MUSIC

Los Angeles producer and artist Nosaj Thing AKA Jason W. Chung returns with his fifth album, Continua - featuring a stellar ensemble cast including HYUKOH, Toro y Moi, Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead), serpentwithfeet, Sam Gendel, Coby Sey, Julianna Barwick, Mike Andrews, Slauson Malone, Pink Siifu, Panda Bear & Eyedress.

Nosaj Thing's expertise is in crafting exquisite soundscapes that hold a mirror up to his journey from noise and punk shows at DIY venue The Smell, to his debut sets at Low End Theory, to touring with The xx and The Weeknd. Throughout, he has innovated with a live experiences conceived with Tokyo-based AV savant Daito Manabe. Chung's music carries such visceral humanity it feels like a disservice to refer to the 'mood' which pervades his records. But it's exactly that distinct mood which has made Nosaj Thing such a cult artists across his 16-year-deep discography.

Wganda Kenya was a group formed by Discos Fuentes under the idea of developing an African and Caribbean sound in order to appeal to the Costeño Colombian market and also inject a little international exoticism into the label. This 1976 album has become a collector’s favorite waiting to be reissued, and it’s not hard to understand why since it’s full of so many Afro-Funk, Congolese rumba and Caribbean-flavored dance floor burners. Special edition reissue containing two non-album bonus tracks from the same period that appeared on 45s and various artist compilations, as well as an insert with liner notes. Pressed on 180g vinyl. First time reissue.

First ever reissue of one of the most sought after titles in the catalogue of Peruvian’s label MAG, in high demand not only among Latin music collectors but also among those interested in the most exotic and experimental psychedelic sounds around. It includes ‘Astronautas a Mercurio’, a cosmic descarga full of electronic effects, filtered voices and fierce guitars with wah wah and raw distortion, as well as guarachas, cumbias and descargas.

Jacqueline Nova (Ghent, Belgium, 1935 - Bogotá, Colombia, 1975), a representative figure of Colombian avant-garde music, developed important and radical work within the field of electronic and instrumental music, as well as in interdisciplinary forms. This album, Creación de la Tierra - Ecos palpitantes de Jacqueline Nova: Música electroacústica e instrumental (1964-1974) ("Creation of the Earth - Throbbing Echoes of Jacqueline Nova: Electroacoustic and Instrumental Music (1964-1974)")¸ under the curatorship and research of the Colombian composer Ana María Romano G., recovers Nova's most important electroacoustic works: "Creación de la tierra (Creation of the Earth)" (1972), "Oposición-Fusión (Opposition-Fusion)" (1968) and "Resonancias 1 (Resonances 1)" (1968-69), as well as the music for the film Camilo el cura guerrillero (Camilo the Guerrilla Priest) (1974), composed during her stay at the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM) , of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, in Buenos Aires, as well as in the Study of Phonology of the University of Buenos Aires. The compilation also includes the instrumental works "Omaggio a Catullus" (1972-1974), "Transiciones (Transitions)" (1964-1965), and "Asuimetrías (Asymmetries)" (1967), in which she explores randomness, timbre possibilities or the encounter between acoustic and electronic media. The interest in experimenting with the human voice, and interdisciplinary work involving visual arts, were some of the aspects that have defined Jacqueline Nova's work. Ana María Romano has written: "Nova lived in an environment hostile to change, to debate and discussion, hostile to her being an autonomous and lesbian woman. She undertook feats that make her a pioneer, even though she did not set out to be taken as one, but only as a result of the commitment, dedication and passion of a creator with her society. Jacqueline Nova died in Bogotá of bone cancer. Her tragic and early death not only cut short a career in full creative force, but also directly affected the development of electroacoustic music in the country. After her death there was a great silence -- close to 15 years -- in musical creation with electronic means. Nova challenged a conservative milieu and survived alone, working in a field thought to be exclusively masculine. But it was a woman who strengthened the use of technology in Colombian music. A risky bet that sadly represented a high cost: Nova was relegated during her lifetime, but her noises managed to shake and question the comfort zones of the Colombian musical establishment." Includes a booklet with extensive information written by Ana María Romano G.; edition of 300.

