MUSIC

ASA Arturo Lanz Saverio Evangelista AtomTM are the last three futurists on earth. »Radial« is the result of a vivid creative merge between Esplendor Geométrico and AtomTM. A transparent diamond formed by a heavy implosion. Its underlying massive mechanics are covered by a crystal surface made to cut reality in half. Just one letter short of “radical”, this album is no less than exactly that - an orgy of powerful, blunt repetition and hyperbolic simplicity, a profound evocation of nothingness and its surroundings. The 13 tracks (which comprise the digital full-length version) of »Radial« are the exact expansion of sonic ideas those three artists have explored during the last couple of decades. Unexpectedly so, this makes this production an outstandingly atemporal one - some would even classify it as meta-contemporary. A selection of 10 tracks of the digital full-length album will be released on CD through raster on September 01, whereas an accompanying vinyl release is scheduled for the end of 2023.

Umeko Ando (1932-2004) was a folk singer from Japan. She was a representative of the Ainu culture on the Hokkaido Island in the north of Japan. “Ihunke” is her first album which was recorded with the Ainu musician and dub producer Oki Kano in 2000. It was released on CD in Japan only and is finally available on vinyl (2LP + linernotes, DL included). “Ihunke” is following last year’s single “Iuta Upopo” [Pingipung 58, incl. M.RUX Remix] which had been received with overwhelming enthusiasm and was quickly sold out. The 16 Ainu songs on “Ihunke” are delicate, natural gems. They are built on Oki Kano’s Tonkori patterns (a 5-string harp), over which Umeko Ando develops her repetitive, mantric vocals, often in a call-response manner. Oki Kano is one of very few professional Tonkori players who performs worldwide with his Oki Dub Ainu Band. The songs possess a mystical energy – when crows call accurately with Ando’s brittle voice in the first song, it seems like natural powers join in with her music. Her voice sounds like animals of the sky and the forest. Oki Kano: “It was a lot of fun to record with Umeko Ando. Many Ainu hesitate to break from tradition - if Umeko hadn’t been so flexible to work with the younger generation and recording technology, this album would never have happened. Our sessions were intense, and we were proud and happy about making such beautiful music.” Upcoming in autumn: remixes of “Ihunke” by Tolouse Lowtrax, M.Rux, DJ Ground, El Buho Mark Peters, Gama, Andi Otto, and Dreems.

Historical background: Only recently (in 2008) have the Ainu officially been acknowledged as indigenous people who are culturally independent from Japan. This record is an example of how their music has been passed on through generations in the underground Ainu communities while it was oppressed by the Japanese hegemony. It deserves a huge audience.

Oren Ambarchi’s recent Editions Mego release 'Hubris' gets the remix treatment courtesy of electronic music legend Ricardo Villalobos. Villalobos expertly tranforms Ambarchi’s layered web of countless sustained and pulsating palm-muted guitars into a funky, mesmerising and propulsive long-form piece.

Dorothy Ashby was the very best and most swinging performer on the multi-stringed instrument associated with the gates of heaven. Here on Earth, Ashby adeptly plucked and strummed the harp like nobody else, as evidenced on a single reissue containing her two best LPs for the Prestige and Prestige/New Jazz labels from 1958 -- Hip Harp and In a Minor Groove. Alongside her prior efforts for the Savoy label, they collectively represent a small but substantive discography for the Detroit native in small group settings. With the exceptional flute sounds produced by Frank Wess, the combo plays music that is oriented via a unique sonic palate, further enhanced by the principals in the standards and originals they have chosen. Fellow Detroiter Herman Wright is here on bass, with duties split between legendary drummers Art Taylor and Roy Haynes, who place particular emphasis on subtle brushwork. Of course, the watchword of Ashby's sound is elegance, as she and Wess weave magical threads of gold and silver through standards like the circular and pristine "Moonlight in Vermont," the dramatic, slow "Yesterdays," or the sad "Alone Together." In a more Baroque or chamber setting, "Charmain" and "It's a Minor Thing" have Wess and Ashby thinking on a regal or Grecian platform. The variety on this collection is impressive, as you hear cinematic bluesy proclamations on "Autumn in Rome," striking mystery in "Taboo," mischievous and sly winks during "Rascallity," and a sexy calypso-to-swing beat as "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" unfolds. (all music)

