MUSIC

Awesome Tapes From Africa the label began over 10 years ago with the reissue of Nahawa Doumbia’s Vol. 3. The recording kicked off a successful run of classic and new recordings from artists across Africa, being made available for the first time in the international marketplace. ATFA makes it possible for artists to expand their fanbases and revenues streams with legally licensed recordings and a 50/50 profit split. For its 50th release, ATFA presents iconic Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia’s beloved Vol. 2. Released on LP in 1982 and unavailable outside Mali until now, Vol. 2 is an intimate yet powerful document of the early efforts of one of Mali’s most enduring voices. Four decades of worldwide acclaim later, Doumbia is still touring the world blowing minds with her achingly emphatic singing backed by her partner guitarist N’gou Bagayoko. Vol. 2 is stark in its instrumentation—simply featuring voice and acoustic guitar—but massive in its sonic impact. Painstakingly extracted and remastered from LP by longtime ATFA audio engineer collaborator Jessica Thompson, this is the first time this recording has been cleaned-up for wider release. The master recording no longer exists and the original was pressed at relatively inferior quality, heightening the difficulty of presenting Vol. 2 with clarified audio. The historic recording was worth the effort. Doumbia’s voice soars above Bagayoko’s guitar as she lays out her plaintive approach to expressing relevant topics of the day. The room sound could be considered the third instrument as its shape and sonic affect is vibrantly apparent throughout. And the simplicity of this recording only enhances the immediacy of these four songs. As a bookend to both Doumbia’s long career and ATFA’s growing catalog, Vol. 2 is a grand yet unpretentious encapsulation of the energy behind this decade-long collaboration between artist and label.

Artwork by Nicola Tirabasso and Alison Fielding
Thanks to Jack Colleran, Henry Earnest, Finn Carraher Mc Donald, Margie Jean Lewis, Róisin Berkley, Luka Seifert, Diego Herrera, and Olan Monk
Recorded in Conamara and Dublin between 2021 and 2023.

Hill departed from the hip hop sounds of her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) in favor of austerely performed acoustic soul and folk-based songs. She jokingly described herself as a "hip-hop folk singer", and according to Robert Hilburn, assumed the role of a folk singer accompanied only by her acoustic guitar. Rather than singing any of her previous hits, Hill debuted all new songs in a folk style and, in between songs, spoke at length about her personal and artistic struggles.

Before morphing into the excellent psych trio, B.F. Trike, Hickory Wind (from Evansville, Indiana), released one brilliant, and extremely rare, country psych album in 1969. Just 100 copies were pressed for the Gigantic label, and originals have been known to change hands for a small fortune. The album features excellent vocals, plus an interesting mix of fuzz guitar, and droning organ, as well as some wonderfully melodic songs. This reissue also features four bonus tracks from the B.F. Trike album session, recorded for RCA Records in Nashville, Tennessee in 1971. The B.F. Trike album, however, remained in the vaults for 25 years, before it was finally uncovered and given its just recognition in the mid-nineties. </p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K3IzI2EcBpU?si=-aZLG1UwEr0lp9_M" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

With Leaving It All to Chance, Roomer don’t quite leave everything up to fate. The Berlin outfit’s debut album hums with guitar-driven heartbreak, pairing mind-splitting noise with seductive melodies. Capturing the gritty yet emotive energy of their live performances, the album welcomes in the occasional ear-candy, staying true to the raw physicality of a hazy club show all while sharpening its edges—crafted in true DIY spirit and released by Munich's Squama Recordings.

Roomer is the meeting point of four distinct creative forces in the European music scene, united through long-standing friendships and years of collaboration across projects ranging from avant-garde free improv to ethereal folk and ambient electronica. Inevitably—if surprisingly late—the question arose: why not start a band? In their hands, the rock band format became a canvas for their many musical worlds to collide.

Ronja Schößler, a fixture in Berlin’s experimental singer-songwriter scene, pens compositions of crystalline vulnerability that cut through the band’s guitar architectures with diaristic directness. Ludwig Wandinger, polymath producer and visual artist—recently featured on Caterina Barbieri’s light-years label—injects his drumming with an energy grounded in sharp sound-design instincts. A wizard of the 8-string guitar, Arne Braun lays down layered foundations that evoke the presence of multiple players at once, while minimalist composer and synthesist Luka Aron contributes electro-acoustic textures that shimmer with the weight of distant memories.

