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Before Guaracha UFO propelled Meridian Brothers onto the international stage, Eblis Álvarez was already shaping his singular sonic universe in the shadows. Released only on CD in between 2009 and 2012 via local label La Distritofónica, Meridian Brothers VI and VII never had wide distribution or media exposure. Yet, these albums represent a crucial phase in the band’s evolution, capturing the energy of Bogotá’s experimental cumbia scene at the time.
On VI, Álvarez crafts a hallucinatory patchwork of cumbia and vallenato, using his guitar as the guiding thread before layering other instruments on top. VII pushes experimentation even further with a custom-built sampling algorithm, generating unpredictable loops and grooves. These two albums laid the foundation for the radical fusion and irreverent spirit that would later define Meridian Brothers.
Now reissued on vinyl for the first time, these historic recordings offer a raw and fascinating glimpse into the origins of one of Latin America’s most forward-thinking musical projects.
Gaudi’s Jazz Gone Dub is a masterclass in genre fusion, seamlessly blending the improvisational essence of jazz with the heavy atmospheric grooves of dub. Known for his eclectic approach to music production, Gaudi pushes the boundaries yet again, creating a sonic landscape that feels both nostalgic and refreshingly innovative.
Four years in the making, from the opening track it’s clear that Jazz Gone Dub is more than just a mashup of styles, it's a thoughtful exploration of the intersections between two rich musical traditions.
Gaudi’s multi-instrumental talents are on full display, and the presence of reggae royalty is palpable, courtesy of rootsy melodies from David Hinds (Steel Pulse), Jah Wobble’s iconic bass grooves, Ernest Ranglin’s intricate guitar lines and Sly & Robbie’s rhythmic genius.
Add Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree, Sardinia’s Train to Roots band, Manu Chao collaborator Roy Paci, veteran guitarist Marcus Upbeat, Mr Woodnote and Tim Hutton’s brass work, Gavin Tate-Lovery’s sultry sax and flute, Horseman’s percussive flair plus Vlastur’s serious basslines, and the result is a rhythmic foundation that’s both solid and fluid, allowing the jazz elements to float freely above the dub undercurrents.
Despite this star-studded line-up, Gaudi remains the glue that holds this gem together: his production is meticulous yet organic, allowing each track to breathe and evolve naturally. The use of space, delays and reverb—a hallmark of dub music—is expertly handled, giving the album a dreamy, immersive quality. Tracks like Susceptible and Alabaster Moon showcase Gaudi’s ability to create mood and atmosphere without sacrificing melodic and rhythmic complexity.
In Jazz Gone Dub Gaudi has crafted an album that feels both timeless and forward-thinking, a celebration of musical synergy where the free-spirit of jazz meets the deep resonance of dub. Whether you’re a fan of either genre or simply appreciate masterful musicianship and innovative production, this album is a must-listen.
Yokota's most upbeat and playful release on the Skintone label.
Will heralded a disarming, groove-based return to deep house. A wild melange of bumping beats, freestyle samples and esoteric goodness. Recorded over the same period as Grinning Cat this anomaly within the Skintone catalogue was seen as a way to circumvent the swirling politics of his club-oriented releases elsewhere.
In itself Will was a reminder of Yokota’s ability to deliver a complex array of sounds within a more recognisable format.
Om Unit presents Acid Dub Versions III, the third set of remixes of material taken from all three volumes of his legendary Acid Dub Studies album trilogy. Taken together, all three Acid Dub Studies releases and their remix companions have proven a highly influential series, and Om Unit’s best-selling work by far. He’s toured relentlessly throughout the EU and the US throughout 2025 presenting live versions of the material to consistently sold-out crowds and overwhelmingly positive response from both longtime fans and newcomers alike.
The album celebrates the legacy of the acid dub project with a high-caliber set of remixes. These include such prolific luminaries as Daniel Avery, Satoshi Tomiie, Richard Fearless (Death in Vegas), Tadd Mullinix (as Dabrye/Ghostly International) and Tilliander (TM404/Mokira/Kontra-music).
