MUSIC

An ode to a very good girl, Luna. It is my hope this record is soothing and trippy because it is trippy how soothing she is to me ºo∞Oº

Rough Trade Records release Volume 2 of seven-inch singles boxset.

Nine disc set includes repressings of handpicked 1980s and 1990s releases from The Fall, Scritti Politti, Robert Wyatt, Aztec Camera, The Go-Betweens, Jonathan Richman, The Sundays and Mazzy Star

Additionally The Smiths’ The Headmaster Ritual becomes a Rough Trade single especially for this release at Morrissey and Marr’s request, with unique b-side plus new artwork from Morrissey

Sleeve notes feature new interviews with Rough Trade co-MDs Jeannette Lee and Geoff Travis, plus contributions from Elvis Costello, Harriet Wheeler, Anton Corbijn, Stewart Lee and more.

Rough Trade Records release a second volume of their acclaimed boxset series tracing some of the key seven-inch singles in the independent label’s history.

Following the first set which came out last year and focused on the indie’s first few years of existence, Volume 2 will feature nine seven-inch singles from the 1980s to the early 1990s, marking the period when Rough Trade came of age as a label.

Handpicked by Rough Trade’s co-MDs, Jeannette Lee and Geoff Travis, the tracks represent a mix of key releases and personal favourites.

Starting with The Fall’s 1980 Totally Wired, Scritti Politti's The Sweetest Girl, Robert Wyatt's Shipbuilding, Aztec Camera’s Oblivious, The Go Betweens' Cattle and Cane, Jonathan Richman's That Summer Feeling and The Sundays' Can’t Be Sure have all been repressed on seven-inch, including b-sides, as they were released by the label at the time.

Mazzy Star’s cover of Love’s Five String Serenade, which appeared on Rough Trade’s single’s club in 1993, appears as the original release, but its b-side has been switched at Lee and Travis’ request for David Roback and Hope Sandoval’s version of Slap Happy’s Blue Flower to create a unique “covers release”.

In addition to these original releases, Volume 2 also boasts a ninth, ‘new’ single which has been created at the request of members of The Smiths, and will only be available in this edition. Although it was released in Netherlands, The Headmaster Ritual had never been an official Rough Trade single until now.

At Morrissey and Marr’s request the track from Meat Is Murder is backed by I Want The One I Can’t Have as its b-side, while Morrissey has overseen the creation of brand new artwork for the seven-inch. In keeping with his use of found art for The Smiths’ singles, he sourced an image of the American actor Billy Halop from 1939 especially for this single.

Both band members have contributed to the sleeve notes that accompany Volume 2, which also includes contributions from Elvis Costello, Stewart Lee, Roddy Frame, Green Gartside, Jonathan Richman, The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler, David Gavurin and The Go-Betweens’ Lindy Morrison and Robert Forster. Plus, there is a brand new, extensive interview with Travis and Lee, who discuss the label during the 80s and 90s, the music and their collaborations with the artists featured.

The sleeve notes also contain memorabilia and imagery from the Rough Trade archive, along with contributions from Anton Corbijn, Laura Levine, Paul Slattery, David Corio and more, who photographed the artists at the time.

Like its predecessor Volume 1 – which included singes from Augustus Pablo, Young Marble Giants, Cabaret Voltaire, The Raincoats and more – this second Rough Trade seven-inch boxset is strictly limited to 1000 copies worldwide.

Tracklisting:

7" - RT056 - 1980

The Fall - "Totally Wired"

B-Side: "Putta Block"

7" - RT091 - 1981

Scritti Politti - "The Sweetest Girl"

B-side: "Lions After Slumber"

7" RT115 - 1982

Robert Wyatt - "Shipbuilding"

B-Side "Memories of You"

7" - RT122 - 1983

Aztec Camera - "Oblivious"

B-Side "Orchid Girl"

7" - RT124 - 1983

The Go Betweens - "Cattle and Cane"

B-Side: "Heaven Says"

7" - RT152 - 1984

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - "That Summer Feeling"

B-Side: "This Kind of Music"

7" - RT0507S - 2026

The Smiths - "The Headmaster Ritual"