With Arne Braun stepping away from the band to focus on other projects—including Make-Up, the DIY recording studio where much of Leaving It All to Chance was brought to life—Roomer now continues as a trio for their upcoming live shows. Expect the occasional special guest or multidisciplinary collaboration, though, as Roomer moves through the gamut of Berlin’s artists, performers, and poets.

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Leaving It All to Chance opens with '2003', where overlapping planes of distorted flute and shimmering guitar create a temporal fold through which memory keeps seeping. Ronja’s confessional voice recounts a moment of disclarity: “I accidentally stepped into 2003,” she admits, reflecting on holding on too long and the realisation that starting over might be futile.

'Nothing Makes Me Feel' performs a decoy, opening with acoustic guitar patterns that suggest singer-songwriter fare before high-pitched distortion tears through the fabric of the song. The chorus arrives like a scene from some imaginary American teen drama finale, yet its pull is complicated by layers of wailing harmonics that hint at something darker.

Perhaps the album’s centrepiece, 'Windows' combines minimal music’s interlacing patterns with sudden eruptions of power chord catharsis. The track’s opaque lyrics (“you ask for purity / I have this melody”) float above guitar work that draws as much from Steve Reich’s phasing techniques as it does from My Bloody Valentine’s tremolo manipulations.

The album’s eponymous single 'Chance', accompanied by a gloomy video steeped in veiled imagery and opaque symbolism, sees Ronja holding light and shadow in her hands. Flame shards flicker through a prismatic lens as the song gradually shifts from straightforwardness into spectral webs of saturated echoes.

Reappearing from Roomer’s previous EP, Skice, albeit in a slower, moodier form, 'Much Too Loud' commences with acoustic guitar and a looming drone that set the stage for the slightly irked vocal delivery, lamenting undertones of power and control, softened by an almost disarming tenderness. Then, without warning, the chorus alters one’s sense of gravity with breathy vocals, countrified plucks, and angelic harmonics that render its central command (“put your head low and shut your mouth please”) both intimate and threatening.

'Stolen Kisses', the album’s penultimate track, reinterprets Psychic TV’s 1982 original—a sly nod to Roomer’s blend of experimental depth and pop immediacy. The British industrial post-punk pioneers blurred the lines between avant-garde provocation and melodic allure, and Roomer channels that spirit, turning the track into an anthem of their own. Distorted guitar downstrokes merge with swirling, feedback-laden slides, all underscored by the band’s undeniable knack for hooks.

Closing the album, 'Your Arms Are My Home' shifts into more pastoral territory. Wide-open, flanged acoustic guitars trace a thin line between comfort and doubt, offering a fragile sense of refuge. Each pause in the music weighs a tension, as if caught between holding on and letting go, its hushed conclusion lingering like a half-remembered promise.

ノスタルジックな深夜の音楽。20世紀前半のギリシャで流行した大衆歌謡であるレベティコの偉人であるGiorgos Katsarosによるスティール弦ギターとヴォーカルによる、時代を超えた魅力を放つ素晴らしい演奏をコンパイルした画期的編集盤が〈Mississippi Records〉と〈Olvido Records〉の共同でリリース。Katsarosの現存する初期の64の録音からリマスタリングされた貴重な10曲をセレクトした一枚。催眠的なメロディーが、親指で弾くベースラインの反復に支えられ、その深く悲しげな声が響き渡っています。

Punisher is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, released on June 18, 2020 by Dead Oceans. Bridgers first established herself with her 2017 debut, Stranger in the Alps, a widely acclaimed indie rock effort. In the years preceding her second album, the California native formed the bands boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center. On Punisher, Bridgers' songwriting is somber and sardonic; deeply personal in nature, it explores topics like dissociation and fragmenting relationships.