German ambient musician.He was briefly a member of the krautrock band Popol Vuh in the early 1970s where he played on the albums Hosianna Mantra and Seligpreisung. *300 copies limited edition.* Member of the krautrock band Popol Vuh in the early 1970s – Voice, Zither, Tambura, Harmonium, Singing Bowls – Klaus Wiese (1942 – 2009) was a veteran e-musician, minimalist, and multi-instrumentalist. A master of the Tibetan singing bowl, he created an extensive series of album releases using them. Wiese also used the human voice, the zither, Persian stringed instruments, chimes, and other exotic instruments in his music. Wiese is considered by some as one of the great ambient or space music artists alongside Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Constance Demby, and Jonn Serrie. His musical style is much more appropriately compared to the organic soundscapes of drone and dark ambient music, such as Oöphoi, Alio Die, Mathias Grassow, and Tau Ceti. In the 1990s he founded the Nono Orchestra to play the giant sheetmetal instruments of Robert Rutman. Wiese is known also for his collaborations with Al Gromer Khan, Mathias Grassow, Oöphoi, Tau Ceti, Saam Schlamminger, and Ted de Jong. He collaborated with Deuter on his Silence is the Answer album in 1980 and East of the Full Moon in 2005.

The rare second volume of Tim Maia’s Racional album series from the 70s – even funkier and more harder-edged than the first! The record really follows the heavy soul influence that Tim had been hitting on his early 70s albums for Polydor – a strong dose of American funk and R&B, especially from the east coast indie scene – filtered down beautifully by Maia, one of the few cats in Brazil at the time who really knew how to get the sound right – and how to mix it with the best of his local influences! There’s some wonderful grooves here – definitely of the funky Brazilian type you-d know from the Samba Soul generation, but also much more solidly soul, too – given Tim’s fantastic vocals, and strong ear for putting over a tune!

The musician and spiritual seeker Alice Coltrane was much more than just John Coltrane's second wife. One of the few harpists to feature prominently in jazz, she was also a renowned pianist and composer and her interest in spiritual matters greatly helped steer her husband deeper into Krishna consciousness, which had significant bearing on his music, most notably evident on A Love Supreme (1965). This mesmerizing performance, held at Carnegie Hall four years after John's untimely passing as part of a benefit event for Swami Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Institute, comprised a stunning and largely improvised rendition of Coltrane's "Africa," with Alice's subtle piano and harp expressions excellently framed by the wailing saxes of Pharaoh Sanders and Archie Shepp, Cecil McBee and Jimmy Garrison trading non-standard bass lines, a dual drum onslaught from Clifford Jarvis and Ed Blackwell, along with members of the Institute on harmonium and tamboura.

Recorded November 15, 1966 at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs - New Jersey, Tauhid is one of the most iconic album recorded by the tenor saxophonist. On his debut for Impulse ! the leader assembled an extraordinary line-up, defining the boundaries of the so-called spiritual jazz movement. Henry Grimes (bass) Roger Blank (drums), Sonny Sharrock (guitar), Nat Bettis (percussion) and Dave Burrell (piano)

James Ray kickstarted his career as a teenager in 1959 after he left Washington DC for New York, but debut single "Make Her Mine" flopped. Two years later, songwriter Rudy Clark discovered Ray and got him signed to the Caprice label, the resultant "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody" a top-30 hit that the Beatles covered in early live sets. Ray's self-titled debut album had that hit and the equally appealing follow-up, "Itty Bitty Pieces," as well as "I've Got My Mind Set On You," later successfully covered by George Harrison. An overdose would tragically cut short Ray's career, this sole LP a testament to his enduring talent.

180-gram vinyl reissue. The epochal album released by Impulse ! in 1966 with a lineup enhanced by the addition of Rashied Ali on second drums and Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax.

When dubwise music really started to come into its own in the early to mid 70s, it made overnight stars of backroom boys who had hitherto worked behind a mixing desk to serve those who were beginning to hoist reggae to an international stardom that it had long deserved, but that it had only achieved on short and non-sustained bursts until Chris Blackwell decided to throw a lot of promotion and money at the work of Bob Marley and his fellow Wailers in 1972. Of those men, there was no bigger star than the late Osbourne Ruddock, the great King Tubby’s and the man who, from a tiny home-made studio in the Waterhouse district of Kingston, Jamaica, did more than most to reposition the boundaries that production and mixing of Jamaican recordings.