Portland-based dub generals Alter Echo and E3 (of BSI Records and ZamZam Sounds fame) and UK dance pioneer Bok Bok (Night Slugs) join forces with newer faces like Beatrice M (Tectonic/Tempa), Dubrunner (Menace), Azu Tiwaline (Livity Sound), N1_Sound (Spiritual World), Krotone (Of Paradise/Challenger Deep), Piezo (Subaltern/Hundebiss), RS Tangent (Trilogy Tapes) and lowkey noise/techno/ambient polymath Misseterspoon (Avon Terror Corps).
Each artist was given free reign to interpret using material from anything from all three albums. The result is a heady mixture of dubs from many angles, each one multi-faceted and high-quality. The variety of approaches puts Acid Dub Versions III firmly in the realm of legendary modern dub compilations as Macro Dub Infection and Box of Dub.
With the possibility of more acid dub in the works from Om Unit, Acid Dub Versions III stands as a testament to the project's ongoing evolution—bridging scenes, generations, and styles—and reinforces its lasting influence on the trajectory of 21st century electronic music. This is definitely one for the heads.
The 9th Riddim Dub School psychonautic explorations in the 5th dubmension. The first side brings us DARE! VAMPIE, a tune made by Prince Istari and Nozomi in courtesy of the Dubstressors. This was done while Prince Istari holds a Dub Science seminar. Here you go with four versions in a strip down dub style. Flipside brings synth line driven stepper SONIC ATTACK OF THE CIRCADAS. that one and the following two versions of DUBMENSIONAL SACNTUARY are both supported by the old Hohner Rythm 80 percussion machine. Is Prince Istari dropping out from mid highschool with this release? Or will he be back for the 10th grade? we may see.
Even in these most turbulent of times, dub musician and fatigued onlooker Elijah Minnelli remains an inexplicable stalwart on the lower rungs of the Breadminster County Council.
His latest record ‘Clams As A Main Meal’ continues his astute siphoning of council funds, this time with help from the Breadminster Board of Abstinence. As a further mark of respect, the original head of the Board, Dr. K'houldoux, graces the cover art in his infamous ‘Looming Moon of Desire’ guise.*
As fine a backdrop as any for Minneli’s off-brand dub experiments, and ‘Clams…’ is the truest representation of his varied wheelhouse yet…
We find vocal appearances from dub goliath Dennis Bovell and Welsh-language singer Carwyn Ellis. A pair of tracks which build on 2024’s acclaimed ‘Perpetual Musket’, a collection of folk songs reworked alongside reggae vocalists, released by FatCat Records. It garnered glowing reviews, with nods from The Guardian and The Quietus concluding with prominent appearances on their respective yearly round-up lists.
Elsewhere, the album finds Minnelli in a more experimental mode, all wheezing contraptions and cockeyed bass, creaking with the weight of creation, a satisfying tactility laid seam-side up.
As well as ‘Perpetual Musket’, the new album follows years of sold out 7" singles, handmade and self-released. Online, the tracks have amassed global streams numbering in the millions. His tracks have found play across an eclectic range of radio mixes and dance floors, most notably the likes of Andrew Weatherall, Batu, Optimo and Zakia Sewell (BBC6Music).
It is perhaps worth mentioning that this everbuilding interest in his work is at great odds with the growing suspicions amongst his fellow townsfolk, who see his Breadminster County Council Music Initiative as nothing more than an empty cash-grab.
*For further reading on the Breadminster Board of Abstinence, please see below.
Further Reading on the Breadminster Board of Abstinence
In the late 70s, Breadminster was awash with the last vestiges of the hippy era. Though the flared silhouette of the lower leg remained, the utopian ideals that had once flowed merrily around the youth's shaded ankles had begun to wane. LSD and free love had led to a sharp spike in population and a generation of children raised by air-headed psychonauts unprepared for the bleary-eyed strictures of parenthood.
Aware of the crisis, the County Council entrusted Dr. Paulinque K'houldoux to spearhead a pushback, and it was his pro-abstinence movement - a mixture of education initiatives and radical renutrition campaigns - that came to impact Breadminster's census deep into the new millennium.