B-Side "I Want the One I Can't Have"

(Originally released in the Netherlands 1985 with B-side Oscillate Wildly - new B-side for this release selected by the band)

7" - RT218 - 1989

The Sundays - "Can't Be Sure"

B-Side: "I Kicked a Boy"

7" - 45rev19x – 1983

Mazzy Star "Blue Flower"

B-Side: Mazzy Star  Five String Serenade

(the single was originally released with B-side Under My Car, but has been changed at Rough Trade’s request for this edition)

Epic 2 hour trip of astral-planing, ambient psychedelia shimmering with displaced traces of pop, slurred acid grooves and ample flange. Definitely one for the road or rail trip this summer, and FFO The KLF, Fennesz, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Eno. “From the edges of a hallucinatory torpor, Rue des Garderies continue their explorations in psychedelia — Femacosmé presents here a new piece recorded live at the Pe:rsona festival, at Domaine des Éveils in the summer of 2025. An adventure guided by blur, the intangible, the impermanent, where layers, voices, sounds, and organic and synthetic echoes resonate, emerge, then fade away — as if to deceive reality, or at least our perception of it. More than two semi-improvised hours in which Rue des Garderies (Sweetzak, Désiré Bonaventure & Vasco Cesaretti) summon us to an astral yet motionless journey — somewhere between ambient, IDM, and post-pop.”

After a successful run of early EPs and his debut double LP You!, Producer and Singer-Sing Writer Alek Lee returns to Antinote with his new album Like a Flower — an 8-track journey (plus 3 digital bonus dubs) that feels like open-heart surgery. With raw vulnerability, Lee exposes his deepest fears, pain, and inspirations, singing straight from the gut, but also sending words of inspiration and hope. From dub-infused vibes like the opening track Alright featuring My Lord, to grungy ‘90s trip-hop stylings on Compensation and the title track Like a Flower, the album showcases Alek’s wide emotional and sonic range. He shifts seamlessly into smoky, Sade-esque moods on tracks like Change, Let the Sun Just Shine, and Hold On — intimate ballads exploring heartbreak and existential reflection. With his signature blend of melodica, live percussion, guitars, vocal choirs, and lush '80s synths, Alek Lee locks you into his unique sonic universe. His brutally honest, yet deceptively simple lyrics are dressed as balearic dub-pop bangers.

On Everything You Giveaway, Pablo’s Eye turn Richard Skinner’s seaside vignette into a drifting meditation on loss and camouflage, where a missing jade earring becomes a quiet parable about hiding what hurts in the very element that once held it.Everything You Giveaway feels like a record built around a single, small gesture: a woman sitting by the sea, unconsciously loosening one jade earring while the man beside her skims green pebbles into the waves. The moment passes almost unnoticed, but later, in bed, she discovers that one earring is gone. Instead of panic, she feels relief. In her mind’s eye, she sees it lying on the seabed, indistinguishable from the stones he threw. “The best place to hide a leaf is in a tree,” she thinks, echoing the logic at the heart of Richard Skinner’s poem “a remoteness from the centre” (from the light user scheme, Smokestack Books, 2013). That line – and the short narrative wrapped around it – becomes the emotional axis for Everything You Giveaway.In typical Pablo’s Eye fashion, the text is not treated as a literal script but as a set of images to be dissolved into sound. The waves breaking become slow, undulating pulses; the green pebbles, small percussive or melodic events that vanish almost as soon as they appear; the jade earrings, bright timbral flashes that suddenly go missing from the texture. The music hovers in a state of “remoteness from the centre,” circling around implied themes rather than landing on them. What matters is not the dramatic revelation of the loss, but the quiet, inward turn that follows – the sense that giving something away, or losing it, can sometimes feel like placing it more deeply inside the world, hidden in plain sight.The album’s title, Everything You Giveaway, makes Skinner’s line universal. It’s not just about earrings and pebbles, but about all the things we let slip – relationships, secrets, fears, versions of ourselves – and how they might be absorbed by the environments we move through. The seaside setting is both literal and metaphorical: a place at the edge, where solid ground meets shifting water, and where it’s easy to imagine objects sinking out of view, merging with their surroundings. Pablo’s Eye use this as a frame for their sound-world: a gentle, porous music where elements arrive, mingle and recede, and where the distinction between foreground and background is constantly eroded.This approach aligns with the group’s long-standing interest in spoken word, ambient drift and cinematic suggestion. Here, the poem’s final line operates almost like a compositional rule: hide things in their own element. Melodies surface only to dissolve back into textures that resemble them; voices appear briefly and then disappear into a murmur of similar frequencies; a motif is introduced, then later “lost” inside a denser arrangement. As listeners, we are invited to experience the same subtle shift the woman feels: the movement from anxiety to acceptance, from clinging to an object to recognising its place in a larger pattern.Everything You Giveaway thus becomes less a straightforward adaptation of Skinner’s poem than a kind of extended footnote to it. By dwelling on that moment by the sea – the waves breaking, the casual gestures, the delayed discovery – Pablo’s Eye offer a sonic meditation on how we hide, how we surrender, and how the world quietly absorbs everything we let go.

