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Paris, 1965. Pianist François Tusques laid the foundation stone of French-style free jazz with his first, soberly titled, album “Free Jazz”. Also in the team were several future key names of the French scene, (Michel Portal, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin, Charles Saudrais and François Jeanneau) all of whom honed their skills at the beginning of the decade in Jef Gilson’s groups, although he was none too fond of the turbulent new face of jazz at the time. Ten years later, Jef Gilson had obviously changed his tune, as the label Palm that he had created in 1973 was now the launch pad for what would become the cream of French and international avant-garde jazz. This would notably be the case for François Jeanneau and “Une Bien Curieuse Planète”. His first album as leader (after briefly erring into pop with Triangle) was recorded in 1975, a few months after “Watch Devil Go” by his old friend Jacques Thollot, and with more or less the same casting: Jeanneau on sax of course, Jenny-Clark on bass and percussions, Lubat replacing Thollot on drums and Michel Grailler (plucked out of Magma) was called in as a reinforcement for his completely ‘out of space*’ synthetiser sounds. Thus began a strange trip to a very strange planet, at the border of experimental jazz and swinging avant-garde. From 1960 to nowadays, from Georges Arvanitas to Laetitia Shériff, from Manu Dibango to “Mama” Béa Tékielski, everyone has wanted to play with François Jeanneau at some point. There is a good reason for this. The saxophonist is a formidable improviser, but also a solid composer, as he demonstrates on this record with, for example, the monumental “Droit d’Asile”, the spooky “Theme For An Unknown Island” or the Coltranesque “Mr J.C. For Ever”. Over half a century later, the planet seems far more familiar to us. And François Jeanneau is always on the front line for a guided tour.

First reissue! This is a sequel to the 1970 solo piano work "Piano Dazibao" after the release of France's first free jazz album "Free Jazz" and "Le Nouveau Jazz" created with Barney Wilen and others. A solo piano work released in 1971 from the Buddha Underground Music Hall of Futura Records. In contrast to the confusion of the previous work, this work contains a maze-like long song in which dissonance and repetition appear alternately. "Attica 71", which uses a prepared piano and has a percussive hammer stroke to develop a minimalistic development, and "La Zone Des Tempêtes", which has a meditative majesty, are magnificent as if praying for peace from a storm. Work. A work that is two sides of the same coin with the previous work "Piano Dazibao". 180G heavy board & remastering specifications.

Frank and His Sisters is a family band formed by Frank Humplick, Thecla Clara, and Maria Regina in the early 1950s in Moshi, a Tanzanian city located in the rolling hills of the southern foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Frank and His Sisters, a family band formed by Frank Humplick, Thecla Clara, and Maria Regina in the early 1950s, is known for their tours and recordings throughout East Africa with their fans. The album is a dreamy fusion of John Fahey's fingerstyle, The Carter Family, The Beach Boys, and Tanzanian music from the golden age. It's an idyllic sound to listen to on a sunny afternoon with the windows open!

Fully licensed, limited to 500 copies. Frank Chickens could have been possibly forerunners for several famous alternative band, Cibo Matto, but sure had a development on their own. They began in London, early eighties as the original creation of Japanese performers Kazuko Hohki and Kazumi Taguchi. The band debuted with a pair of singles and a full length on Kaz Records. Backed by the likes of Steve Beresford (Alterations, The Slits, General Strike, London Improvisers Orchestra), Annie Whitehead (Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Robert Wyatt), Lol Coxhill, Tony Coe, and Clive Bell, the band soon became a case in history. Now, 37 years after its original release, their second album is being reissued: Get Chickenized! The record came out in 1987 on the British label Flying Lecords and showed a different side of the project, with a major focus on the so-called synth wave counterculture, still maintaining a certain avant feel. With original conspirator Steve Beresford still on board, the band was propelled in the studio by another key figure of the London underground: journalist, composer and producer David Toop. Being John Peel's favorite for a while, the band built a cult following retaining some absurd live performances, well known for their idiosyncratic choreography. Later revamped in the year 2000, thanks to cult label Ninja Tune, the band enjoyed a second wave of success, with a remix album featuring the likes of Pizzicato 5, Fink, and Neotropic. With a cover embellished by the labor of Pere Ubu David Thomas, this second influential album is finally available for your listening pleasure.