Phoebe Bridgers wrote her first song at age 11, spent her adolescence at open mic nights, and busked through her teenage years at farmers markets in her native Los Angeles. By age 20, she'd caught the ear of Ryan Adams, who listened to her perform her song "Killer" in his L.A. studio, inviting her to come back and record it there the next day. The session blossomed into the three-song ‘Killer’ EP, released to much acclaim on Adams’s Pax-Am label in 2015. In the two short years since, Bridgers has toured or played with Conor Oberst, Julien Baker, City and Colour, Violent Femmes, Mitski, Television and Blake Babies among others. On September 22nd, Phoebe Bridgers will release her debut full-length, Stranger In The Alps. From the weeping strings and Twin Peaks twangs of opening track Smoke Signals, to the simple heartbreak of Funeral and melancholic crescendo of Scott Street, Stranger in the Alps is a swooningly beautiful record with a gothic heart.

Limited reissue in heavy black vinyl of the second Happy End album released on November 20, 1971, which is highly acclaimed as a classic Japanese Rock album.

Tara Nome Doyle's latest EP »Agape« marks her return to the music scene after a two-year hiatus following the success of her acclaimed sophomore album »Værmin« (Modern Recordings, BMG, 2022). »Agape« is a profoundly intimate collection of songs documenting TND's emotional journey through grief, commemorating the passing of a loved one. Each track explores different facets of this emotional landscape, showcasing TND's otherworldly performances and unique approach to songwriting. This self-produced EP represents an artistic leap for the Norwegian-Irish songwriter. Skill-fully capturing the arresting beauty of her compositions, TNDs minimalistic arrangements feature the haunting melodies of Norwegian-Scottish cellist Sunniva Shaw of Tordarroch (known for her work with Fay Wildhagen, Liv Jakobsen and Juni Habel). The ethereal atmosphere they create together evokes a distinctly Scandinavian eeriness while TND's dedication to crafting poetic lyrics and vivid storytelling pays tribute to her Irish singer-songwriter roots. The EP's title »Agape« translates to unconditional, selfless love - a sentiment that permeates each of the six tracks. This timeless collection of songs aims to be a comforting and cathartic companion for anyone caught in the throes of grief.