If – in some parallel universe (or perhaps a not-so-distant-future version of the one we’re already sentenced to living in) – the evil overloads of artificial intelligence were actually successful in their attempts to create convincingly enjoyable “original music,” more specifically tasked with wholly encapsulating my own personal tastes by data-chugging some cocktail of – oh, I don’t know – the posters on my wall, the records in my “most listened to” pile, the mixtapes I made for others, intensive physical scans of my auditory cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, heart strings, whatever else they have splayed out on their autopsy table with the intention of generating one all-encompassing “perfect band” based on the fruitful sum of their findings – that band, for me, would be (or would at least sound exactly like) the Tara Clerkin Trio. It is, quite simply, without exception, the music I wish to hear. Formed in Bristol UK (where none of them are from yet all of whom are deeply engrained) in 2020, the Tara Clerkin Trio – as it somewhat democratically exists today, despite the singular authority implied by its name – consists of the titular Tara Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos, and Sunny’s brother, Patrick Benjamin. I’ll confess, I don’t know what their respective roles are within the operation and there’s only a very small part of me that cares to learn, as one of my favorite qualities in an objective listening experience is the mystery of who is playing what, which sounds are “authentic” versus synthesized, which chunks are performed “live” in a room together versus meticulously Frankenstein’ed from measure to measure, or how exactly the overall sound is so (seemingly) effortlessly achieved. Though, I suspect, if and when I do witness a live performance by this band at any point, my enjoyment of the music will not be lost in my better understanding of it. With two extraordinary mini-albums – In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) – making a splash on London’s formidable World of Echo label in wake of their self-titled 2020 debut on Laura Lies In, this upcoming Somewhere Good LP is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work. In running their usual gauntlet of idiosyncratic (*an overused adjective for which here there is regrettably no sufficient alternative) approaches, Clerkin & co. color in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes - never wallowing, despite inherently somber subject matters of self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness, gentrification - allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to situate, stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate, and ultimately take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination – all while somehow sounding more like themselves than ever before. Of course, there are traceable influences herein, if one felt that such comparisons were necessary to properly examine and enjoy this music (they aren’t)… Being the big dumb American from the small boring town that I am, cornfed on ‘90s alternative radio with the enchantingly exotic sounds of Maxinquaye and Mezzanine emanating from my chunky tube television, I can’t help but to make a blatantly obvious reference to a “Bristol sound”, ie the whole trip-hop trip, the pastoral crooning over the suggestive urban grime of cracked electro/piano treatments, the digitally-yet-primitively reconstructed James Bond soundtrack string-beats, etc.. But the Tara Clerkin Trio is so infinitely much more than that. There are elements of avant-pop, modern classical, kraut-folk, audio verité, dare I say indie rock (and not of the beer guzzling, masturbatory fuzz-flex variety but perhaps more like a Trish Keenan-fronted Faust, Adrian Sherwood at the mixing desk of If You’re Feeling Sinister, or – in expanding on our alternate reality – a world in which High Llamas cut a full-length for Warp Records with Andrew Weatherall on coffee duty). The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, peculiarly accentuated wind instruments, acoustic guitar, hushed yet literally mighty keys combine to hypnotizing effect. The band may make underlying nods to jazz, sure, but it’s not appropriation, it’s that they have the actual chops to build it out. Beneath the janky samples and oddball percussive embellishment lies actually great drumming. Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and woefully reflective plain-spoke moments are Tara’s subtly inspired melodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation. A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of this (their own) universe in song. – Ryan Davis (Chicago, February 2026)