Death Is Not The End sub-label 333 hits again with a reissue of a rarely encountered piece of prime UK digi, courtesy of Franklyn Bernard aka Frankie B - mixed at Fashion's A Class Studio in Clapham, and released on the Ital Stuff label in early 1986. Frankie B began his recording career with producer Bert Douglas, first releasing on his Reggae City label in 1984 with the No More Tears 7" under his birth name Franklyn Bernard. In 1985 he then linked up with Ital Stuff - a production team consisting of three brothers who also helmed the Sweet & Bitter Band. Operating a small eight track studio in the basement of their house in Balham, Ital Stuff had recently been responsible for putting together and laying down the backing track to Dixie Peach's classic Pure Worries, released on the Jah Tubbys label in 1985. Upon playing Pure Worries to Frankie he was immediately inspired to lay down his own vocal on the track, which too features Dixie Peach contributing vocal harmonies - it was recorded late 1985 and mixed down along with a ferocious dub side at South London's A Class Studio, eventually seeing release in early 1986.

The cult Canadian band lands on Mood Hut for an album of sunburnt It's difficult to imagine a more topical band name than Freak Heat Waves, though the Canadian duo have been using it for over a decade. A hard-to-pin-down staple of the country's eclectic DIY scene, Steven Lind and Thomas Di Ninno are as Montreal weirdo as they are Vancouver stoner. Their fifth album is their first for Mood Hut, which gives a hint as to where their heads are at these days. Cementing a gradual shift from wiry punk to vintage post-disco, Mondo Tempo finds the duo getting stuck into a style of humid machine funk that pairs samples and sequencers with live drums and distant vocals. It's a clever formula that should prove irresistible to any fan of the smoked-out sound Mood Has cultivated over the past decade, bringing the label's indie rock origins to the fore. If this is your first Freak Heat Waves release, on first listen, opener "The Time Has Come" could come off as Pender Street Steppers pastiche: dusty drums, flamboyant sax sample, semi-ironic disco guitar lick, muttered vocals. But it also sounds unusually lush and open. The reverb on Lind's ultra-baritone voice lends him a dollar-bin Barry White smoothness, and the drums fall into a funky pocket you can't get from a straight-up drum machine. Both of these elements are key to Freak Heat Waves' unusual appeal. On "Endless," Lind stretches out his vowels into hilariously exaggerated syllables—like "helpleeesss." His laconic drawl contrasts the precocious hi-hats and snares, which are panned left and right as if your head was inside the bass drum. The warmed-over quality of Mondo Tempo can might read lo-fi, but the duo create a rich and detailed word within their sepia-toned confines. Starting out sprightly and meandering from there, Mondo Tempo gets slower as it chugs along, with a particularly druggy back half. Highlights like "Off My Mind"—whose meditative beat and wailing diva samples sound like a synth funk band covering 808 State—and "Altered States" make a clear connection between Mood Hut and and the band's DIY punk past. After all, Mood Hut and the Vancouver scene built around it was started by members of rock bands who brought their instrumental chops and pop instincts to chilled-out house music. Freak Heat Waves reverse engineer that from the opposite perspective, making idiosyncratic dance jams out of off-kilter rock music. The title track is a great example, a stark climate change warning disguised as a chill-out room jam. With Lind warning about "One degree / Worldwide / Have we begun to reach the breaking," it would be painfully preachy if it weren't couched in such a seductively lazy beat—encapsulating the mix of paralyzing fear and resignation felt by so many of the world's young people. 
Lind's over-the-top baritone can make Freak Heat Waves feel like a stoner comedy sometimes. But any sense of irony falls away on album highlight "In A Moment Divine," which is the finest song ever released on Mood Hut. A collaboration with Cindy Lee, formerly of Calgary noise rock band Women, "In A Moment Divine" pulls together the band's lo-fi disco, synth pop and even progressive house into a unique torch song with a hint of breakbeat. Strings breathe in and out on the meek verses, while a sequencer somewhere between New Order and Sasha frames the more desperate choruses. When everything drops out to leave just those synths, the result is elegant and beautiful—heartbreak captured in the sputtering notes of a machine. Firing on all cylinders, here Freak Heat Waves reveal themselves as priests of a syncretic religion combining dance music and DIY punk, pointing to a future in both dance and straight-up pop. Which way, Canadian men? The beauty is that Freak Heat Waves don't have to choose, and they never have. Whether Mondo Tempo is a true fork or just a diversion, Lind and Di Ninno continue to go their own way, making a well-worn West Coast sound feel fresh all over again.