No other solo American guitarist this century has impacted that fecund scene quite like William Tyler. After crucial stints in Silver Jews and Lambchop, this adopted son of Nashville emerged at the dawn of the last decade with a string of inquisitive albums that paired the measure of his country rearing and classical enthusiasm with his ardor for post-modern experimentation, field recordings and static drifts folded beneath exquisite melodies. Tyler dug Chet Atkins and Gavin Bryars, electroacoustic abstraction and endless boogie. His productive little enclave of instrumental music has increasingly followed such catholic tastes, not only ushering new sounds and textures into the form but also critical new voices and perspectives.And on the brilliant, bracing, and inexorably beautiful Time Indefinite, Tyler’s first solo album in five years, he steps at last into the widening gyre he helped create. The guitar serves as a starting point for an album that will make you reconsider not only Tyler but also the possibilities and reach of an entire field. A vortex of noise and harmony, ghosts and dreams, anguish and hope, Time Indefinite is not a great guitar record. It is a stunning record—a masterpiece of our collectively anxious time, really—by a great guitarist.In early 2020, as the world teetered at the edge of unrests still unimagined, Tyler left Los Angeles for Nashville, where he’d lived most of his life after his parents left Mississippi. Most of his gear (and, for what it’s worth, all of his records) stayed in California, awaiting what he presumed would be a rather rapid return. It, of course, wasn’t. So as Tyler dealt with the depression, nerves, and questions of those endlessly tense times, he began recording little ideas and themes with his phone and a cassette deck, resigning himself to the distortion inherent in those devices.Tyler was in early talks to make a record with Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, and some of these bits felt like test cases for what they might do together. As that collaboration crept in other directions (as heard on last year’s staggering “Darkness, Darkness” single, with more to come), Tyler magpied other sounds. He soon asked longtime friend and producer Jake Davis to help stitch them together and perhaps clean up those imperfections. (Eventually, back in Los Angeles, Alex Somers stepped in to provide the finishing touches.) Davis and Tyler opted to go the other way: embrace the hiss and wobble and, in the end, unintentionally make a record that reflected those times and these—uneasy, damaged, honest.From the start, Tyler’s music has pulled from the past, drawing old notions and conventions into the revealing light of now. In November 2020, on a family trip to Jackson, Miss., to clean out his late grandfather’s downtown office, Tyler spotted an old tape machine, still sealed among the flotsam. He took it back to Nashville, back to Davis, and they began using it to create tape loops that conjured the vertiginous feeling of that unknown moment.Time Indefinite begins with a sampled shard from that antique, as harsh as Merzbow processing the sound of a washing machine. It is a lurid, worrying signal flare: I am here, and things are hard, but I am trying. The piece unfurls like a haunted house still inhabited by real, living people, trying to make do when the world around them seems to be saying don’t. Not 10 minutes later, at the start of “Concern,” Tyler slips into a melody as gorgeous as anything he’s ever found, strings and steel rising like the sun beneath his simple folk waltz. It is a hand on a shoulder, a radiant bit of music that answers: I am here, and things are hard, but we are trying.This seesaw of struggle and survival defines these nine songs and 50 minutes, a map of anguish and belief and the trails that link them. “Electric Lake” is an ecstatic drone that summons La Monte Young to this century, but there is pain beneath its glow. “Howling” is an absolute wonder, its gentle guitar lope and choir of echoing horns and keys recalling the glory days of Windham Hill. But the background actually does howl, latent worry simply waiting to roar back to life. It doesn’t during the supple “Anima Hotel,” but you know it won’t be long now, because it never is—on this album as in real life. “This is a mental illness record,” Tyler will tell you without shame, as open in life and speech as he is on tape. “It’s music about losing your mind but not wanting to, about trying to come back.” He doesn’t, however, need to tell you that; you can feel it, probably even recognize it from your own experience.Too, Tyler’s albums have been nests of non-musical references and influences, as he has pivoted between spirituality and philosophy and summoned the landscapes and legends of the greater American imagination. Time Indefinite is no different, especially in the way it conjures the deeply personal films of Ross McElwee. In the mid-’80s, he began to make a movie about Sherman’s march through the South, but it spiraled into a tangled history about family, loss, and what we do when our best instincts surrender to the worst things we can imagine. (The record is a nod to this idea, of time’s relentless push and our place in, beneath, and beside it.) It is no great revelation that the lives we lead shape the work we make, whether or not we intend that to be the case. In these songs, you can hear Tyler, like McElwee, wrestle with incoming demons out loud—addiction, middle age, loneliness, neurosis. All of our struggles are different, but we are united at least in having them. Time Indefinite is the soundtrack that Tyler’s create.“Held,” the ninth and final track, seems to sigh through a grin as it begins, a welcome reprieve from the plangent drone of its predecessor. It is the benediction at the close of all these goddamned chaotic blues. For what it’s worth, that is Tyler in a nutshell, someone will who smile sheepishly and offer a perfectly silly joke even as he tells you the hardest things about himself. But by the end, that grin blooms into a full smile, Tyler beaming through an acoustic waltz that is a perfect bit of unadulterated beauty. Yes, the machines and strings still whirr in the background, a true-to-life reminder of omnipresent menace. Not right now, Tyler seems to be saying. Instead, the message is clear: I am here, and things are hard and wonderful, and I am still here.

The duo’s third album of instrumental guitar recordings pushes their sinuous compositions into labyrinthine new shapes, interlocking and interlocutory, supported by a cast of stellar collaborators. Interwoven among the dazzling original pieces is a fascinating array of covers, ranging from traditional Breton dance tunes to a deconstruction of Neneh Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance.

Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods was released some two decades after the Portland, Oregon born and raised musician’s first forays into field recordings. These very recordings, and those captured over intervening years, define the universal sound and aural images of childhood, a theme memorialized by Hood’s privately-pressed opus of 1975.

Freedom to Spend has restored Ernest Hood’s nostalgic masterpiece with the same care with which he viewed his source material, offering a remastered version of Neighborhoods transferred from the original tapes, expanded across four vinyl sides (the original version was crammed on two). The new edition reproduces Hood’s celebratory liner notes in full, alongside new liner notes by Michael Klausman.