Re-up of vital 1977-’78 dubs by the wee legend, cooked up long, strong and odd at his fabled Black Ark Studio for DJ play and dancers’ satisfaction. ‘Disco Devil Vol.2’ homes in on 1977-78 on six tracks that still do the business, unless you’re prepared to shell out for spenny OGs. It’s bookended by two showcases of the wee radge packet really getting into it, as with the 9 min disco jam of Hugo Blackwood & Dr Alimantado’s ‘reggae Music’, diffusing the vox and melodica to a haze on clean-heeled step, and again working the chants and nyabinghi of Sangie Davis’ ‘Words’ to a mesmerising sway, into biblical roots business by Watty Burnett. But maybe best of all is the haunting mix of Devon Irons’ ‘Vampire’ with Perry’s deeply unusual, psychoacoustic tekkerz in full effect.

AFTER DARK is the latest project from French producer Onra, conceived as the soundtrack to an imagined late-night film. Entirely self-produced, the album continues the sophisticated R&B and Modern Soul direction explored since his 2010 classic Long Distance and 2018's accomplished Nobody Has To Know, focusing on late 80's / early 90's inspirations. Structured like a film unfolding between dusk and dawn, After Dark moves through themes of intimacy, urban solitude, distance, and quiet indulgence. Analog synthesizers, tight drum programming, understated basslines, and selective live saxophone textures shape a cohesive body of work that favors mood and narrative over excess. The sequencing reinforces its cinematic intent, opening and closing with intro and outro pieces that frame the record as a cohesive night-time narrative album. Over 20 years since emerging in the mid-2000s from the beat scene, Onra has steadily evolved from sample-based Hip-Hop production toward polished, song-oriented projects rooted in contemporary R&B and Funk. With After Dark, he delivers one of his most focused and refined statements to date: a mature, immersive album built for late hours, and attentive listening. The first taster of the album to drop is the slick nostalgic ’Lap of Luxury’, sets the tone for the project, a blend between Instrumental Hip-Hop, late 80s R&B and 90''s Smooth Jazz.

Proto-house classic 'Nightgruv' gets a re-release and includes a longer unreleased edit! James Mason is mostly known for his late 70's album 'Rhythm Of Life', which is a soul-jazz classic. Soon after music trends shifted to (electronic) disco and James' music became out of fashion, leaving 'Rhythm Of Life' to be the only album he released to date. The early early 80′s saw him have a few studio sessions from which more electronic output like Wuf Ticket’s ‘The Key (Prelude Records) resulted. James also produced various disco acts like Disco 3, Earl Flint and Brenda Bayton. However, most of his early 80s studio sessions have remained unreleased until today. ‘Nightgruv’, which was recorded in 1984, did eventually get a release when it was picked up 12 years later (!) by a small UK indie label and was again reissued in 2000 by Soul Brother. Both pressings are still highly sought after and go for a lot of money on Discogs, mostly to do with the timeless nature of this proto house wonder, which sounds like a recording Larry Heard never made. A magically seductive groove, recorded at a time when house was still in its infant years. Not only is this release offering a remastered version of the original, it also includes an unreleased edit which stretches the original to a cool 6 minutes. The B-side features the epic 11 minute original version of 'I Want Your Love', a soul classic.