What have we here? 16 pieces of hard-to-classify music, created during the period 1994-2008, a cornucopia of playful, intelligent, questing and eminently listenable electronic music from Osaka-born artist Hyu, who released two albums on Nobukazu Takemura’s Childisc label, in 1999 and 2002. Although a member of the turn-of-the-century generation of artists subsumed under the rather vague term “electronica”, his work stands apart in many ways, particularly in his unique exploration of microtonality, his ability to humanize music technology, and his distinctive trait of combining a light touch and sense of fun with conceptual rigor. This collection is an intriguing mix of previously unreleased tracks and re-edited versions of previously released pieces. There is a wide range of music here, many of the pieces truly unique: wiggy and wiggly robo-pop, fractured funk, swinging sample assemblages of subtle sensory overload, dynamo-drones, overtone explorations. All of it distinctive, much of it prescient, all of it rising above the strictures of genre. Hyu’s music is appealing and fun, but driven by a desire to not only create music, but to create ways of creating music. This desire, this quest, is clearly audible in all of these tracks, and in the overall excellence of his music. Available on CD or 2LP with DL. The 2LP features a bonus cover of “Kaze wo atsumete” by Happy End. A notable feature is the entertaining and enlightening notes, written by Hyu himself.

Atlanta’s original Eccentric Soul labels, Jesse Jones’ Tragar & Note concerns captured critical regional R&B, soul, and funk from 1968-1976. Compiling 34 tracks and sprawled across two LPs, this 15 year anniversary deluxe edition appears on vinyl for the first time. Featuring rare-as-hens-teeth 45s by Eula Cooper, Tee Fletcher, Richard Cook, Frankie & Robert, Tokay Lewis, Nathan Wilkes, Chuck Wilder, Bill Wright, Sonia Ross, Sandy Gaye, Four Tracks, Young Divines, and several others we can’t fit on a hype sticker.

Originally scheduled for release back in 1994 but scrapped due to controversial cover art, K.M.D.'s follow-up to their debut Mr. Hood was considered to be one of the Holy Grail records in the annals of hip-hop history. The death of group member Sub-Roc in a car accident squashed the future of K.M.D. shortly after it was recorded. Employing ideals and samples from the album The Blue Guerilla by Kain of the Last Poets, the tone of this record was to be dramatically different than their first, which was lighthearted and playful while still spreading a message about racial stereotypes. Volatile yet poignant tracks like "What a Nigga Know" and "Black Bastards!" are hip-hop fireballs. Subjects like alcoholism ("Sweet Premium Wine"), drug use ("Smokin' That S*#%"), and women ("Plumskinzz") were all touched upon with incendiary tones. The sound of the record is very raw and sounds unfinished due to Elektra shelving the project, but it doesn't take away from the magic that would have made this a suitable follow-up. ~ Douglas Siwek

This is the story of two sisters who nurtured a dream for half a century and never let it die. Vicki and Ronni Gossett launched their musical career as teenagers in Whittier, California in 1966. They called themselves the Female Species. Members came and went; their base of operations moved to Las Vegas, back to LA, and over to Nashville. Along the way their sound transformed from garage rock to lounge to country-pop, the only constant being an innate mastery of hooks and harmony. These ladies had it. Along the way, they crossed paths with The Carpenters, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Judds, and seemingly half of the industry's power players, rebuffing all untoward advances, focused always on their craft. In the 1980s they became staff songwriters for music publishing companies in the hit-making business. Relentless pushing landed them a once in a lifetime audition before the court of RCA’s top executives — the kind of new talent showcase that almost never happens after 30. Vicki and Ronni were by then in their 40s. Tale of My Lost Love is the whole story from beginning to end of two sisters who gave everything to their dream, yet never made a single record... until now. Sometimes great music just isn’t enough to break through — until it is. Numero Group is thrilled and proud, at long last, to introduce Female Species.