Through a delicious haze of delayed guitars, Pierre Bujeau’s Megabasse lures into deeply hypnagogic states of mind in the mode of his ace tapes for All Night Flight, adding to marvels of Melbourne’s Efficient Space.

In one satisfyingly extended piece and a pair of shorter parts Megabasse’s ‘Flamenca’ plucks out a slow motion petal-fall cascade of notes that linger on the senses like perfume and slot beautifully well into meridian of sounds found on Efficient Space’s prized folk and zoner country compilations ‘Sky Girl’ and ‘Ghost Riders’. The side-long ‘L’Último Sacrifacio’ yields a mesmerising 23’ ribbon of lissom rhythmelody enchanted by its own beauty and lodged somewhere in the outer realms of kosmiche and country folk music with Rafael Toral, Jules Reidy and Jim O’Rourke, for example, whilst ‘Marcia, Baila, Suogna’ comes down to earth gently with 9’ of chamber-posed minimalism elegant in its waltzing figure that sashays to a gorgeous, hushed vignette ’Suogna Piazzata’.

Jack Rollo is clearly really feeling it, as he expounds: “Pierre Bujeau is an expert at creating temporary escape zones - musical structures to evade the everyday. Sometimes he works collectively as part of the mysterious French groups Omertà and Tanz Mein Herz. But it’s when he’s on his own, performing as Megabasse, that he offers the most complete break from reality.

His kit is simple: a few bottles of cheap lager, twin Fender amps, and his double-necked guitar. An instrument like this normally signals maximum rockist excess - think Jimmy Page, Geddy Lee, or that dude from the Eagles. In Pierre’s hands, it becomes more like a zither or a dulcimer, producing soft chiming patterns that build against themselves until the sound of the room, passed back and forth between his two amps, starts to blur everything, and we are away in another world. Wait, though - let down your yoga bun and don’t light the palo santo yet. The new space he creates has nothing to do with smug wellness. It’s a rough, do-it-yourself psychedelia, scuffed but hopeful. Not a perfect blank space to be your best self in, but instead a communal dreaming, an uncanny place where all are welcome.

Until now, without catching him live, the Megabasse experience has been difficult to find: CD-Rs, short-run tapes, and one blink-and-you-missed-it LP. Thankfully, this record on Efficient Space, a reissue of some pieces that were previously only available on a small cassette edition, will put that right. Here are two long, intricate pieces, and something new - a shorter track that hints at a move toward beautiful, burnt-out guitar soli.

Unless you are very lucky, wise, or rich, life imposes its structures on you. Maybe a record of shimmering, tranced guitar is all you need to get out from underneath?”

Mesh-Key is thrilled to announce a deluxe, expanded reissue of Moon Beams by Tokyo visionaries, Tsuki No Wa. Originally released on CD by Japan's Soundscape label in 2003, Moon Beams is a bonafide opus -- a masterful mix of jazz, latin, folk and electroacoustic, topped with bandleader Fuminosuke's soaring, spectral vocals. Bassist Takuyuki Moriya was also a member of Ghost, and drummer Yuta Suganuma is a long-time member of the Shintaro Sakamoto band. The quartet's third album in as many years, Moon Beams found Tsuki No Wa taking a gigantic leap forward in both compositional sophistication and sonic experimentation. Beautifully recorded in a (since demolished) Meiji-era ballet studio, and featuring guest performances from such underground luminaries as Yoshihide Otomo and Ami Yoshida, this timeless, ambitious work sounds just as spellbinding today as it did a couple decades ago. Our reissue features an updated mix from the band and brand new album art with unseen photos of the group in their heyday. The vinyl (2LP, mastered by Josh Bonati and pressed at RTI) comes in a full-color, double panel gatefold jacket with eye-popping gold foil lettering.