First official reissue, remastered from master tapes. VINYL ONLY, NO DIGITAL. Recorded in 1981, Dance by Earthling is a cornerstone seminal album of Nippon new wave and synth-pop. The group called their first album DANCE to express the fullest flowers of rhythmic movement, attending to both physical and spiritual needs. Earthling consisted of the couple: lead vocalist/guitarist John, bass guitarist Yoko Fujiwara, plus keyboard/sythesizer player Jin Haijama. The group was formed in Tokyo in 1979 when John and Yoko, who had been fashion and textile designers, felt the desire to give the music they'd written a more permanent environment. The sound of Earthling reinforces the subtle and sensitive connections which link modern music to dance to, with hints of synth-pop, top notch new wave and heavy punkish vocals. Fun fact: "You go on Natural" became a well-known banger in the late 80s in La Ruta Destroy in Valencia, championed by local djs back then. Please note that the artwork was produced at a local Madrid-based printing house to maintain the same aesthetics as the original copies, maintaining the die-cut with the iconic six holes, displaying the blue color from the inner sleeve.

French guitarist Mischa Fitzgerald Michel, who studied under Jim Hall, covers the genius SSW Nick Drake, who died young, on this 2012 release. A hidden masterpiece revived in the modern era with unparalleled beauty, refined harmonies and proper interpretation.

When Carlos Niño is performing with his friends, he is embedded in the present. And from there, it seems like he can see anything: every possible place a song might go, how a sound might evolve, whether or not it will make his listeners and collaborators feel seen and appreciated. He is a maestro of arranging time and space into supportive containers, somehow completely in sync with the moment and beyond all chronology. And over the past couple of years, when the concepts of space and time have dilated and gone sideways for so many of us, Carlos’ attempts to crystallize the moments he and his friends produce and present us with songs ripe with possibility, chance, and the care that radiates naturally among musicians who love and trust one another has felt like an act of profound kindness. In 2020, when the world entered into lockdown, Carlos engaged in his studio in Woodland Hills, CA, where he pored over tapes from past improv sessions. One in particular stuck out, a February 2019 Just Jazz gig with Devin Daniels, Jamael Dean, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and Randy Gloss. On stage that night, he’d been confused and uncomfortable, he didn’t understand his relationship with an audience. “I had a revelation that night,” he says. “What I present in concert is sonic journeying—not a set of songs, or a program, or a performative energy.” Using the Just Jazz tapes as a guide, he mixed and remixed, overdubbed synthesizer and pulled from his extensive battery of percussion instruments. He invited his collaborators—his friends, though we should all be so lucky to have friends as talented as these—to add their own overdubs, then, working the controls, he turned out a collection of songs that seem to have entire worlds encased within them. He worked with a sense of necessity. “The urgency was to share a message,” he says, “that we would get through this.” It’s a feeling that was made manifest across Actual Presence, and is extended in this new version, entitled EXTRA PRESENCE. When I first heard these songs in 2020, I was astounded by how expertly Carlos was able to guide his listeners through a three-dimensional soundscape. It felt miraculous, as if we were getting a new view of free jazz and new age and hip-hop, being brought into the cells of the music to see how all its constituent parts fit together. The implication seemed to be that every moment of every song—not just these songs, but any song—was ripe with possibility, that decisions were being made at every moment, and that because of that, other decisions might be made. Free jazz and free improv are both predicated on this very idea, of course, but where that sense of freedom often yields dissonance and confusion, Actual Presence seemed to suggest that something like spiritual harmony could be reached on the fly, that it was hidden in everything if you were willing to try and find it. What I didn’t hear then, but hear now, is that this sense of harmony wasn’t just coming from Carlos’ remarkable studio skills. It was inherent in the playing itself, and in the way the players relate to one another. There is an emotional coherence to this music, a collective ache at its core that starts with the majesty of Jamael Dean’s piano and runs through even the smallest of instruments. No matter who’s playing on any given track—or when they were playing it—everyone is watching one another, patiently waiting, not moving forward until everyone is ready. That could feel ponderous, but here it feels generous. You expect “Youwillgetthroughthis” to move out its foyer, but the kalimba finds an interesting groove there, so they all gather around to explore it, which gives a deeply tender organ space to open the song in a completely new direction. It’s music as a series of cleansing exhales, as re-grounding, slowing down to move at a speed that allows it to examine itself. As its title suggests, EXTRA PRESENCE gives us another hour of these explorations. The new tracks were all recorded around the time Carlos was working on Actual Presence and its followup, More Energy Fields, Current, and they show that the sense of possibility that first suggested itself in these songs wasn’t a mirage. Rather than simply remixing old tunes, Carlos opens new doors that reveal new rooms. “Youwillgetthroughthis with Koto” isn’t just augmented by a koto; it’s wound up in a new tension that was barely suggested in the original track. “Luis’ Special Shells,” an Actual Presence highlight, dips us into an subaquatic world painted in inky blues and forest greens, the shells themselves the only clear element that remains from the original. Most strikingly, it’s capped by the 23-minute ambient piece “Recurrent Reiki Dreams,” a dramatic extension of the album’s “Mushroomeclipse.” The track’s length, and the lightly undulating silkiness of its textures, makes it feel as though the entire album has been sliding into this primordial space, as if the whole of EXTRA PRESENCE is something like a symphony. Or maybe like all of those views Carlos and his friends have offered have all been different ways of saying this, variations on a way of articulating a feeling that exists here in its purest form. It’s like staring into the object with which this music has been abiding. What I didn’t hear in 2020 but hear now, as the world has changed and continues to, is that the sound of EXTRA PRESENCE is the sound of being ready to face yourself. Or, more precisely, it’s the sound of what happens when everyone pauses what they’re doing and rallies to support a wounded friend. Yes, these songs are technically dazzling, constantly surprising, and expertly constructed. But at its core, EXTRA PRESENCE is about sitting down, being with, trying to draw from a sensation or a mass that’s much bigger than we can understand. Yes, this is mystical language, but this is mystical music. “It is a way of describing the awareness of Eternal Now,” Carlos says.” “It is a way of expressing the consciousness of Being.”

Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators. Itself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African American experience - as one of freedom and restraint, of joy and suffering - that manifests in the triumph of spirit over the crushing prejudice of daily life. Cutting together archive reels from Black neighborhoods in Chicago with live performance footage from Sun Ra and his Arkestra among others, the film remains a radical and prescient evocation of Black pride and its roots in the history of jazz, from spirituals to blues and beyond. As South African writer Nombuso Mathibela captures in the album’s liner notes: [Music is our weapon of struggle] that radiantly holds our positive aspiration, group pride and determination as Black people. Sonics! our beautiful fire that gave light to the world. And a world that gave us blues. The blues that gave us Black in jazz Drawing a through line to today’s vibrant avant-garde, Angel Bat Dawid’s Requiem For Jazz picks up the liberation work laid out by Bland’s film, taking the message of joy and suffering within the Black classical tradition into a contemporary setting. Music from the project was originally premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019, where Angel conducted a multigenerational fifteen-piece instrumental ensemble of Black musicians from across Chicago’s creative community, alongside a four-person choir (featuring singers from Black Monument Ensemble) as well as dancers and visual artists. Recordings from the performance were then mixed and post-produced by Angel, who added interludes, vocals and additional sounds. As well as transcribing a piece from the film, Requiem For Jazz also alludes to The Cry of Jazz through contributions from the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott on the album’s final movement, which were recorded remotely at the historic Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia in late 2020. “I want us to have this very wonderful conversation that Ed Bland started over 50 years ago and I want to continue the conversation; because this is a loving conversation that we need to have with each other” - Angel Bat Dawid, Feb 2023