This compilation charts the unlikely link between Cologne’s DIY scene and the Ukrainian underground at the turn of the 1990s. Visual artist and producer Guido Erfen and sound engineer Michael Springer were central figures in SHM1, a Cologne collective who ran concerts and a studio space inside the vast, disused Rhenania grain silo. From this base, they built an independent network for recording and distributing music beyond the mainstream. In 1990, Erfen received a cassette from Ukraine featuring bands from Kharkiv and Kyiv, alongside an essay by Sergey Myasoyedow, co-founder of Kharkiv’s Novaya Scena rock club. The music—shaped by punk, avant-garde experiment, folk motifs and abrasive grooves—opened a window onto a scene largely unheard in the West. Further tapes followed, and Erfen travelled to Ukraine, eventually persuading Alfred Hilsberg to release the Novaya Scena compilation on What’s So Funny About, documenting 14 bands recorded between 1986 and 1992. In the wake of that release, musicians including Svitlana Nianio and Yewgeny “Yenia” Taran travelled to Cologne. From 1994 onwards, informal sessions at Springer’s Phantom Studio and the SHM space at Rhenania forged a new chapter in this exchange. Those recordings form the basis of this collection, capturing four distinct incarnations of the Ukraine–Cologne connection.

Pt. 3 of the 'Dub me crazy' series by Mad Professor. This one features the much played killer, Bengali Skank .. TIP! Originally released in 1983 on the same Ariwa imprint. True D.I.Y. business from this UK dub pioneer.

Back in 2015, Japanese deep house pioneer Soichi Terada stepped back into the limelight courtesy of Sounds From The Far East, a Rush Hour-released, Hunee curated retrospective of material released on his Far East Recording label in the 1990s and early 2000s. Buoyed by the positive response and renewed interest in his work, Terada went back into studio to record his first new album of house music for over 25 years, Asakusa Light. Developed over 18 months, Terada tried to recreate the mental and physical processes that led to the creation of his acclaimed earlier work. Those familiar with Terada’s celebrated, dancefloor-focused sound of the 1990s – a vibrant, atmospheric, and emotive take on deep house powered by the twin attractions of groove and melody – will find much to enjoy on Asakusa Light. “I tried to recall my feelings 30 years ago, but when I tried it, I found it super difficult,” he explains. “I didn’t even know what I thought about myself five years ago, and the mental metabolic cycle seems to be faster than I thought. I tried different methods, including digging up my old MIDI data and composing by remembering old experiences. With the help of Rush Hour, I found some of the light from my heart that I had 30 years ago. I nicknamed the light I found in my heart, ‘Asakusa Light’.” Produced using the very same synthesizers and drum machines that powered his 1990s work, the album is a joyous, colourful and life-affirming collection of timeless house music that not only recalls Terada’s own impeccable back catalogue, but also that of similarly celebrated contemporaries such as the Burrell Brothers or Ben Cenac (Dream 2 Science, Sha-Lor). Terada, who has spent much of the last two decades writing video game music, has always had a gift for combining warm, undulating synthesizer basslines and perfectly programmed machine drums with stirring chords, smile-inducing melodies and mellow musical flourishes. It’s this immersive, sun-kissed and tuneful trademark style that takes centre stage on Asakusa Light, an album for the ages. The set begins with the alien-sounding chords, soft-touch percussion and dawn-friendly warmth of ‘Silent Chord’ and ends on a high via the bouncing string stabs, starlight chords and thickset grooves of ‘Blinker’; in between, you’ll find a deluge of effortlessly feelgood music that’s the aural equivalent of a dopamine rush at sunrise. There are subtle variations aplenty throughout the album – see the 8-bit lead lines and pulsing electronic textures of ‘Takusambient’, the vintage Tony Humphries flex of ‘Diving Into Minds’ and the effortlessly funky ‘Marimbau’ – but it’s the uniquely atmospheric, vivid and tactile nature of Terada’s loved-up sound that resonates. After well over 30 years in house music, the light in his heart is shining brighter than ever.