You know Dolly, Loretta, Tammy, and Bobbie—but what about Joyce, Mona, Cathy or Judy? Barnyard Beehive lassos 16 Opry hopefuls from across the Numeroverse, corralling the timeless tropes of heartbreak, trouble, and the bottle into one 12" pen.</p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u4osQPbApyY?si=92U5vpQMVvUbaj-o" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uQkaM109Uvo?si=2e3UfXN3Wc54mo3S" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yhv4ThPRpXY?si=7rQuv27n0jq8i5fn" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The temptation to mythologize Bill Fay can be overwhelming; Fay was, for decades, as prolific as he was under-appreciated. Fay’s unsung-hero status has changed slowly, steadily, on the order of almost twenty-five years. With each new album comes new hosannas and evangelizers — Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby, Adam Granduciel and Julia Jacklin, to name just a few. The Bill Fay Group, in particular, is Fay’s most significant collaborative work; he records as a member of a larger group here, and the result summons a grander sonic scale, an elegant counterweight to Fay’s instincts for the understated. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow brings to bear the galactic qualities of early rock, the intricacy of jazz improv, and Fay’s earthy folk magic. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a patchy release history: recorded between 1978 and 1981, it was not released until 2005, when it appeared on CD with limited streaming and no vinyl companion. A 2006 reissue brought the album onto vinyl but with a truncated sequence and nine songs missing. Now, finally, Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow arrives in full worldwide. Available on streaming services worldwide and pressed to a double-album vinyl edition, it features the album’s original 22 songs and includes rare and previously unseen photographs from Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow’s original recording session. In the words of Gary Smith and Rauf Galip, missing Bill Stratton, and abbreviated from the forthcoming album notes: We chose five songs to record as finished pieces: Life, Spiritual Mansions, Cosmic Boxer, Strange Stairway, Isles of Sleep, all recorded in two studio sessions. We sent them out to try and get a record deal. There were few really independent labels back then and Punk was in the record labels’ ears. No deal. And now, Dead Oceans who have a lot of faith in Bill’s music wants to re- release the ‘Tomorrow’ album. A double vinyl package. Is there any more unreleased music for the fourth side? Of course. So, we’ve been opening old boxes, finding CDRs, cassettes, a musical archaeological dig. This is our choice from all the music we found. Fly Like a Bird.

Awesome Tapes From Africa the label began over 10 years ago with the reissue of Nahawa Doumbia’s Vol. 3. The recording kicked off a successful run of classic and new recordings from artists across Africa, being made available for the first time in the international marketplace. ATFA makes it possible for artists to expand their fanbases and revenues streams with legally licensed recordings and a 50/50 profit split. For its 50th release, ATFA presents iconic Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia’s beloved Vol. 2. Released on LP in 1982 and unavailable outside Mali until now, Vol. 2 is an intimate yet powerful document of the early efforts of one of Mali’s most enduring voices. Four decades of worldwide acclaim later, Doumbia is still touring the world blowing minds with her achingly emphatic singing backed by her partner guitarist N’gou Bagayoko. Vol. 2 is stark in its instrumentation—simply featuring voice and acoustic guitar—but massive in its sonic impact. Painstakingly extracted and remastered from LP by longtime ATFA audio engineer collaborator Jessica Thompson, this is the first time this recording has been cleaned-up for wider release. The master recording no longer exists and the original was pressed at relatively inferior quality, heightening the difficulty of presenting Vol. 2 with clarified audio. The historic recording was worth the effort. Doumbia’s voice soars above Bagayoko’s guitar as she lays out her plaintive approach to expressing relevant topics of the day. The room sound could be considered the third instrument as its shape and sonic affect is vibrantly apparent throughout. And the simplicity of this recording only enhances the immediacy of these four songs. As a bookend to both Doumbia’s long career and ATFA’s growing catalog, Vol. 2 is a grand yet unpretentious encapsulation of the energy behind this decade-long collaboration between artist and label.