Being a pseudo-archipelago Breadminster has fundamentally limited resources, however deep-seated ties to distant coastal villages meant that oysters were a regular part of the local diet. K'houldoux pinpointed this as a factor in the town's overpopulation, and believed that simply replacing these with clams (a “lesser mollusk”) would help lower the erotic urges of the people. It was his “anti-aphrodesia” movement that first championed the idea of “Clams As A Main Meal,” and the slogan “Consider Abstinence” carried the message yet further.
The Breadminster Board of Abstinence soon became involved in all cultural happenings in the area, with K'houldoux MCing at prominent festivals and performances, sometimes dressed as the “Looming Moon of Desire” - an idea of his relating to the tide, seafood, menstrual cycles, and his privately held celestial predilections.
It was in 1981 that it was revealed Dr. K'houldoux had never fully qualified as a doctor and was seeking exile in Breadminster due to a series of botched bracelet heists in which he had previously been involved. K'houldoux was subsequently extradited to Basingstoke, where he served 3 of a 12-year sentence, owing to the lunar-oriented prisoner health campaigns he helped implement.
It has been a strange twist of bureaucratic fate that the Breadminster Board of Abstinence has never stopped receiving public funding, despite its lack of clear utility. And while its roots are tied to a rose-tinted past, the Board continues to sponsor cultural events and projects to this day.
An extract from: Eugeniq Schooner's article in Sydney Parishioner: “Clams, Breadminster and Countercultural Abstinence Trends” (2008)
Stepping back into the socio-realist bass mutations of his 2024 LP Municipal Dreams, Low End Activist pulls together a heavyweight remix package responding to the source material in a multitude of ways.
Beyond the immediate soundsystem styles that inform the Activist’s sound, the scope for experimental sound design and charged, pensive atmospherics leaves a lot of space for reinterpretation. From a distinct but compatible angle, Actress naturally nudges the contours of ‘T.W.O.C’; into his signature haze, finding a squashed undercurrent of blunted techno to carry great clouds of solemn pads. Andy Martin locks into a downcast, crooked house shuffle as he twists They Only Come Out At Night out for the twilight hour.
On the B side, Demdike Stare conjure raw pressure and deadly negative space around their jagged reappraisal of ‘Hope III’, before the Activist himself plates ‘Just A Number’ with a different coat of avant-grime armour. Shelley Parker delivers a madcap finisher with her take on ‘T.W.O.C’, channelling the rapid-fire complexity of singeli into acutely angled, hard-looped sampling that rides roughshod over rhythmic stability. It’s a bold collection from some of the most serious operators in the game, all thriving on the density of the Activist’s initial ideas to deliver daring abstraction and club-ready thrills beyond the expectations of the conventional dance.
Vel, recognized for her striking presence in the contemporary techno scene, initiates the Cuddle Protocol, her first ambient album and the third outing on her own label PURR. The nine-track record is a personal and intimate statement. With Cuddle Protocol, Vel explores the paradox of intimacy in a coded world. "I like the idea of a protocol for softness," she explains, "of codifying something that should be intimate and spontaneous." This tension runs through the album: fragile voices and soft layers unfold against serious, carefully structured arrangements, balancing tenderness with rigor. Ambient music has always been Vel's "first love." Before producing techno, she composed ambient exclusively, and this album marks a return to the form in its most sincere expression. "I know this music will follow me all my life. It's not a phase. It's how I express myself most truthfully." Cuddle Protocol is about slowing down, embracing sincerity, and reaching for deeper connection. "When I listen to ambient, I access another world. It's charged with emotion, it makes me drift and forget everything. That's the feeling I wanted to share." Mastering by Sixbitdeep. Artwork by Adone Giuntini.
“The silence is burning… ignited by a melody”
Going back to sleep… a lovingly gathered suite of windswept, heart-bursting DIY indie-pop and folk-indebted songs from an ensemble of contemporary luminaries. Centred around a node of antipodean artists predominantly recording and performing in intimate spaces, its ambition and sentiment extends to likeminded souls around the world.