In 2018, Rian Treanor left his home in Rotherham, UK, and headed to Kampala for a residency at Nyege Nyege's villa studio. The mind-expanding experience inspired his critically acclaimed 2020 full-length "File Under UK Metaplasm", but that wasn't the end of the story. Treanor also spent time working alongside Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, developing an improvisation-heavy collaboration that would push both musicians' idiosyncrasies into completely new places. Treanor wanted this collaboration to be as tactile and reactive as a live performance with traditional instruments, so he set about working on a digital process that would synchronize with James' approach. Using physical modelling techniques, Treanor created an instrument that explored the tunings and sounds of the a'dungu, an arched harp, and the nah or nag. With Ocen playing his rigi rigi, a single string violin, they intuitively experimented with the spectral properties of sound, using texture and acoustic contours as their structural framework. They were able to develop a sound together that was unconventionally rooted in traditional Ugandan culture, but shuttled into different dimensions of noise, computer music and radical UK rave. "Saccades" is the buffer between two vastly different sonic universes, united in respect and sprightly curiosity. Treanor's hyperactive computer-controlled rhythms are immediately identifiable on opening track 'Bunga Bule', but the sound palette is distinct: it's more flexible and less digital. James' expressionistic fiddle strokes are a revelation, contorted into hoarse squeals and rough vibrations that rub and flex off Treanor's tin can shuffle. The fertile back and forth continues through the ruff DSP tumble of 'As It Happens', before James cracks open the melodic core of his instrument on 'The Dead Centre', allowing Treanor to dispense with rhythm and meet his fiddle strokes with heavenly drones. Each track steps down a different avenue for the two artists, from the nightmarish microtonal twang of 'Memory Pressure' to the 4AM inverted sci-fi club pressure of 'Naasaccade' and the folky dancefloor swing of 'Rigi Rigi'. And when the album closes on a cacophonous remix from Vienna laptop noise pioneers Farmers Manual it's an unexpected gift that makes perfect sense. "Saccades" is a cross-cultural collaboration that swerves simplicity but refuses to over-complicate itself - it's about interaction, improvisation and passion.

The music could score a romantic drama, an action thriller, or a modern twist on a classic film noir. The spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental orchestrations composed, performed, arranged and produced by multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum, whose latest brainchild was conceived and conceptualized during The Great Pause of 2020, a time of tension, bewilderment and isolation. Evoking the grooviness of an era which preceded his arrival on earth, Applebaum draws upon sonic devices of mid-century exotica and the succinct but dense arranging style of the leaders of the pop orchestras which dominated the hit parades of the 60s and early 70s. He blends impressions of this bygone era with an expression of his actual experiences as a young filmmaker coming of age in the 21st century, citing influences such as Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings and Antibalas. A New Kind of Love encompasses a reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it. I Each song on Ghost Funk Orchestra’s 3rd album, A New Kind of Love, due to be released on Colemine Records … 2022, resonates like the soundtrack to a scene from an imaginary movie. The music could score a romantic drama, an action thriller, or a modern twist on a classic film noir. The spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental orchestrations composed, performed, arranged and produced by multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum, whose latest brainchild was conceived and conceptualized during The Great Pause of 2020, a time of tension, bewilderment and isolation. Evoking the grooviness of an era which preceded his arrival on earth, Applebaum draws upon sonic devices of mid-century exotica and the succinct but dense arranging style of the leaders of the pop orchestras which dominated the hit parades of the 60s and early 70s. He blends impressions of this bygone era with an expression of his actual experiences as a young filmmaker coming of age in the 21st century, citing influences such as Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas. A New Kind of Love encompasses a reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it. In the tradition of the “production forward” discographies of such record makers as David Axelrod and the Mizell Brothers, it’s easy to visualize Applebaum as a “mad doctor” figure, hunkered down in a studio channeling this musical representation of his inner world into the 12 compositions which make up A New Kind of Love. His writing stretches his psyche to explore a terrain in which to capture emotional notes of love going well, love gone sour, manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. While the studio is obviously a wondrous happy place of experimentation and creativity for Applebaum, he’s a band guy too (having actually fronted punk outfit The Mad Doctors). Applebaum has the wherewithal to bring his dreamy material to the 10 piece all star Ghost Funk Orchestra, leading them to breathe life into this sophisticated body of work which heralds the celebration of a new era for the group. Ghost Funk Orchestra will be touring in concert this summer and fall to celebrate the release of A New Kind of Love, an album which is sure to stand the test of time.