The endlessly prolific and unpredictable Richard Youngs returns to Black Truffle with Modern Sorrow. As any Youngs fan knows, one of the great pleasures of following his career comes from not being able to predict what the next entry in his inexhaustible string of releases will bring: Unaccompanied voice? Country songs? Shakuhachi? Guitar pieces played with his feet? Shredding fuzz bass over the top of hyper-speed distorted drum machine beats? Continuing in the grand Youngs tradition of exploring new techniques, instrumentation and approaches while bringing to all of them his idiosyncratic touch, Modern Sorrow serves up two sides of twistedly elegiac, radically stark takes on contemporary pop production. The side-long title track is built from a piano sample, synthetic bass notes and organ swells, and an iterative blurt that seems to have wandered out of a 90s jungle track. Eventually joined by a shuffling drum machine, the track moves very slowly through a series of chords, each delayed long enough that its arrival comes as a major event. Over the top, Youngs’ heavily pitch-corrected voice is heard. The processing paints his signature wandering melodic improvisations with shades of contemporary R&B; at the same time, it cuts the natural swoops and glides of Youngs’ melodies into rapid microtonal trills, giving his voice a quavering, middle eastern feel. Unfolding languorously over more than 17 minutes, the piece’s final minutes make room for an extended drumless coda, returning to the stark palette of its opening moments. On the second side, the two parts of ‘Benevolence’ push this minimalism ever further, its first half consisting of nothing more than a remarkably slow drum machine hit, bass-heavy chords and pitch-corrected voice, here so heavily processed that it starts to resemble a shawn solo. In its second part, the harmonic foundation drops out from under the piece while two more voices join; at some moments the voices pause, leaving nothing more than isolated, metronomic drum hits. Though Youngs has explored the sound worlds associated with dance music and contemporary pop in previous work, here these elements are radically reduced, foregrounding a meditative bed of silence with a boldness equal to any more academically inclined contemporary composer. Embracing the accessible digital tools of contemporary music production just as at another moment he would pick up a kazoo, like much of Youngs’ work Modern Sorrow uses simple DIY tools to generous ends, producing formally radical music that remains both free from pretension and deeply moving.

unification of techno and dub reggae. The long-awaited 2023 repress of the Rhythm & Sound catalog number 5, which was originally announced in 2001! A one-of-a-kind solitary acoustic space by Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel.

unification of techno and dub reggae. The long-awaited 2023 repress of Rhythm & Sound catalog number 5, which was originally announced in 1999! A one-of-a-kind solitary acoustic space by Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel.

12" containing Rhythm & Sound's one of the best dub "Mango Drive" will be repressed in 2023! Analog is the only way to fully enjoy the feeling of sinking and floating in this swamp. Also includes the sound source of the Chosen Brothers who will co-star in "See Mi Yah". Masterpiece!

The “Step In Time” EP is the latest release from prolific Nottingham-based producer, engineer, songwriter and DJ Kevin Thomson AKA Origin One. The project features vocal offerings from Rider Shafique, Nadia Latoya (MELONYX), Charlie P and K.O.G, documenting the struggles and experiences of Origin One’s peers during Covid-19 and lockdown. Funded by Help Musicians UK as part of a proposal to support musicians impacted by the pandemic, the release is available on extremely limited 200-press vinyl.

Musically mapping the journey of reggae through the decades, the EP features both vocal stylings and instrumentals from Origin One. Opening with “Babylon 19 feat. Rider Shafique”, reminiscent of 2006 dubstep and steppers music, the track highlights the Tory government’s failures to deal with the pandemic in a considerate way for artists. Referencing the Rastafarian belief system where Babylon refers to the corrupted, capitalist and colonial world, Rider Shafique highlights his reluctance to adhere and agree to the Babylon 19 measures.

Shifting through to a classic lover’s rock groove with a nod to the roots and reggae releases of the 1970s, Origin One collaborates with one half of Nottingham-based duo MELONYX, Nadia Latoya, on “Just Beginning”. With a love of reggae dating back to her childhood, additionally influenced by her uncle King Jammy and the records he would bring round to her house while he was on tour in the UK from Jamaica, Nadia’s timelessly soulful vocals glide across Origin One’s production. On the track, she pieces together a widely experienced tale of a romance cut short by isolation; "Kev wanted to use the concept of our experiences through the pandemic so you’ll hear some subtle references to this in my lyrics… a lover’s spin on a lover’s rock feel”, she explains.

Harking back to the mission at the heart of the EP, “Dance Again feat. Charlie P” sees the renowned Essex-born reggae vocalist speculate the energy and excitement that comes with returning to the dance after two years. Set against a backdrop of a 1980s dancehall riddim, the parallels between the frustrations of the shutdown of live events during Covid-19 can be drawn between the restrictions of blues dances during the 70s and 80s. Aligning with the theme of live music, recent Nubiyan Twist collaborator K.O.G shares his experiences as a touring artist on closing track “Nuh Money Nuh Fren”. Finding his whole world pulled away with lockdown, he found himself questioning the recognition of his value when faced with no money, no friends, and a lack of opportunities. Bringing together trap-influenced reggae, hugely prominent on Jamaican radio, with elements of UK and US 808 influence, the track pulls together the widespread influence of the EP, further highlighting the restrictive nature put upon musicians during lockdown.