The opening strum by Glenn Donaldson's The Reds, Pinks and Purples sets the breezy yet bittersweet atmosphere, its lavish tones and textures swirling beneath one of contemporary indie's most distinct voices. "There was a light in my head / wanted to die but I burned instead", he laments with a soaring baritone to revelatory effect. His Fruits and Flowers companions The Gabys, a low-key UK-based duo who first landed in our orbit with their self-titled cassette in 2021, follow with a burst of combustible energy. Despite being predominantly instrumental - untuned, overdriven riffage the order of the day - there lies an unshakable melodic impulse.
Devotees of Dutch group Lewsberg will recognise immediately the voice of frontman Arie Van Vliet, who appears here as new duo The Hobknobs with Yaël Dekker. The interplay between Van Vliet's and Dekker's voices works unexpectedly well, striking the perfect balance between heartfelt tenderness and the wry matter-of-factness that Lewsberg fans have come to love. New kids on the block Who Cares? were our most cherished discovery last year, their sound encapsulating a woozy pastoralism and their lyrics a sense of something deeply sinister yet darkly humorous: "you got your feet chopped and I’m here to stay, estranged, on this sunken rock..."
The Sprigs, Chateau, I Can I Can't and the Volcanic Tongue-backed Drunk Elk are evergreen exemplars of DIY primitivism and their songs are the fruits of impulsive budget recording. Act now, think later. From the uncanny gonzo-folk of 'Leagues of Marsh to Swallow Towers' and 'How Long on the Platform' to the reckless yet brutally tender 'Personal Favourite' - "recorded in the dark sometime around 2009" and released under a working title, for it was never meant to see the day - a sense of nervy sleep-deprivation and self-destructiveness emerges. Controlled chaos that culminates in the void-dwelling rush of 'Euros', a propulsive meditation on momentary hues and everlasting greys: "make it happy, make it sad / your gift is all I ever had".
The prolific David West returns under his Rat Columns guise with a ballad that feels like reconnecting with an old friend, a voice you've known your entire life. A balmy autumnal breeze that perfectly compliments the subdued elegance of The Lewers, who make their first appearance since their rapturous 518A debut, and who's lyrics perfectly capture the compilation's sentiment: "the wound that never heals / so deep but hard to reach". Time stands still with the arrival of Daily Toll, their bruised yet ultimately optimistic meditation on love and loss a weightless, atmospheric masterpiece. Lead Kata Szász-Komlós looks inward during a sublime instrumental section before a painful confession: "writing names across your neck / made it home but now I am a wreck".
Concluding the suite is Carla dal Forno's first single since Come Around (2022). An effortless, elegant reverie daubed with cautious desire, her voice soars over a delicate Foresteppe instrumental and was recorded during rehearsal sessions for her forthcoming album. A testament to chance and an unexpectedly beautiful moment during the songwriting process.
These songs capture a feeling of introspection that seems impossible to achieve when recording for anyone but yourself. We see it as a traversal through the now wonderfully diverse international pop underground, but more simply, a group of wide-eyed yet world-weary music makers performing on our imaginary stage.
Arriving two years after the first chapter, Absurd Matter 2 isn’t just a sequel, it’s an evolution, redrawing the boundaries established by its acclaimed predecessor. The Berlin-based Italian producer tempers his confrontational sonics with rare moments of introspection, shifting seamlessly between blown-out noise, warped hip-hop, mutant club experimentation, and weightless ambience. Textures disintegrate and reassemble, rhythms flex and crumble, and every detail balances on the edge of fantasy. It’s a poetic, layered response to Nino Pedone’s changing physical reality: the gradual hearing loss and perceptual renegotiation triggered by Ménière’s disease, which struck him in 2022. At first, the experience felt like betrayal, a brutal disconnection from the very sense that had shaped his life. But over time, the disorientation turned into a strange kind of focus. The silence between sounds became as expressive as the sounds themselves.