Originally released as a hand-numbered CD on New Year’s Eve of 2004, Last Light captures Tor Lundvall’s hushed songcraft at its most ghostly and grayscale, stripped bare like branches bracing for winter. Initially conceived as “a piano album with sparse electronics” (with the working title November), Lundvall’s palette steadily expanded, incorporating synthesizer, samples, bass, metronomes, and his signature spectral vocals. A journal entry from the spring of 2002 proved formative to his evolving vision: “I remember watching the blueish-grey light shimmering outside and hearing distant sounds echoing far away, eventually sinking into silence and stillness.” The album’s 12 tracks are steeped in this sense of autumnal transience, of bearing witness to what fades. The music moves in whispered swells, between dirge, drift, and devotional. Synths chime like slow-tolling bells; percussion shuffles and shivers, icy and isolated; bass traces a low-lidded plod – it’s a mode both austere and seductive, lulling the listener into its landscapes of deepening dusk. Lyrically, Lundvall’s language skews observational and depressive (“through lace curtains / grey light falls / dark clouds gather / in my soul”), with each song like a gauzy glimpse into a different tableau framing winter’s descent: rust-colored leaves, frozen ponds, cold crescent moons. Lundvall has long considered Last Light a “personal favorite” in his discography, and it’s easy to hear why. In texture, finesse, and pacing, it vividly evokes the rare mood of fragile, frosty pastoral noir depicted in his iconic oil paintings. His is an art of the half-seen and half-remembered, of fleeting figures, shapes and shadows, and gathering darkness. Of all that disappears, and the ghosts that never leave: “So I wait / as the years / slowly drain the magic and the light / and the girl / I never loved / haunts me through the dark roads of my life.” Originally released as a limited CD edition of 955 hand-numbered copies on Strange Fortune in 2004 (SF2). Reissued by Dais Records as part of the 5-CD box set "Structures and Solitude" in 2013 (DAIS052). ARTIST STATEMENT: I outlined my earliest ideas for this album in October 2001. My original plan was to record a piano album with sparse electronics. The working title was "November" with the catalogue number EAE006 (later re-assigned to "Insect Wings Volume 1"). I originally wanted the CD artwork to feature details from my Autumn paintings, so trees and rusty leaves would cover the entire package. The inspiration came six months later, from a journal entry I wrote in April 2002 entitled "Lying in Bed - A Strange Evening". I remember watching the blueish-grey light shimmering outside and hearing distant sounds echoing far away, eventually sinking into silence and stillness. "Last Light" is a personal favorite and I feel it's one of my strongest releases. The music differs from my previous works in that the vocals are more up front and the compositions are sparser and more austere. There's a lot going on beneath the surface, however. Several tracks are based on specific locations near my home while others describe the changing light in my bedroom at various times during the day. The title was taken from one of my paintings which, curiously enough, does not appear on the sleeve. Tor Lundvall January 19th, 2005 (Amended March 2018)