Origin One’s vast skillset has led him to produce and engineer releases for the likes of Bru-C, Harleighblu, Devilman, MC Spyda, Irah and more. Additionally, he has toured with UK Hip Hop legend Klashnekoff as his DJ, written and performed as part of a live orchestra for Natalie Duncan and worked as a studio engineer for Wiley. Closer to home, Origin One is a key player in the Nottingham community and is the director and owner of the city’s DTR Studios. Ordinarily known for his sounds reflecting UK Bass music, Jungle, DnB and Hip Hop, coming together to form his own interpretation of Sound System culture, his 2021 Tru Thoughts release saw him collaborate with Portuguese-London songstress Nãnci Correia. 

With their debut album, "Isn't Anything," released in 1988, the band revolutionized alternative music and introduced a new approach to guitar music in the years that followed. Their sound became the template for numerous sub-genres and presented a groundbreaking approach to guitar music and studio production. The genderless vocals of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, who sing in the same vocal range and blend perfectly together, serve as another melodic layer that complements the dizzying intensity of Shields' guitar. The album is characterized by the eerie sense of space present in many of the recorded tracks, which range from intensely propulsive to quiet and unsettling.

Japanese obi included.
Mastered from original 1/4" analog tape using Studer A80 VU-PRE and Neumann VMS 80
180g vinyl weight
Standard gatefold outer sleeve
Four 300 x 300 mm art prints enclosed
Includes DL code (24-bit | 16-bit | mp3)

A super special environment with over 40 seconds of reverberation. Amazing electro-acoustic dam music recorded in a huge concrete space inside the dam.

One day in 2022, Carl Stone, an American computer music pioneer, and Ken Ikeda, a musician and artist who emits primitive and original electronic sounds, visited "Uchinokura Dam" deep in the mountains in Shibata, Niigata. This album is a record of musical experiments secretly performed inside the dam to explore new possibilities of electronic music. The dam has a hollow structure, and the internal space is about 40m in both height and depth, and itself is a huge resonance device. The electronic sounds emitted by Carl and Ken fill the space with infinite reverberations. All sorts of sounds such as dripping water, footsteps, conversations, and noises are added as performers, creating a philharmonic orchestra of electrons and reverberations that are created and elaborated while confronting the constant reverberating sounds. 

Romance & Dean Hurley smudge the collective timeline on a second collaborative album of youtube-sampling ambient fantasies, landing somewhere on the dial between meditation tape, social commentary and regression therapy. Stunning melodramatic wooze from the Lynchian paradigm - essential listening if yr into anything from The Caretaker to Julee Cruise. Continuing their prismatic dissection of daytime soap operas, David Lynch’s chief sound designer Dean Hurley and Celine Dion-worshipping enigma Romance slide into the darkest recesses of fantasy-based escapism on an immersive followup to last year’s ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’. While that album spotlighted the omnipresence of daytime tv re-runs and pervasive, endlessly-looped broadcasts, ‘River of Dreams’ examines the interior, mental imbalance sewn by obsessive fandom. As the pair explain, “…the same waters that harvest and transport buoyant dreams, often funnel into nightmarish, tumultuous oceans…” Just as Twin Peaks eyeballed the grotesque energy bubbling beneath the surface of suburban America, ‘River of Dreams’ looks at the same phenomenon using the passing of time as a magnifying component. Lynch's original series was tangled in 1980s and '90s soap themes that have almost lost their relevance four decades later, and so the album’s sanded-down pads, gooey, hyper-emotional loops and detached vocal snippets satirise the past just as much as they idolise it. 'My Heart Beats In Dreams' is an apt example, steering the mood into a bleak windswept landscape scored by tempestuous whistling. In the background, the faintest outline of a beat - memories of a (wavey black & white) dancefloor refracted thru our shared cultural dreamscape. Heavy machinery (a logging saw?) whirrs into the frame, a Hollywood-ready low-end rumbles beneath. Stop - we're back in the 1960s again, rousing from an underwater hallucination, tumbling through multiple timelines in a constant emotional flux. On the closing track 'Wake Up’, the pair use their faded loops to rotate us into the void for one last dance. A child calls out "it's time," and an eerily familiar VHS buzz serenades us into silence.