★ With obi ★ Gary Marks ‘ Gathering’ is exactly what you would call a miracle. Self-produced in 1974 and engineered at Vitra Sonic Recording Studios in New York, the album introduced the crispy talent of the guitarist/pianist and producer. A genuine blend of folksy harmonies and jazzy arrangements, the record could have been possibly the missing link between Tim Buckley ‘Starsailor’ and some early seventies Impulse ! Session. Now it’s about time to get a hold of this masterpiece

”Gathering includes guitar legend John Scofield, the amazing jazz pianist Michael Cochrane, and one the of the top vibraphonists in the world, David Samuels. But at the time none of them were known to the general public. In fact, Gathering was the recording debut for all of us.” (from Gary Marks liner notes) 

Driving is Sam Wilkes’ Indie Rock record. Out October 6th, 2023, it is the first release on Wilkes Records, an imprint borne of the artist’s emergent need to self-release. The songs presented here exist comfortably within the ever-expanding Wilkesian cosmos, characterized as they are by virtuosity, torqued experimentalism, and collaboration with a range of talented musicians. But Driving’s influences, its sincerity, and its allegiance to a certain pop sensibility reflects a departure for an artist who has primarily staked his claim within the experimental jazz idiom. Take the first track, “Folk Home,” which inaugurates the album’s fecundity—a bright, green, humid, summer feel. A swirling, freakout coda of reversed vocals gives way, in no short order, to a caterwaul of flute work that conjures Van Morrison’s (in)famous Astral Weeks sessions. Standing beside Morrison, the usual suspects are all present, if somewhat abstractedly. Dylan, The Dead, Joni, the Fab Four. Wilkes has developed a reputation as an experimental jazz luminary, but his deep affinity for the pop/rock/folk idiom of the latter twentieth century rings clear throughout Driving. More so than any Wilkes release to date, Driving is a collection guided by and dedicated to the man’s attention to songcraft. Written and recorded during a period of rain-damage induced renter’s itinerance (and the attendant desire to produce a kind of therapeutic, self-soothing, home-feeling music), Driving loosely charts the trajectory/experience of “a protagonist,” both Wilkes and not, “who has figured out how to live an enlightened and fulfilled life, but is unable to do so because he thinks about it too much.” This friction is surely relatable — a symptom of our compulsively self-aware present. But Wilkes avoids the obvious pitfalls of public hand-wringing. Rather, Driving’s nine tracks evince a genuine, and mature searching-ness, both sonically and lyrically. The ending refrain of “Own” serves like something close to a thesis— “Letting go // isn’t a concept // it’s an action.” In an attempt to beat back ego, hyper-cogitation, language itself, Wilkes arrives at an axiom that feels so true and familiar, you’d swear you’d heard it one hundred times before. Driving’s final third is, fittingly, its most emotive and cathartic. Tracks seven and eight, “Again, Again” and “And Again,” form a diptych, joined most obviously by the jangling, recursive grooves of guitarist Daryl Johns. Wilkes is said to have encouraged Johns to go “full Lindsey [Buckingham]” (clearly a welcome and resonant prompt), but one also catches stray Knopfler vibes, some intermittent Fripp, and (perhaps more-so in tone than technique) the spirit of DIY prophet and jangling man himself, Martin Newell (the Cleaners from Venus). Wilkes has stated that he finds joy in creating musical environments suitable to the contribution and flourishing of his favorite musicians. Throughout Driving, and in these two tracks especially, he has more than succeeded. The record closes with the titular track: a story-song that, according to Wilkes, poured out of him (melody, composition, and lyrics) in a single sitting. The tale is told plainly, bravely, starkly; a mistake was made, regrets have been had, and all is wrapped up in the recollection of a deeply felt adolescent heartsickness—a time when the narrator was first afire with music and automotive freedom. The song captures the moment when meaning inexplicably falls into place, when a long-nagging memory suddenly assumes narrative form, and the subsequent sense of lightness and unburdening. It is fitting that Driving, a record conceived as a form of self-therapy, should culminate with a sense of humble revelation. That Wilkes is plainly eager to share the vulnerable fruits of this labor constitutes Driving’s joyful offering.

Listening to The Softies feels like peeking into a diary, with no personal detail spared. Holiday in Rhode Island, their third album, presents the most accessible means inside the humble honesty of the emotive universe of Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap, Gaze, Go Sailor) and Jen Sbragia (All Girl Summer Fun Band). The band lyrically documents a lovelorn heart in every manifestation, here hope is a bright silver lining adorning each of these new songs. The harmonies between Rose And Jen shimmer, brighter than ever before, benefiting from strong arrangements and production. Their two delicately jangling guitars and crystalline voices never needed anything else, their minimalist blueprint succeeds in filling every single space, but with maturity comes the security and confidence to explore, and that's just what The Softies do with these tunes.