Fred Frith is simultaneously a singular musical figure and a collection of musical lifetimes. He‘s the composer who wrote fragile avant-garde music in the tradition of John Cage and Earle Brown, the innovator who created new concepts of underground rock with his colleagues in the band Henry Cow, and the improviser who developed his very own language on the guitar. The many facets of Frith‘s musical oeuvre shimmer in vibrant and unique colors, but stand as one rainbow monolith of musical creation, never disintegrating into esoteric eclecticism. Always musically curious and unbiased, he develops his ideas in the moment, demonstrating in real time how his creative process, while free of old hat conventions and tricks, creates an immediate yet unrandom and committed music. At the core is his unique guitar playing, which is on full display across these two records. His debut, "Guitar Solos" (1974), opened up a space beyond rock and improvised music, and now, 50 years later comes "Fifty" (2024), a new solo guitar album that sounds completely different and yet familiar, that adds to his monolith of musical creation with another new vibrant color.

Originally released on Hit in 1977, "The Best Of Freddy McKay" is not a best of album but Freddy McKay's third album, recorded at Channel One and Harry J's studio and backed by the Revolutionaries. The Best Of Freddy McKay" is not a best of album but Freddy McKay's third album, recorded at Channel One and Harry J's studio and backed by Revolutionaries.

SP-1200 beats made using postal service. Fredfades and Sraw collaborate through post, exchanging dusty beats for an experimental Hip Hop record. The process of sending floppy discs back and forth, where each producer added element over element on their own SP-1200, has been on-going for almost 10 years, slowly building a collaborative body of work. The result is Double Density, an LP that oozes with the character of that infamous instrument which laid much of the foundation for the earliest Hip Hop artists and still manages to evoke those raw and visceral sounds of that era. Reinforcing those sounds are the voices of Planet Asia, Pink Siifu and Blue November, who deliver lyrics from US coasts to Scandanavia’s fjords. The duos collaborative effort swims in a sea of eclectic influences where Jazz, Soul and Hip-Hop thrive in the construct of this unique instrument. The drum machine pops, crackles and hisses on a bed of big bass lines through 13 tracks that go from short instrumentals to fully arranged songs. Taking Hip-Hop back to its origins, everything is stripped bare to its essentials and for every vocal track, there’s its antithesis in the form of an instrumental break. It’s a record that plays with the archetypes of Hip Hop and Rap as something that we’ve lost over the years that begs for revocation. Double Density sounds exotic in the world of today’s gleaming beats.

Innercity Griots, the second album from Freestyle Fellowship, is perhaps *the* essential West Coast left-field rap album of the early ’90s. Released in 1993 on 4th & Broadway, it’s a towering, progressive hip-hop masterpiece that expanded rap’s boundaries through lyrical elevation and production innovation. Their talent was ahead of everybody else by light years. This is pure b-boy jazz. The original single vinyl LP is now hideously scarce, and of course the sound suffers from not being officially released as a double. This Be With re-issue fixes both problems, and for completeness also includes “Pure Thought” from the CD version of the album. This incredible display of imaginative hip-hop sounds better than ever. Freestyle Fellowship were some of the earliest technically dazzling rappers to come out of California. Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E., Aceyalone and Self Jupiter - along with DJ Kiilu - forged their famed lyrical dexterity in the ultra-competitive crucible of the Good Life Cafe. Founded in Leimert Park, South Central LA in December 1989, this earthy health-food store and cafe was where the city’s finest microphone fiends would gather to showcase their freestyle skills at the Thursday night open-mic.

After two 12 inches, the legendary Mick Harris (Scorn, Napalm Death,Lull) steps up with his first full length double lp for L.I.E.S. under his FRET moniker. Over 10 tracks, "Because of the Weak" displays Harris in his most intense sonic form to date, blasting through the red with reckless abandon and destroying all weakeners and sound systems in his path. This is the definition of black hole industrial techno and while it's completely pulverizing, Harris' heavy trademark dubstyle elements are strongly present, coupled with deeply psychedelic textures swirling within the deadly onslaught of this album. While others have softened up through the years, Mick has upped the ante, staying true to the unrelenting intensity he pioneered behind the drum kit back in the 80s. Turn on the TV, witness the demise of humanity, put this album on and watch it all fall to pieces minute by minute. Never more could music of this magnitude be more relevant. Not recommended for those with medical conditions!

Swaying & icy ELECTRONIC DUB compilation straight from DELODIO STUDIO SESSIONS. " An iceberg crusing the Jamaican coastline."

Froid Dub continues to explore its synth-lined slowed down digi-dub cave flooded with waves of echoes and acid bleeps. Bass lines and flanged delays sail over deep waters, seemingly barely disturbed by the minimal pump of the synth-wave vibe.