Brazilian experimental multi-instrumentalist Carla Boregas follows plates for Bokeh Versions and Hive Mind with a ghostly set of deep listening electronics that plays like a symphony for an imagined woodwind orchestra, one to file next to recent work by Wojciech Rusin, Debit and Bloedneus & de Snuitkever. Carla Boregas is best known from her tenure in São Paulo's genre-bending experimental post-punk scene, playing in long-running outfit Rakta as well as other related offshoots. Her solo material has been knottier to unpick, here developing ideas from a collection of unfinished fragments and notebook scribbles exploring the possibility of finding a wind instrument that could be played collectively by several musicians. Coinciding with the pandemic, however, she soon realised the inherent risks involved with sharing breath and so the concept took a different direction, with added resonance. Boregas developed a synthetic alternative, layering vocals and environmental recordings to suggest wind instrumentation without attempting to mimic it. The sounds here are airy, but rarely diegetic - on the title track, Boregas uses analog arpeggios and plucked, sustained tones to approximate the kosmische world of Ash Ra Tempel or more recently Emeralds, as if trapped in a wind tunnel, moved forward by an unseen force. There's a whisper of the ancient past that harmonises with Wojciech Rusin's speculative medieval gasps, and Bloedneus & de Snuitkever's severely underheard ‘Milli Mille’, an examination of the ancient Greek aulos. On ’Grafia Do Invisível' the sound is completely different again, but the concept remains, using precise analog drones and minuscule timbral shifts to imitate the character of a wind instrument and simultaneously harmonise with the deep listening meditations of Éliane Radigue and Kali Malone. A voice enters the frame on 'Sopro’, chopped into deviated gulps and syllables, creating a language that's unfamiliar and percussive. The use of breath is subtle, and vocalisations criss-cross between synths and faint whistles, forming an expression that's different from its predecessors but intrinsically interlinked. This is where ‘Pena Ao Mar’ excels, by viewing breath and its application in electronic music from multiple angles simultaneously. Fans of Lucy Duncombe, Lucrecia Dalt, or Sarah Davachi - don't miss this one.

‘Cupo’ is the debut album of gothic folkways and dark jazz rituals enacted by prolific percussionist Valentina Magaletti and enigmatic spirit Laila Sakini, deploying an orchestra-sized ensemble of instruments into a 10-part movement spread over two seamless sides. Ghostly and completely transfixing material, it sounds like a pitch-black reduction of Talk Talk's ‘Spirit of Eden’ crumbling into Julee Cruise's ‘Floating into the Night’. An ode to DIY culture and improvisation, Cupo marks a turning point and coming together of two of London’s most imaginative figures. The project sprung to life after Magaletti, versatile drummer-composer for a myriad projects including Moin, Tomaga, Holy Tongue and CZN, asked singular singer-songwriter/art explorer Sakini to contribute to an album that quickly developed into a separate project in its own right. Initiated under a title meaning ‘dark’ in Italian, Sakini plays trumpet, flute, harmonica, recorder, vocals, bass, strings and piano, while Magaletti adds acoustic guitar, spoken word, bass, and drums, pitched down to match the sunken swag of Sakini’s voice. ‘Cupo’ oozes a sense of theatrical dramaturgy that feels like two players in a staged psychodrama. The pair’s exquisite twists of light and space enhance the sensation of peering in from the dark of the stalls, scenes mysteriously changing on stage. The opening hums with nervous energy, the vast sweep of possibility - things could go in so many different directions - concrète, free jazz, doom noise, forest folk, trip hop - who fucking knows. Magaletti's drums gain momentum, cutting into the void like a snare roll in the middle of a trapeze act, or the din from the orchestral pit in an old cinema. Staggered bass and pitched trumpet are thrown into the mix, the deep thrum of subs, a heartbeat, shapeless words, flute, lost fragments of chamber music, piano keys wafting in from outside. Just as things feel irrevocably shapeless, all the elements coalesce, Sakini’s voice and a recorder flip the mood. We’re in smokey, weird pop mode - just the thing we were hoping for. The spirit of post-prog/proto-shoegaze hangs in the air, but the music isn't quite so specific. Pop dissolves into jazz, ambient passages cut into rickety blues, then scuffed into DIY art noise. The linking thread is always the duo's creative energy, providing a space for each to explore, without overwhelming the other. Gentle, fierce music from two of the very best in the game right now.