The first Absurd Matter was a visceral reaction to trauma; the second is more reflective – an ambiguous chronicle of sensory recalibration. Pedone doesn’t represent his altered inner reality through extremes, but through depth, zooming in on illusory distortions, tense rhythmic fluctuations, and fragmented sonics. Dense, immersive, and mystical, the album mirrors Pedone’s evolving relationship with perception itself.
Tinnitus-like feedback wails and noir-ish strings introduce “Repeater”, making it immediately clear that Pedone is painting a more delicately finessed image this time around. Fleshed out by raps from cult MCs billy woods and E L U C I D, the track is marked by subtle, sophisticated contrasts: the blurred, inverted rhythms that couch Armand Hammer’s haunted back-and-forth, and the glitchy interference that offsets the lavish orchestral phrases. Backwoodz associate Fatboi Sharif lends his Lynchian drawl to “Bandage Chipped Wings”, grounding Pedone’s lysergic rhythmic distortions with syrupy, horror-inspired couplets. Pedone also invites discomfort into “Crash Landing”, with droning, metallic tones that contradict South Central rapper ICECOLDBISHOP’s elastic flow. “Bitch, I don't give a fuck about anybody,” he squawks over Pedone’s incongruous rasping textures and time-warped beats, “cash out at any party.” Working alongside London’s Loraine James on production, Pedone reunites with Moor Mother on “I Saw The Light”, blending James’ soft-focus atmospherics with soundsystem-damaging, overdriven bass hits and rusted percussive snips. Moor Mother’s assertive words hover over the wreckage, tightening Pedone’s themes of overstimulation and altered awareness as they stutter and veer off course, vanishing into the backdrop.
Contrasting his more pensive experiments, Pedone’s dancefloor deviations are more concentrated on Absurd Matter 2 than ever before. He torches a stuttering dembow structure on “X”, obfuscating the rhythm’s familiar energy with disturbing audio hallucinations. On “Splintered”, he reunites with Kenyan prodigy Slikback, mangling neon-lit trance arpeggios with dissociated trap rhythms. He sharpens his skills to a fine point on “Oblivion Step”, observing 2-step through a lens of distortion and personal abstraction, shaking blipping synth leads over neck-snapping drums and counteracting the momentum with airless sci-fi soundscapes.
Perhaps the album’s most surprising moment arrives with “Viel”, which features vocals from Los Angeles-based composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Together, Pedone and Smith chance upon their notion of dub techno, fogging synth stabs and ghostly vocal traces into eerie harmonic distortions. On some level, it’s almost pop music, a far cry from the bleak dissonance of Absurd Matter and a hopeful way to reframe turbulence as transformation.
Absurd Matter 2 doesn’t simply document a process; it enacts one. It doesn’t offer clarity; it invites disorientation. It’s not a map of the labyrinth, but a foghorn piercing the darkness.
First re-issue album from the Skintone Edition Volume 1 Box Set
Magic Thread is Susumu Yokota’s deeply soothing and delicate debut release on the Skintone label. With a spartan palette of sounds and textures, Yokota taps into a fundamentally human need to fuse and connect disparate fibres, magically forming work which glistens and pulsates with life.
Magic Thread originally came out in 1998 as a limited-edition CD release of 500 copies. Initially intended for the Japanese market, it came without any artwork in a standard transparent CD case adorned only by a sticker containing essential album information and a quote:
‘Somewhere in the process of evolution, the spinning and weaving of thread became possible for humankind. How did this come to pass? It can only be that the thread is possessed of magical properties.’ – Yokota, 1998.