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” —Pascal Graham Lambkin (of Shadow Ring fame) returns with a long awaited epic double LP, Aphorisms, his first major solo outing since Community (Kye, 2016). Recorded mostly during the early winter months of 2022, in post-pandemic New York and post-Brexit London, Aphorisms assembles the sonic detritus of daily life into hauntingly intimate aural soundscapes. Made between Lambkin's residence in East London and Blank Forms in New York, Aphorisms superimposes the two spaces onto one another creating an imaginary stage where his musical dramas unfold. A transatlantic mediation on the rooms where Lambkin has lived and worked, Aphorisms summons up hallucinatory vistas by way of the composer’s collage technique, layering field recordings, piano, guitar, percussion, vocal fragments, and repurposed elements on top of one another in double, triple, and quadruple exposures. Like the Shadow Ring’s Lindus (Swill Radio, 2001)—recorded between Folkestone and Miami—Aphorisms ruminates on estrangement and displacement, catching Lambkin as he returns to London after two decades of living in the States, in his words, “leaving home to return home.” Aphorisms continues Lambkin’s synthetic-naturalist approach to sound-making, twisting disparate and unique elements together to create the sensation of a coherent sonic space. At the heart of his practice is the illusion of form, whereby Lambkin combines sonic elements, documenting the moment that they coalesce into music only to disintegrate back into incidental sound. The album is centered around two pianos, one in New York and one in London, sounding together as if through the ether, creating a spectral atmosphere that Lambkin fills with melodic snippets, fragments of songs, spoken-word musings, and guttural barks or “the animal purity of voice,” as he has it. The superimposition of the two spaces is maximized in the album's closing titular track, where, much like on earlier works such as Salmon Run (Kye, 2007) and Softly Softly Copy Copy (Kye, 2009) fragments of familiar melodies float through the mix as though being played from afar. Aphorisms is Lambkin at his best, extending methodologies only hinted at previously and taking his now-idiosyncratic mission statement to a new chapter. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, the Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7"s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning this year with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions is conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group, including a multi-year LP reissue effort and a forthcoming comprehensive CD box set and an over five hundred page book. Recorded and self-released by the group’s own Dry Leaf Discs in 1993, City Lights is the debut record of the then duo Graham Lambkin and Darren Harris—an assured arrival statement teeming with stripling angst and ambition. Lifelong chums Lambkin and Harris were barely nineteen and living at home in the seaside town of Folkestone, Kent, with few overhead expenses. The two were freshly employed as a forklift operator at a hardware store and an aide at a home for children with disabilities, respectively, affording them the time and funds to commit to a proper full-length release. Frontman Lambkin describes the album as a “microscopic examination of leisure activities, this time centered around a nightclub,” a conceit surging through its lyrics, song titles, cover art (depicting an audience of cats and mice at the Leas Club, a Folkestone fixture), and flip side (replete with fictional bandmates and pseudonymous liner notes). On a recently-acquired secondhand guitar, Lambkin plays repetitive, brooding licks that form the record’s backbone, weaving in and out of sync with Harris’s free-form percussion and the pair’s sing-song poetry. Tracks range from unraveling nursery-rhyme ditties to extended jams awash with Casiotone and toy piano noodling. The duo’s musical hobby-horses work themselves in: the influence of Mark E. Smith’s breathless deadpan, the headless outer-edges of ESP-Disk’s back catalog, the eerie atmospherics of Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa, and the deconstructed rock tunes of the Dunedin scene are all detectable, although there is a sui generis quality to the Shadow Ring’s artless temerity. “I’ve got to see and taste those city lights,” intones Lambkin on the album’s title track—indeed, this is a record of naked drive and pent-up desperation, and a shimmering glimpse of what’s to come.

There has always been a Reggae influence in the music of El Michels Affair. From their cover of “Hung Up On My Baby” done in a Reggae style, to the general sound and approach that permeates Leon’s production style. While recording Bailey’s 2020 Ekundayo album, they did some straight forward reggae tunes inspired by different eras alongside some modern R&B tracks that would fit more comfortably next to Frank Ocean than Jacob Miller. It is this same notion that old and new can live so comfortably together that birthed the idea of Ekundayo Inversions. Traditional dub came out of reggae in the late 60s and early 70s when pioneers like King Tubby and Lee Perry started taking the multi track recordings of songs and running them back through the board adding effects and additional instrumentation. These recordings are called “dubs” or “versions” and are typically instrumentals with flourishes of vocals from the original tracks. El Michels decided to use the blueprints left behind and make something using the influences of today. He wound up straying so far from the traditional format that it didn’t seem right to use the word ‘Dub’, hence Ekundayo Inversions. All the songs are tied together by WhatsApp messages between Leon and Liam that perfectly narrate the story of this record and their working relationship. One of the highlights on Ekundayo Inversions is a guest appearance from the legendary Lee “Scratch” Perry on the “Ugly Truth” version. L$P switches between singing and talking, proclaiming his powers one minute and playing with the track’s title the next. On “Awkward take. 2” Leon takes one of the most experimental songs from Ekundayo and actually straightens it out. A track that once seemed to be floating in space has now been anchored by the addition of drums and bass. “Faded”, a version of “Paper Tiger”, is given the full EMA treatment with the addition of emotive horns over an uncomfortably sparse rhythm track peppered with Liam’s voice drenched in delay and echo. “Champions” features a verse from Black Thought of The Roots and halfway through, El Michels sends the rhythm section 50 years back. At the end of the day, Ekundayo Inversions is a testament to how strong the original songs are. Whether they’re in a R&B style, reggae style, stripped down to their bare bones, or loaded with production, the songs will move you.