French synth-dub duo Froid Dub continue their blast of organic and digital material on this brand new 6-track album. Pushing the clash between synth wave and dub even further, the electronic beats of the TR-808 are more than ever engulfed in the slow motion vibes of the digi-bass echoes.French synth-dub duo Froid Dub continue their blast of organic and digital material on this brand new 6-track album. Pushing the clash between synth wave and dub even further, the electronic beats of the TR-808 are more than ever engulfed in the slow motion vibes of the digi-bass echoes.

The current three artists will challenge the difficult song "Gun Ho 1,2,3D", which is a masterpiece of New Zealand's legendary performance group From Scratch. This is a cover performance collection in which each person explores how to play with percussion as the common denominator (* not a remix collection). Everyone made it very hard. I look forward to working with you!

From Scratch is a development of a performance group organized by Phil Dudson, who learned from the far-left musician Cornelius Cardew, as the New Zealand branch of the Scratch Orchestra in the 1970s. They are known around the world for their combative custom instruments, and Ryuichi Sakamoto became a percussion instrument unit at a glance, and he visited Japan twice.

The work that can be said to be their true value is this difficult song "Gung Ho 1,2,3D", which features hocking in which the performers beat different beats individually, and the ultimate polyrhythm with accurate repetitive rhythm is a masterpiece. The sound is mechanical and inorganic in terms of characters, but the overtone-covered mundane sounds generated from the vinyl chloride tube and the slight error caused by human performance become organic components and create a mysterious ecstasy.

In this work, the original recording of 1981, which was performed in the most complicated 8,9,10 and 9,10,11 time signatures of "Gung Ho 1,2,3D", is the first, and the current three artists in Japan and abroad: Goat (M2) led by YPY Koshiro Hino / Don't DJ (M3), a German genius / Utena Kobayashi (M4), who is currently active in DAN, Tokumaru Shugo, etc. Contains a total of 4 works. All the performances are based on the score, but the interpretations of the four are completely different, and despite the fairly advanced performance, it has a pop appearance due to the repetitive rhythm.

+ CD version: Japanese / English commentary / normal jewel case / booklet included

The current three artists will challenge the difficult song "Gun Ho 1,2,3D", which is a masterpiece of New Zealand's legendary performance group From Scratch. This is a cover performance collection in which each person explores how to play with percussion as the common denominator (* not a remix collection). Everyone made it very hard. I look forward to working with you!

From Scratch is a development of a performance group organized by Phil Dudson, who learned from the far-left musician Cornelius Cardew, as the New Zealand branch of the Scratch Orchestra in the 1970s. They are known around the world for their combative custom instruments, and Ryuichi Sakamoto became a percussion instrument unit at a glance, and he visited Japan twice.

The work that can be said to be their true value is this difficult song "Gung Ho 1,2,3D", which features hocking in which the performers beat different beats individually, and the ultimate polyrhythm with accurate repetitive rhythm is a masterpiece. The sound is mechanical and inorganic in terms of characters, but the overtone-covered mundane sounds generated from the vinyl chloride tube and the slight error caused by human performance become organic components and create a mysterious ecstasy.

In this work, the original recording of 1981, which was performed in the most complicated 8,9,10 and 9,10,11 time signatures of "Gung Ho 1,2,3D", is the first, and the current three artists in Japan and abroad: Goat (M2) led by YPY Koshiro Hino / Don't DJ (M3), a German genius / Utena Kobayashi (M4), who is currently active in DAN, Tokumaru Shugo, etc. Contains a total of 4 works. All the performances are based on the score, but the interpretations of the four are completely different, and despite the fairly advanced performance, it has a pop appearance due to the repetitive rhythm.

+ CD version: Japanese / English commentary / normal jewel case / booklet included