Om Unit surprises us with a second volume of his 'Acid Dub Studies' project, once again fusing his love for the 303 with studio techniques given to us by musical heroes such as King Tubby, Adrian Sherwood, Jammys and Basic Channel
This second volume further solidifies the convincing narrative created by its best-selling predecessor, heading in a more groove-based direction in places whilst being underpinned by the same sonic narrative that has been enjoyed by many music fans from a variety of different spheres for the past 18 months or so
Support so far for the Acid Dub Studies project has come from many corners including some of the most highly respected names in UK Radio such as Don Letts and Steve Barker, Benji B and Tom Ravenscroft as well as a whole host of truly global worldwide underground support both via radio and in the dance
Om Unit says of this record: 'I felt encouraged by the sheer love for the original selection of works to go back in again and continue to experiment with this approach to writing whilst refining some of the process. Being able to combine processes and influence has been the mainstay of my creative life and I hope this next volume of Acid Dub will be enjoyed by everyone who was a fan of the first'
The beloved 303 bassline continues to inspire every new generation and Acid Dub Studies II is another storybook of sound in that vast continuum that shows no sign of slowing down
Tapping the driftwood, tapping the surface of the water, everything on earth becomes his instrument.
In 1990, NEWSIC, a leading Japanese environmental music label, released a work by a rare percussionist
The work released by the rare percussionist is now on LP record for the first time.
Listening to Mr. Ochi's Natural Sonic reminds me of the days when I used to go to the studio of St. GIGA (satellite music broadcasting station), which was then located in Jingumae.
There, this album was secretly played day after day.
After more than 30 years, "Chikyu no Chikugo" was finally released to the world.
- Yoshiro Ojima (Composer / Music Producer)
Yoshiro Ochi is a percussionist who has been active in a wide variety of fields, including composing and performing music for the Issey Miyake Collection from 1984 to 1990, producing music for TV and radio, participating in live performances by GONTITI and other artists, and conducting workshops.
He has collected colorful living tones by traveling, playing drums, and tapping on natural objects he encounters. They blend gently with computer sounds and repeat pleasant resonance.
A magical massage of sound and rhythm.
Following "Motohiko Hamase - Tree Scale," one of the most popular titles on the "NEWSIC" label, this long-awaited analog record pressing is now available!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Ultimo Tango (Milan) & Glossy Mistakes (Madrid) are thrilled to announce the release of "Tribal Organic: Deep Dive into European Percussions 79-90", a compilation of otherworldly percussion-driven tracks, digging deep into this unknown realm of a past era.
Compiled by Luca Fiore and Glossy Mario, the album takes listeners on a rhythmic journey through the diverse sounds of Europe from 1979 to 1990. This collaboration between two like-minded labels highlights forgotten recordings from across Europe, including works by artists from France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands...
Opening with the ethereal “Rainforest” by British female duo Ova, this collection weaves together nine tracks from artists who were deeply influenced by global percussion traditions. With hints of jazz, new age, gamelan, and West African rhythms, these tracks feature instruments like congas, tablas, and shekeres, and reflect a shared fascination with the organic beat of the drum.
From the industrial-meets-African grooves of Jean-Michel Bertrand’s “Engines”, to the hypnotic accordion and tribal chants of Cuco Pérez’s “Calabó Bambú”, the compilation offers a cross-cultural listening experience that is both meditative and invigorating. Despite creating these works in isolation during the last years of the Cold War, each artist was inspired by a borderless world of sound. The compilation pays homage to these nomadic musicians who respected the traditions they drew from, while contributing their own experimental takes on percussion-led music.