Feedback Waves — the new imprint from independent label Rings of Neptune — is proud to present Trill, the first and only album by Palomatic. Almost thirty years after its original release on CD in 1995, this beautiful nine-track work is now available on vinyl for the first time. Palomatic is an alias of Koji Takahashi, an active member of the bubbling Japanese electronic music scene of the early-to-mid 90s. Besides his solo work, he was a core member of Takahashi Tektronix (with Nic Yoshizawa) and Mutron (with Kiyoshi Hazemoto, aka Interferon), as well as working as a synth programmer for supergroup Denki Groove. Following the release of his debut track ‘Halo’ on Syzygy Records in 1993, Takahashi made a series of contributions to compilations on the scene-defining Transonic label. His first and only full-length album, Trill, combined these tracks with original material to form an absorbing and versatile standalone statement of the Palomatic sound. From the oscillating lilt of ‘Flutter’, which opens proceedings at a measured 104bpm, through to the symphonic epilogue of ‘Soar’, Trill is rooted in the fertile territory between organic and synthetic sounds — ground that was nourishing the work of many likeminded producers worldwide at the time. West Coast psychedelia and East Coast funk, the moody bass weight of Bristol trip-hop and Sheffield bleep, and the chemical rush of German techno and Belgian trance: with a distinctly Japanese sensibility, Trill drew these strands together into an elegant musical tapestry. The result is timeless — indeed, album centrepiece ‘Foaming Waves’ would sound right at home on the faster-paced dancefloors of today.

“Warm Waves” took shape from a series of recordings of spontaneous improvisations by a core group of Turn On The Suniight regulars, with additions by Laraaji, Sam Gendel & Luis Pérez Ixoneztli. Carlos Niño then contributed two remixes, both in collaboration with Jamael Dean. The album features Mia Doi Todd's ethereal vocals and the voice-like sounds of Sam Gendel’s electronically-processed saxophone, but is intentionally devoid of words, save for a single phrase spoken by Laraaji in one of Carlos’ remixes - "Peace All Over" - a message of hope for the future and expression of faith in the timeless, omnipresent, eternal now.

“Warm Waves” took shape from a series of recordings of spontaneous improvisations by a core group of Turn On The Suniight regulars, with additions by Laraaji, Sam Gendel & Luis Pérez Ixoneztli. Carlos Niño then contributed two remixes, both in collaboration with Jamael Dean. The album features Mia Doi Todd's ethereal vocals and the voice-like sounds of Sam Gendel’s electronically-processed saxophone, but is intentionally devoid of words, save for a single phrase spoken by Laraaji in one of Carlos’ remixes - "Peace All Over" - a message of hope for the future and expression of faith in the timeless, omnipresent, eternal now.

There comes a point when an artist's catalogue is rich enough to deserve a retrospective. Kelly Finnigan's B-Sides, Singles & Forgotten Gems celebrates 15 years with Colemine Records, bringing together rare B-sides, standalone singles and overlooked recordings in one place. Spanning his earliest work to some of the first music recorded at his Ohio studio, the collection traces Finnigan's growth as a songwriter, producer and vocalist. An ideal introduction for newcomers and a rewarding deep dive for longtime fans, it captures the journey so far while hinting at what's still to come.

There comes a point when an artist's catalogue is rich enough to deserve a retrospective. Kelly Finnigan's B-Sides, Singles & Forgotten Gems celebrates 15 years with Colemine Records, bringing together rare B-sides, standalone singles and overlooked recordings in one place. Spanning his earliest work to some of the first music recorded at his Ohio studio, the collection traces Finnigan's growth as a songwriter, producer and vocalist. An ideal introduction for newcomers and a rewarding deep dive for longtime fans, it captures the journey so far while hinting at what's still to come.

Reading Group is thrilled to announce The Hands of Grace, a new album of original music by the legendary novelist, essayist, poet, critic, and playwright Ishmael Reed (b. Tennessee, 1938). The Hands of Grace presents for the first time the original music that Reed composed for his 2021 play, “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” which was read at the Nuyorican Poets Café and premiered at the Theater for the New City in 2021. Also featured on the album are several other solo piano and ensemble compositions by Reed, with accompaniment from Roger Glenn (flute), Ray Obiedo (guitar), Carla Blank (violin), and Tennessee Reed (voice).Reed’s compositions on The Hands of Grace range from humor and pastiche to arresting beauty. The intimate and idiosyncratic sound calls to mind the off-kilter beauty of Charles Mingus’s piano record and Carman Moore’s score (also on Reading Group) for Personal Problems (1980), the brilliant “black soap opera” that Reed co-developed with Steve Cannon and Bill Gunn. Opening with a minimalist meditation on Jean-Michel Basquiat (also the subject of the play), and moving through blues tunes, descriptive pieces, and tributes to poet Lucille Clifton and Reed’s partner Carla Blank, the record closes with a moving ode to Reed’s late daughter Timothy. The Hands of Grace offers a deep dive into the musicality of this inimitable artist.