FUJI||||||||||TA returns to Hallow Ground with his second full-length for the label after we had released his international breakthrough album »iki« in early 2020. Active since 2006, the Japanese composer and sound artist has become prolific since the release of »iki,« releasing a slew of records while also touring the world. His new album »MMM« is Yosuke Fujita’s most complex so far. Changing the set-up of his pipe organ by switching to an electric air pump allowed him to activate new sonic and compositional potentials of the instrument, while he also expanded upon his experiments with his own voice. »MMM« is a masterpiece of conceptual and formal rigour—a testament to how multi-layered and versatile the music of FUJI||||||||||TA can be. Previous releases had already showcased Fujita's interest in working with the rhythmic potentials of the organ he built himself in 2009. Replacing its hand-operated air pump with an electric one allowed him to work with it more freely and simultaneously record its sounds. This marked the starting point for the opener »M-1,« for which he recorded the pipes by waving a gun microphone close to it, thus creating shifting rhythmic patterns. The piece engages in a perpetual play of repetition and difference, balancing sonic intensity with compositional dramaturgy. For »M-2,« the artist uses his voice and works with a singing technique he has developed over more than a decade: constantly exhaling and inhaling, he puts a strain on his internal organs in order to create what he calls a »third voice.« The resulting piece is built on a throbbing rhythmic foundation topped by wordless melodies. »M-3« closes the album as a synthesis of these two pieces, but is far more than the mere sum of its parts. The subtle tonal shifts of the organ take on a more subdued role this time, and Fujita’s scat growling and singing reappears in processed form. »M-3« combines the rhythms and melodies of the previous pieces to let something entirely new emerge out of them, much like the album is based on perpetual changes and recombinatory strategies. In fact, Fujita explains, the acronymic title can be read in many ways: this album is minimalistic, but freely mixes and mingles different materials in magical and even metaphorical ways while also paying its dues to his wife and daughter—M. and M. Just like its title can mean a lot of different things, »MMM« itself is ever-evolving, traversing different moods and opening itself up to a plethora of interpretations at each of its many turns.

If HiTech were wrapped into one person, you would get FULLBODYDURAG, an awesome producer and DJ spinning everything from Ghetto Tech to House to Hip-Hop and Jazz. This LP features all his friends including FXHE label head Omar S on "Trillionaire" and "Juice." HELLO :) proves there's tons of young talent in Detroit that deserve to be heard — Omar S heard their passion and desire to keep Detroit on the map for at least another 100 years and this LP is the epitome of their talent.

"Always take from the past - avoiding the empty longings of nostalgia - with a view to understanding the new place it might hold in the future. Good Morning Tapes has done just that, and with the 90’s revival in something of a full swing, the label finally gets the chance to release a pivotal 10 year old mix that didn’t just ignite a curious wave of reflection and appropriation, it marked a culmination in the shifting sonic sands for its creator Mr. Alexis Le-Tan. His name needs little light thrust upon it in these hallowed cosmic halls, with his enduring and ever present mixes being a staple for those that know. Back to Disco Valley is arguably his most important mix - it both recontextualised a dirty and forgotten sound of the past, and facilitated a wave of new freedoms for those wishing to look backwards in order to move forwards. Most importantly it planted the seed for everything Full Circle to come. Back to Disco Valley is above all else a personal reckoning for Alexis and Joakim, it marked a moment when many problems inherent in a trapped older sound - with a sublime yet dated history of its own - could breath fresh life in the present day; a new slower realm was born. The slowing down of dance music is nothing new, and certainly where peak time beats have existed a spiritual shadow that revels in a slower ethereal space to dance has never been far away. Stylistically on one level, Back to Disco Valley might seem to build on what Baldelli or Loda were doing many years ago, and it certainly has that effortless charm, but it goes much further, not just in its re-appraisal of the frenetic fast paced sounds of Goa, but as a signifier of where many wanted to head on the dancefloor - towards a slower oasis - incorporating new releases and modern sounding rarities along the way. Indeed, in selecting the 33rpm dial rather than that marked 45, Full Circle at once opened up the new space inside a music some of us went bananas to 30 years ago, and at the same time made sense of a crucial yet forgotten heritage; a confession became a badge of honour. Coming back to Full Circle and its genesis: it was only a matter of time before the old Goa records would come back down from the racks and spawn a new life, and perhaps whilst Le-Tan cemented something a lot of us knew, Back to Disco Valley somehow liberated many of those early records from their stylistic shackles initiating a creative project that - along side the collaborative work with Joakim - has released a wave of inspirational edits and re-imaginations. Full Circle - in all its conceptual & metaphorical majesty - really has come to represent the most stylish of takes on past sounds, both in the realm of selection and re-working. It is certainly true that Back to Disco Valley - sounding now as it did then (to the select tuned ears that got to listen) - reflects a perfect meeting between an off-tempo past, present and future, being more than a functional assemblage, it revives many a lost memory, inspiring a new batch of ideas, and always looking back with a purpose.

