deepest cuts.” Like Castro, this record marches to the beat of its drum, and make no mistake, there are drums a-plenty for the veteran MC to spar with, as only he can. Produced entirely by Milwaukee beat maker Locust, Yaphet is a bouncy, eclectic listen that nods to its influences, without ever looking backward. Castro is joined by a whirlwind of the genre’s finest: billy woods, PremRock, Fatboi Sharif, Brian Ennals, SKECH185, Blueprint, AJ Suede, shemar, ALASKA, Sunmundi, blackchai, & Margel the Sophant.

Yaphet is the new album from rapper Curly Castro- also known as one half of the dynamic duo Shrapknel- out September 18, 2026, on Backwoodz Studioz. On Yaphet, Castro draws inspiration from the Blaxploitation film genre of the 1970’s; using that era’s black heroes and antiheroes as a launching pad for his cinematic lyricism. Flows switch as effortlessly as camera angles; verses are saturated with references and entendres; it’s an endlessly rewind-worthy rap masterclass. But Yaphet is also Castro’s first solo album since 2021’s Little Robert Hutton, and beneath the fireworks, this album reflects the depth of his experiences in those intervening years. “I didn’t set out to be so honest about my life, but that’s what came out and the album is better for it,” Castro explains, “from facing the death of my infant daughter, to my father’s death, to facing my own impending mortality, these are my most vulnerable blades, on my deepest cuts.” Like Castro, this record marches to the beat of its drum, and make no mistake, there are drums a-plenty for the veteran MC to spar with, as only he can. Produced entirely by Milwaukee beat maker Locust, Yaphet is a bouncy, eclectic listen that nods to its influences, without ever looking backward. Castro is joined by a whirlwind of the genre’s finest: billy woods, PremRock, Fatboi Sharif, Brian Ennals, SKECH185, Blueprint, AJ Suede, shemar, ALASKA, Sunmundi, blackchai, & Margel the Sophant.

What happens when a band makes two brilliant albums and disappears for decades? Music finds a way, with both Current Joys and Beach Fossils discovering these slacker anthems long after dial-up's demise. LA's Current Joys tackle "Cooking" from Contemporary Movement, reimagining the San Jose trio's lo-fi couch potato slouch as a treadmill-ready, jangly power pop ripper. On the flip, Brooklyn's Beach Fossils gives "Inside Out" a facelift, tightening up the original's loose folds while staying true to its curves and freckly stardust. Housed in a full color sleeve, with a nod to Stratosphere photographer Sam Erlich, this limited edition double-sider is a crucial add to any aspiring collector of the Dusterverse.