Duval Timothy’s piano music grows in stature and sprawling ideas with this mix of odes to Mahler and electro-acoustic/concrète evocations of the landscapes to England, Italy, and West Africa, featuring guest input by Fauzia, Yu Su, Vegyn and Lamin Fofana ‘Meeting With a Judas Tree’ is Timothy’s first solo album since 2020 and a significant way marker on his path thus far, which has snaked from Freeport, Sierra Leone, to London, UK. Recorded 2019-22, it expands on ideas from his early pursuit of brooding avant-jazz on 2016’s introductory ‘Brown Loop’ LP, and the more angular experiments of his first sides on personal imprint Carrying Colour, to a vivid blend of inspirations and a broader emotive palette put to canvas with raw finesse. Capturing his feelings in his South London home studio, plus the Carrying Colour studio in Freetown, the Old Police Statin in Rotherhithe, and Casa Mahler in Spolete, Umbria, the recordings share a immediate vivacity and emphasis on texture that serve to heighten the emotive grip of his work. ‘Plunge’ is a case in point, makign use of an auld upright in Freetown whose palettes had lost their felt due to humidity, and lending the piece a quality of Lonnie Holley’s blues, while the smeared electronics and electric guitar licks amplify the aching cadence, and also in ‘Mutate’ whose cascading discord recalls the uneasy dreampop of A.R. Kane. But a big attraction in the record lies with Timothy’s feel for balancing raw and lofty ideas, as with the mix of warbling effects applied to stately Mahler-esque figures and field recording made with his mum in the hills outside Bath on ‘Up’, and his ability to to seamlessly bring others not the vibe, as on the utopian promise of ‘Wood’ featuring piano and synth by Yu Su, and Vegyn co-production, or the subtle disturbances of Fauzia in ‘Thunder’ that edge the piece close to Klein’s most enigmatic. The final sequence ‘Drift’ with Lamin Fofana is an ideal curtain closer, brimming with an brooding but unresolved quality that recalls his Mahler inspiration via The Caretaker and a sea of natural world inspiration that gives it a beautifully in-between worlds headiness.

A Colourful Storm presents Enteha, the latest piece by Elodie, the longstanding duo of Andrew Chalk and Timo van Luijk. Chalk and van Luijk embody a bold, free-spirited approach to music making whose improvisational processes can be traced to a distinct period of Europe's post-industrial landscape: the former’s Ferial Confine project finding a home on Broken Flag (Ramleh, Kleistwahr) while the latter co-founded Noise-Maker’s Fifes, a Belgian audiovisual project employing unusual homemade instruments. More than two decades of ambitious solo and collaborative work would solidify both Chalk and van Luijk as masterful craftsmen exploring (and exposing) the tension between composition and free play. Their individual lists of collaborators boasts a certain fin-de-siècle faction of the avant-garde: Christoph Heemann, Giancarlo Toniutti, David Jackman and Colin Potter, to name but a few, have recorded with Chalk while van Luijk has also welcomed Heemann as well as a guard of other artists including Raymond Dijkstra, Kris Vanderstraeten and Frederik Croene. Elodie’s first documented recording, 2011’s Echos Pastoraux, betrayed a musical interplay of extremely accomplished standards, Chalk and van Luijk’s pastoral mise-en-scène daubed with Daisuke Suzuki’s Asiatic elements creating a sound world at once mystical and eerie. A figment of two imaginations, Elodie materialised almost fully formed with each subsequent recording patiently revealing glimpses into a world concerned with time dilation, the phantasmagoric and spirits of the everyday. Enteha is one of the duo’s more subdued and melancholic pieces and can be seen as a human response to seasonal transition, foretold by the concluding passages of 2020’s Le Nid d'Ivoire. It’s one of their uniquely longform explorations of mood and atmosphere as an air of romance drifts deftly into mystery and despair. The delicate hues of autumnal haze. The deceptive optimism of morning light. A work of supremely understated beauty, Enteha develops at an hypnagogic, if not unconscious, level and will appeal to anyone who finds solace in Harmonia, Gas, Joanna Brouk, Roberto Musci, Zoviet France and other investigators of pastoral arcana.