In Tribal Organic, Glossy Mario and Luca Fiore have unearthed a treasure trove of rhythm-driven tracks that blur the lines between nations, genres, and cultures. This compilation offers more than just music; it’s a listening experience that is both spiritual and grounded—bold, exploratory, and deeply rooted in the beat of the Earth. <iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 472px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3608275395/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://glossymistakes.bandcamp.com/album/tribal-organic-deep-dive-into-european-percussions-79-90">Tribal Organic: Deep Dive into European Percussions 79-90 by GLOSSY MISTAKES</a></iframe>
Barely known outside of his home country during his lifetime, the late Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura has seen his global stature rise steadily in the past few years. The 2017 reissue of his lauded debut, Music For Nine Post Cards, along with a slow building cult internet following has helped ignite a renaissance in his acclaimed body of work, much of which has never been released outside of Japan. Known for his sound design and environmental music, Yoshimura worked on a number of commissions following the 1982 release of Music For Nine Post Cards, including works for museums, galleries, public spaces, TV shows, video art, fashion shows, and even a cosmetics company. Originally released in 1986, GREEN is one of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s most well-loved recordings and a favorite of the artist himself. Recorded over the winter of 1985-86 at Yoshimura’s home studio, the compositions unfold at an unhurried pace, a stark contrast to the busy city life of Tokyo. As Yoshimura explained in the original liner notes, the album title in the context of this body of work is not meant to be seen as a color, but is rather used to convey “the comfortable scenery of the natural cycle known as GREEN”—which perfectly encapsulates the soothing and warm sounds contained on the album, although it was created utilizing Yamaha FM synthesizers, known for their crisp digital tones. This edition marks the first reissue of the highly sought-after and impossible to find album. It features the original mix preferred by Yoshimura himself, previously available only on the initial Japanese vinyl release (a limited edition remixed version of the album, with added sound effects, was released on CD in the US). Additionally, this release is the first in our ongoing series, WATER COPY, focusing on the works of Hiroshi Yoshimura.
The newly remastered edition of "Evidence For Real" will be released November 14th on vinyl, digital, and streaming platforms, restoring the powerful work of a drummer, composer, and bandleader who chose to walk his own path, well outside the mainstream.
Born Robert Charles Sheppard Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, and later known as Ambonisye Lord Shepherd, the artist carried a life story as inspiring as his music. From his formative years in Omaha’s historic 24th & Lake district to his creative explorations in Los Angeles, Shepherd forged a sound that was at once fiercely personal and universally searching.
Recorded in late-night sessions across Hollywood and Hermosa Beach with a close circle of collaborators, Evidence For Real reflects Shepherd’s spiritual journey in the wake of his mother’s passing, embodying his belief in music as a vehicle for healing and higher consciousness.
This 2025 reissue finally brings Shepherd’s vision back into the light.
30 years!!!
Produced in 1995 by the gold-grilled hardcore/jungle/D&B pioneer, engineered by Rob Playford, Dillinja, and 4Hero’s Dego and Mark Mac, with vocals by the legendary Diane Charlemagne (R.I.P.), ’Timeless’ was and still is an ambitious and enduring example of British Afrofuturism. The album’s sense of discipline and crucial style was symptomatic of the scenius developed by a tight circle of mostly Black and mixed race British artists who drew on their African and Afro-Caribbean roots to develop a unique artform that expressed their identity, which would in course become adopted by a wider generation as their own.
A pinnacle of its artform, arguably never bettered, the album was practically ubiquitous during the mid-‘90s, with its introductory anthem ‘Inner City Life’ - part of the album’s opening three-part suite - a staple on MTV2 and mainstream radio, which helped transcend its urban roots and infect a whole generation beyond big cities and their clubs. It’s almost hard to imagine such a futuristic album quite like this appearing and exerting so much effect on the popular consciousness in 2021, but the ‘90s was a very different place and time, and we can only live in hope that the next decade will foster the next Goldie.
Oh, one last thing - Gerald's 'Black Secret Technology' came out almost exactly 5 months before 'Timeless', it didn't have the same promo budget behind it, but it's legacy seeps even further and deeper than 'Timeless' - and is perhaps, on the quiet, one of the most influential and enduring electronic albums of the late 20th century. Just sayin.
An intimate, mesmerising record about loss and change, sorry i thought you were someone else is K-LONE’s most personal album to date and his debut release on Incienso.
Made after his father’s passing, the album became a place of escape and reflection. A warm, hypnotic space to drift within.
Katie Schecter makes smoked-out, introspective indie rock that sits somewhere between hazy retro glamour and sharp present-tense songwriting. Raised in New York and now based in Nashville, she threads a line between swagger and sweetness – as if she’s stepped from a parallel timeline where pop, soul and indie rock all grew up together in the same neon dive bar.
Produced by Nick Bockrath (Cage The Elephant) and performed with a heavyweight cast including Homer Stenweiss and Leon Michels, this LP has a slow-unfurling depth that reveals new colours with every listen. The record has a lived-in warmth and dusty elegance to it – the kind of songwriting that feels confident without losing its vulnerability, and soulful without leaning into pastiche.