Teno Afrika’s 2020 debut "Amapiano Selections" drew an international wave of support sparked by the producer’s deftly minimal take on the emergent style. Amapiano combines the South African predilection for deep house alongside a melange of endemic influences like kwaito, jazz and gqom. The 22-year-old’s new crop of songs "Where You Are" expands on his rhythmic subtlety hooded in warm bass adorned by amapiano’s telltale shakers, hi-hats and mid-tempo shuffle. Lutendo Raduvha hails from Pretoria, South Africa, where he produces music incessantly and DJ’s parties around Gauteng province. He hangs with a crowd of musical friends, many of whom join him on "Where You Are." For his second album Teno Afrika brings more vocalists into the sonic picture, unlocking an emotive and timbral escalation to his rapidly mushrooming catalog of work. Singers Leyla and KayCee feature on the title track and “Fall In Love,” respectively. Regular cohort Diego Don joins for two driving, pad-propelled works of significant vibrancy, “SK Love” and “AK Love.” The album's dramatic closer “Duma ICU” features another returning collaborator, Stylo MusiQ, who helps bring an icy, almost cinematic conclusion to a slice of the sound Teno Afrika is pushing at the moment. There’s a palpable feeling of not knowing where the young producer might go next.

Unavailable for several years and highly sought-after​, Space Afrika’s excellent, career-establishing sophomore album ‘Somewhere Decent To Live’ encapsulates a singular, nocturnal mood that’s still the most distinctive thing in their catalogue. A stunning arrangement of mutable ambient frameworks, it lingers in the air like a stubborn waft of smoke, acting as a clarion call for a bunch of likeminded spirits that up until that moment had been lurking in the manchester undergrowth. What seems like forever ago, way back in 2018, Space Afrika presented a bird’s eye view of the city at night with ‘Somewhere Decent To Live’; their first and only album for the sferic label. Unshackled from the requirements of the dancefloor, but still inspired and feeding off its spirit and romance, the pair acknowledged undercurrents of jungle, dubstep, ambient techno and deep house which fed into their home city’s late night economy for decades, dowsing their tributaries back to dub and rendering the findings as shimmering ambient vapour. Forming cloud-like shapes illuminated by slow pulsing strobes, the vibe is precise but elusive. The pair’s dancefloor urges become completely dissolved in favour of more suggestive downstrokes, underpinned by thick and gloopy subs, leaving the kicks in the club while they float overhead like the dead kid embarking his Bardo in Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void, evoking the neon romance of a classic Michael Mann night drive. The album weaves through eight interlinked scenes, drifting like spectral flanneurs from the Diversions-like opener uwëm/creãtiõn to intercept telepathic thoughts from Teutonic friends in the percolated and drizzly ambient clag of sd/tl, before arriving at the album’s most arresting moment on the widescreen yet immersive bly and its sublimely smeared timbral thizz… A modern classic.

Piotr Kurek’s new album “Smartwoods” is a sprawling root system of tiny melodic phrases that loop and curl around subtly evolving instrumental thickets. The Warsaw-based producer and composer takes his cues from early music, baroque music and experimental jazz, entangling his influences with filigree traces of contemporary computer music and fueling it with sonic vapors from the near future. Made up of seven distinct segments, the album blurs its acoustic and electronic elements into an illusory hedge of abstract sound. Harp, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, voices and guitar twist into computerized processes and synthesizer chirps, creating an uncanny dreamworld where the real isn’t always what it seems. Each player is entwined with the other to create a living, breathing whole. Like Kurek’s painterly 2021 album “World Speaks”, “Smartwoods” is also inspired by visual art - particularly the whimsical work of Algerian-French graphic designer Jean Sariano. The album cover features artwork by Polish painter Tomasz Kowalski, whose shapeshifting creatures and miniature stories aptly reflect the music’s wild fantasy. The first manifestation of “Smartwoods” – a live show at Unsound in Kraków in 2022 – featured animations by Italian artist Francesco Marrello, who put together a visual treatment for the single “Harps”.