"Moondog's jovial H'art Songs was the first release not to incorporate his name in the title, but the record that forever proved his genius. A rare vocal album recorded by Moondog when he was in his sixties, these ten art songs blur the boundaries between classical and pop music. Moondog called this series of art songs 'H'art songs' -- Hardin's art songs. The musical content is on a higher level than most popular music, but has an appeal to a wide range of tastes, from the pop to the classical listener. This collection of piano pop songs written and recorded in 1977 made Moondogs' stunningly eclectic discography even more chaotic musically, it also featured some of his most mesmerizing wordplay. Telling tales that can be interpreted as metaphors for how to live -- sometimes political, sometimes autobiographical, sometimes nature loving - they are always intriguingly poetic, and helped push this album to the very top of all Moondog's releases."

A North American road trip of coming of age garage soul mapped by Ivan Liechti, Ghost Riders is Efficient Space’s latest narrative compilation, hovering in a liminal emotional ravine between moonlight melancholy, teenage heartache and unchecked, unrealised ambition. Across 17 open hearted ballads recorded 1965-1974, the 2LP collects and connects dots between British Invasion fanatics, child prodigies, the loners and the luckless, in a kind of trans-continental survey of those swept up in rock’n’roll mania and buoyed by local newspaper ads promising fame and gold records. From the tangerine dreams of 8th grade all-girl combo The Mod 4 to the tri-state jukebox aspiring echoes of The Tempters, The Yardleys' poetic Farfisa vamp and lilting folk pop, and The Landlords’ weepy break up b-side blues, these are mostly one shots by dreamers whose experience was brief before being checked back to the reality of suburban normality and realistic career options. Hailing from the regional backwaters of Illinois, Arkansas, Nevada, Massachusetts, Ohio, Idaho, Texas and beyond, the licensed artists were scouted by way of local fire departments, spiritualist fellowships and animal welfare centres, often barely a stones throw from where their contributions were originally laid. A barely teenage Dennis Harte's ‘Summer’s Over’ perhaps best taps the collection’s essence. A gut-wrenching lament of the passing of the season as if it was the last on earth. Flanked by players from The Left Banke, Harte, a now-piano tuner to the stars, is from the minor segment that found longevity in showbiz. Likewise with Michigan icon Lyn Nowicki who cast her ghostly voice over Beatles cover song chameleons The Common People and Jerry McGee, The Ventures member and conduit of Dr. John’s ‘Twilight Zone’. Ghost Riders simmers with the scent of youthful summers, the pang of schoolyard romance, and the excitement (and disenchantment) of teenage naïveté, delivered via a deceptively simple and frequently wonky garage band set up. The vision of record collector and graphic designer Ivan Liechti, these eternal psych-folk howlers are further crystallised by Colin Young’s fastidious audio restoration, the original artwork of Elise Gagnebin-de Bons and an aptly penned foreword from Sonic Boom.

We are excited to present to the world the debut solo album by Lily Mullen. A songwriter / poet in her early 20s, residing in Northwest Oregon. Lily was born with Down Syndrome and is a fierce advocate for disability justice and other underrepresented voices. This album has a playful and magical quality - like found in the self-contained worlds of the Raincoats or the Slits. There are both rockers and ballads - with echoes of the Velvet Underground and Modern Lovers. Folky and poetic songs à la Patti Smith, Nico or Neil Young. Songs that vocally AND musically evoke Mark E Smith and The Fall. Of course, those are all just reference points! Lily’s voice is unique and original and forging new and beautiful artistic territory. Clever wordplay, cosmic themes, surrealist poetry, heart on sleeve laments, tearjerkers - this album has it all. Recorded at Sonic Lodge in Eugene, Oregon by Justin Higgins. Musical contributions from Chris Gunn (Lavender Flu), Miranda Soileau-Pratt (Spatulas), Scott Simmons (Lavender Flu), Kate Williams and Justin Higgins. Be wild. Be free. Experience Lily!