RIYL the songwriting weight of Sharon Van Etten, the sly hooks of Caroline Rose, and the smoky gravitas of Amy Winehouse.
A confident, stylish and quietly addictive set – a record built on feel, not fuss, and one that rewards repeat spins.
"Amusing the Amazing" is a four song EP by American stoner rock band Slo Burn, originally released in 1997 by Malicious Vinyl. The band was fronted by vocalist John Garcia, formerly of Kyuss, and included guitarist Chris Hale, bassist Damon Garrison, and drummer Brady Houghton. The EP was co-produced by Slo Burn and Chris Goss. The EP is being remastered and pressed on 12” vinyl for the first time, with audio on one side and a custom etching on the other.
The raw, thunderous power of Charley Patton resounds once again in this essential second volume of Father of the Delta Blues: Selections from Paramount Recordings. These tracks capture Patton at his most urgent and unfiltered, delivering fierce slide guitar, hollered vocals, and lyrics steeped in mystery, defiance, and deep Mississippi soul. This volume continues the excavation of Patton’s singular legacy: part preacher, part trickster, part storyteller. Lovingly restored and remastered by Dave Gardner, Volume Two is not just a document of early blues—it's a glimpse into the roots of American music itself, where rhythm met rebellion and history was etched into shellac. Pressed on color vinyl exclusively for RSD Black Friday 2025.
OSMIUM is a collaboration between Oscar-winning Icelandic composer and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, James Ginzburg (emptyset, Subtext), Rully Shabara (Senyawa), and Grammy-winning producer and sound designer Sam Slater.
Forging burnished electroacoustic soundscapes with metallic drones, barbed rhythms, and bio-mechanical vocalizations, OSMIUM’s debut album resists any fixed vision of the future. Instead, it channels a viscous, unorthodox flow of sonic speculation—smoldering through echoes of ancient pasts while blazing toward a volatile frontier of fate.
Driven by questions around the relationship between humans and machines, tradition and progress, individual and collective expression, OSMIUM channel their deep expertise into a set of forward-thinking sonic interrogations. The music draws from folk, doom metal, 20th-century minimalism, industrial, and extreme noise, yet never settles fully into any genre.
While each member brings along a laundry list of accolades, the project is far greater than the sum of its parts. Widely known for her aforementioned soundtrack work and run of acclaimed solo albums on Touch, Guðnadóttir plays the halldorophone, a unique cello-like electroacoustic instrument designed by Halldór Úlfarsson that allows the performer to harness unstable feedback loops.
Taking his cues from this process, Sam Slater - who's worked alongside Jóhann Jóhannsson, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Ben Frost and others - generates rhythms using a self-oscillating drum he custom designed with KOMA Elektronik, and Ginzburg – one half of emptyset and curator of Subtext Recordings - responds in kind, producing booming tambura-like sonorities from a device he developed himself based on the monocord, an ancient single-stringed resonator.
OSMIUM synchronize the three unique instruments using a custom system of robotics to generate basic rhythms that underpin their improvisations and experiments, and although Shabara just uses his voice, it's his alien tones that supply the band with their conceptual fulcrum. The vocalist is one of South Asia's most recognizable underground artists, and the sounds he's able to create using exhaustively rehearsed extended techniques are so distinctive that he's been studied by scientists back home in Indonesia. As part of OSMIUM, Shabara attempts to merge with the band's machines, warping his vocal cords to mimic the robotics and originate hoarse percussive cracks and eldritch tonalities.
At the center of this volatile assemblage is Rully Shabara, whose voice forms the band’s conceptual and emotional fulcrum. One of Southeast Asia’s most singular underground artists, Shabara employs exhaustively rehearsed extended vocal techniques—so unique they’ve even drawn scientific attention in Indonesia. Within OSMIUM, his vocalizations merge with machines, producing hoarse percussive cracks and eldritch vocal tones that blur the line between human and mechanical expression.