We've been very lucky to release the debut releases of the fantastic duo Mundos Sutis. They became an instant favourite of many people with their unique music style, that immersive deep techno etiquette that they craft really well. "Quintessence" is the album that gathers our favourite works released on the label in the past months. The journey is about to start, just press play and fly away.

Limited, fully licensed 180g vinyl-only reissue of ultra rare South African disco-jazz classic. Featuring tracks: Side A: Kabuzela; Bayabaleka; Side B: Disco Freaks; Disco Baby Available for the first time since its original South African release in 1979, Outernational Sounds presents tenor giant Mike Makhamalele’s monster excursion into funktified disco jazz, Kabuzela. Despite a peerless run of groundbreaking fusion and funk albums through the 1970s, the great South African tenorist Mike Makhamalele has remained somewhat unsung. It’s hard to know why – the music he made at the end of the 1970s is some of the finest jazz fusion made anywhere on the planet. This new edition of Kabuzela is the first time that any of his work has been issued outside of South Africa. Respect is long overdue. Born in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, Makhalemele learned his craft at the knee of the great Zakes Nkosi, one of the originators of the township jazz sound. By the early 1970s he had joined South Africa’s most successful jazz funk outfit, Henry Sithole’s famous group The Drive, in which he played alongside the great Bheki Mseleku, and storied altoist Kaya Mahlangu. As jazz in South Africa turned toward dancefloor funk and fusion, Makhalemele become a fixture at Soweto’s most happening jazz and dance club, The Pelican – the owner, Lucky Michaels, remembered him as ‘one of the guys who’d walk around to every other musician he knows and say, “Listen, guys, why don’t we meet at the Pelican, let’s go and jam there...”’ From 1975, he began to record under his own name, developing a sophisticated fusion sound in a musical lane where few of his contemporaries were travelling. His stature at this time can be judged by the fact that he went head to head with the legendary Winston Mankunku on 1976’s The Bull And The Lion, an album that marked a symbolic passing of South Africa’s tenor torch. No other player was keeping such close tabs on the changes occurring in the US, and as slick fusion and advanced smooth became the leading sound for contemporary jazz, Makhalemele was in the vanguard, translating the new styles into South African idioms on LPs like Peaceful Eyes and Walking Spirit. The tenorist also carefully watched other global fashions in Black dance and pop music – working under numerous studio aliases, he cut 45rpm covers of big hits including Fela’s ‘Shakara’ and even the Sugar Hill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’. And in 1979, he entered the Gallo studios with producer Peter Ceronio to respond to the ascendant sound of disco. Kabuzela, named after a contemporary township dance craze, was the result: four extended tracks of bouncing, upful disco jazz. Perfectly calibrated for dancing, heavy on the bass and drums, the album is set off by a gleaming centre piece, ‘Disco Freaks’ – a joyous paean to the weekend and true lost gem of global disco, perfect for the most discerning dancefloors. Transferred from the master tapes by Gallo in South Africa, and mastered for release by D&M. Fully licensed from Gallo South Africa. Distributed by Honest Jons.

A miraculous union of techno and dub reggae. The outstanding universal masterpiece of acoustic dub / techno released only on CD in 1995 by the Basic Channel of German Mark Ernestus & Moritz von Oswald is vinylized with a full-length version longer than the original cut.

Download card includes bonus track "Revelation."

Cindy Lee is the brainchild of singer / guitarist Patrick Flegel. While some may know Flegel from their time spent in Canadian experimental indie band Women, Cindy Lee has spent the past four years crafting songs that push and pull in opposing directions – from tales of tragedy laced with haywire distortion to moments of breathtaking beauty.

On Malenkost, Flegel combines everything that makes Cindy Lee so essential: heart-wrenching romantic pleas, rough shards of noise and twilit ballads. Featuring the lo-fi pop single "A Message From The Aching Sky," Malenkost sounds like Deerhunter playing The Supremes or vice versa.

Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH presents the first of many Cindy Lee releases. Spectral and timeless, the music of Cindy Lee is hauntingly familiar yet of another plane, a magical collision of Brill Building hooks and uncompromising No Wave.