Alexis Le Tan and Joakim return to Good Morning tapes as Full Circle. On 'From Back There Again' they glance backwards in order to progress forwards. They're on a mission to sloooow your circulation, as they take elements from ambient, trance and Italo disco and reduce the tempos to a gentle chug, resulting in a more spacious, laid-back psychedelic groove that wouldn't have been out of place in the back room of yer fave '90s rave, with a wee bit of contemporary flavour.

best japanese jazz pianist “fumio itabashi”,german house producer “henrik schwarz”,
one of best japanese electronic music producer “kuniyuki” made the re-recording of
japanese jazz classic “watarase” together in japan few years ago.
they have played together at montreux jazz festival in tokyo and everyone thought we should make the record together.
now finally we’re going to release this excellent record.
henrik schwarz and kuniyuki made the own version.
the musics are simply gorgeous!

after great rework of jan jazz classic “watarase” by fumio itabashi,henrik schwarz,kuniyuki, joe claussell reconstructed “watarase”. it’s an epic cosmic jazz fusion.joe claussell meets kuniyuki are always best. on b side, it’s a rare minyo(japanese folk song) version of watarase. it’s a live version that fumio itabashi played with the local orchestra and minyo singer. a lot of diggers have been wishing to be released on vinyl. so this release is one of the most important catalogue on studio mule. With ‘Drumming Up Trouble’, American experimental music composer Alvin Curran - perhaps known best for his work in live improv group Musica Elettronica Viva - presents an album of unreleased material for the Black Truffle label. Focussing on a largely unknown side of his work - namely, with synthesized and sampled percussion - it’s a collection of work recorded between 2018 and 2021, with the exception of ‘Field It More’ that takes up an entire side and dates back to the early Eighties. Polyrhythmic, wild and unstable, it will be of interest to anybody with even a passing love of beats and rhythm.

ジャパニーズ・シンセ・プロッグの先駆け的存在であるFar East Family Bandでの活躍でも知られ、自身の音楽を「ヒーリング・ミュージック」と題して、膨大な数の作品を大いに編み出した日本屈指のニューエイジ・ミュージック作家/ミュージック・セラピスト、宮下富実夫。1999年に残された最後の未発表音源がアナログ・リリース。66年に音楽家としてのキャリアを始動、69年には東京のロック・ミュージカル「Hair」にも結成メンバーとして参与、伊藤詳や深草アキ始め、多くのニューエイジ作家を輩出したジャパニーズ・サイケデリック/プログレ・バンドの金字塔、Far East Family Bandを結成。同バンドは、今もその威光衰えることのない、4枚の傑作アルバムを残しています。高校の頃には黒帯になるほど、空手に熱中したことから東洋思想にも関心を持ち、さらにステージでの負傷を鍼治療のみ(!)で癒してからは東洋医学にも接近していくことに。本作はNHKが日本の名瀑を紹介する番組に関連して日本を代表する名瀑こと那智の滝にて宮下が奉納した演奏から得たインスピレーションをもとに制作。リバイバル以降の現行ニューエイジとも遜色ないセンスに満ちた響きを聞かせる、音楽の音絵巻のような極上アンビエント作！

Look around you. In recent years ambient music has changed and encountering Jon Hassell's fourth world design has become easy. Most of the time there’s no feeling, no narrative, a nothingness of ideas through layers and layers of pastiche and boring bedroom music. This is not bashing. Just a reminder that sometimes the information trap delays an understanding of how good music really is. “Cavalcante” is the new release by funcionário (born Pedro Tavares). You’ll find Jon Hassell in these eleven pieces. And yes, sometimes you’ll think about ambient music. Most of the time you’ll wonder about what is really happening. And why it's only now you’re hearing about this twenty-something musician from Setúbal, Portugal. A little bit more than one minute into “En Garde!”, the opening track, one feels challenged by the idea that everything that was listened up to that moment was a false start. The piece abruptly stops, flips some digital sound, and restarts in a whole new direction. As this happens it becomes obvious we are in for a treat. Those two, three seconds create a sensation that everything happens in a moment that introduces you to funcionário's craft: delicate complex sounds infatuated with the idea of movement and the never-ending notion that there’s no dividers in the fourth world. Music can go beyond that. As it moves forward – “Verde”, “Sierra” or “Publicidade Arco e Flecha” -, the album (his fourth) morphs around variations or perceptions of ambient / electronic / experimental music. And as the language evolves, it hints on how funcionário keeps stretching the boundaries of digital music as he wishes to advance to a more analog setup. In a way, he confronts foundational ideas while having breakthroughs and realizing he is at a top level. Justifiably ambitious, bright and discreetly edgy. We dare to say: monumental.