Concentric Circles is pleased to present a collection of recordings from Halkyn, the solo project of Chris Coyle, most known for being a member of much beloved Leeds, UK group Empress. Halkyn released two 7”s around the turn of the century on the 555 label, which have, like a lot of the best music from that time, fallen somewhat by the wayside. This LP release collects both of those 7”s, along with a few tracks that originally appeared on compilations, and two unreleased recordings from the time.Halkyn was part of a small non-scene of sorts in Leeds that included Hood and Empress, which collectively was a small group of friends who appeared on each others records, with Hood acting as somewhat of an anchor. In addition, they all shared a similar knack for writing beautifully melancholic music, with an occasional foray into electronic abstraction that still remained approachable. Halkyn’s music was imbued with a glass-like sense of fragility, sometimes feeling like it’s on the verge of collapse, but Coyle, being a master of melody, always rooted his tracks back down into the earth. This is music for slow, grey skied walks in the countryside.Halkyn has remained a lesser known name from that special time in music, but we hope that this LP, released in an edition of 300 copies with beautiful jacket photography from Coyle himself, will help put his name on the map where he belongs.

Strung-out yet precise. Introverted but with something to say. Industrial Relations is a further unraveling of the stories untold left lingering around the Piedmont capital. Cloistered away behind one of Turin’s many crumbling doorways, a basic studio set-up alongside a scattering of found photos and a type-writer forms the backbone of this bureau. Noticeably more barbed than its predecessor Chamber Music, drums are frayed and left to splutter. Grungy guitar chords come in at angles, occasionally spiralling into delay-drenched depths before coming back up for air. The ghosts of 90’s post rock are often summoned and keep close company. Drowsy drum-loops and turntable mischief is a strong nod to the bedsit charms to Crescent (specifically Electronic Sound Construction to these ears at least), whilst Hood’s fuzzy greyscale warmth forms a backdrop for the songier moments. For all its uncanny abstraction though, Industrial Relations is punctuated by moments of unexpected sensitivity and space. Burial is little more than soft nylon strings, a demure vocal and the passing of traffic. Egg Monster unravels to expose a tender character, only just about covered with vinyl crackle whilst Musica Di Guarigione demonstrates a genuine sensitivity and ear for melody. It’s music outside but of it’s time, equally of the past and the present, offering a further insight into the inner-workings of this unique Italian dilettante.

"Eau" is the lovely new album from aus, the solo project of Tokyo-born composer and producer Yasuhiko Fukuzono, who has gained attention, in Japan and overseas, for his thoughtfully paced and sensitively skillful music as well as his intriguing sound design for exhibitions and experimental cinema. Having worked primarily with keyboards and electronic sound up to this point, "Eau" is a slight yet fascinating shift for aus; the album, while still primarily an electronic work, revolves around the sonic world of a stringed acoustic sound source, the koto, that most characteristically Japanese of musical instruments. The very accomplished Eden Okuno provides the delicate-yet-rich koto sounds on offer here; Fukuzono, in the liner notes, acknowledges the importance of Okuno’s artistry to the project.

The compositions on the album are designed to balance the sound of the koto, with its subtly variable attack and flickering resonance, with the timbre of other instruments. The delicate decay and metrical flexibility of the koto is enveloped by sustained synthesizer sounds and contrapuntally constructed piano melodies, creating a flowing ambience with absorbing undercurrents, a languid and liquid quality that reveals the suitability of the title.

Avid fans of contemporary Japanese music might hear the influence of pioneering works such as the the 1979 Hiroshi Yoshimura composition “Clouds for Alma", realized by koto player Tadao Sawai, and the 1993 album "Koto Vortex I: Works by Hiroshi Yoshimura" which featured performances of Yoshimura's works by the Japanese koto quartet Koto Vortex. These works attempted to remove the koto from its traditional context and place it within the context of ambient and techno. "Eau" is available on CD/LP/cassette/digital, with E/J liner notes by aus. "Eau" is the first collaborative release by EM Records and FLAU, the label run by Yasuhiko Fukuzono (aus).

2025 repress. There are certain albums which shake the world immediately upon release, and others which come from far underground and whose shocks and aftershocks rise to the surface gradually over the years, gaining momentum and power. “Ten Dubs That Shook The World” is of the latter type. Since its original vinyl release in 1988, the prescient impact of this Australian homemade dubwise solo massive by Anthony Maher aka Sheriff Lindo has become ever-more apparent and influential. With its dual-island combination of Jamaican dub and UK industrial and post-punk, and the twinning of spaced electronic drums and effects with some very fine, superbly rooted bass lines, the tectonic "Ten Dubs" has proven to be a durable, doubly-solid shaker. This 2025 repress is dedicated to the original producer John Blades, founder of the Endless Recordings label, who along with Maher and Richard Fielding constituted The Loop Orchestra.

A buoyant masterpiece from the early 90s, “The Water Garden” was created by Okinawa-born Kojun Kokuba under the inspiring image of a “happy Asia” thriving in the sea-based trading networks of the medieval to pre-modern era, with the concept that various types of music, as well as physical goods, were distributed and dispersed across the seas connecting various parts of east and southeast Asia. Fittingly, the music here has definite and distinctive Ryukyu island roots, but is informed by a number of other Asian musical traditions, layering phrases derived from numerous Asian scales, often altered by Kojun, eschewing typical Western chordal harmonic movement. Kojun uses the synths and multitrack recorders of the early 90s to, in his words, “pile up lines” in sweet and not at all overbearing melodic accumulations, with a desire to distribute and disperse a new energy from Okinawa to the rest of Asia and the world. Despite a pleasing and compelling rhythmic lilt and the use of synths and drum machines, this music was not created as a product for the dance floor; Kojun envisioned a type of electronic salon music, a “light music” made with contemporary technology. This is the first LP edition of the self-produced original 1993 CD release and includes bonus tracks and liner notes in English and Japanese.

Brenda Ray, who became famous for the new roots rock reggae "Walatta" that became the best seller in the 2000s, has been active since the post-punk / New Wave era, and is based in Liverpool and Manchester, the Slits and pop groups. , New Age Steppers (who interacted with A. Sherwood), etc., played reggae / dub / punk / rock crossover cutting-edge music. She has an outstanding sense of POP, and in the mid-1980s she released her works as a solo in Virgin and other places in the UK. That "Walatta" was an album like Brenda's solo career collection "after".

This work "Duya Here Me! (Hearing !?) ”is a collection of early masterpieces before“ Walatta ”.

The recorded song is a sound source of the band era that was active under the name of Naafi Sandwich / Naffi Sandwich or Naffi, and the release at that time was exclusively DIY cassette tape and 7 inches. They weren't formed as a live band, they were a unit that left the idea to record and produce their work.
In this comp, you can listen to another world of "Walatta", which has a strong influence of Jamaican music on rhythm and method, but "I didn't want to play reggae and wanted to" Dub-up "(= dub version). I wanted to do it) ”as their sound, playing reggae crossover.
The title song "D'ya Hear Me!" Is a POP tune of D.I.Y soul explosion recorded on a 4-tiger teleco using a rhythm box. Heavy and cute reggae crossover such as "Naffi Take Away" and "Krazee Music", de deep and dark roots reggae-style instrument "Spring Thing- Hippy Dread", "Walatta" popular song "Starlight" original song ( !) "Moon beams", Young Marble Giants-style "Everyday Just Another Dream", unreleased original long version, etc. Finally, a demo of "D'Ya Hear Me!" That she "excavated" this time is recorded. Highly recommended for post-punk / Neo Acoustic fans! !!