MUSIC

Sam Hall’s new album as ghost orchard, ‘rainbow music’, is a collage of patience and meditation. The record was written in two halves, between the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2021, and is filled with nuances as quietly imperceptible as the seasons, or the profound movement of time, where one day looking back you realize your whole spirit has shifted. Where 2019’s critically revered ‘bunny’ was a love letter to a romantic relationship, ‘rainbow music’ documents the culmination of Hall’s first personal experience with loss in several forms. At the end of 2020, his longterm childhood pet passed away, and with it the last continuing threads of familiarity between being a kid and adulthood. Still based in the Grand Rapids, Michigan town he’d grown up in, the static ease of familiar living seemed to be coming apart at the seams, as friends moved on to bigger cities, relationships shapeshifted and in a short period of time, another kitten he’d adopted passed away prematurely, leaving Hall to question the trajectory in which he himself was headed. Recorded in the house that Hall currently lives in, ‘rainbow music’ is a timestamp of this environment. A myriad of shows used to take place at the residence, and the space still reverberates with the residual echoes of people as they pass though. Hall remains fascinated with the remnants of things left behind, and his home is replete with furniture and miscellaneous objects that reflect the core of his compositions: sonic maximalism paired with attention to detail. His music feels steeped in this place he has painstakingly decorated, where, much like the songs of ‘rainbow music,’ each individual object provides its own history and underlying connectedness to part of a greater collection. Bristling with the familiarity of being a stranger in someone else’s living quarters, amidst all their belongings and hoarded treasures, the album’s linear qualities remain rough around the edges, like gradually filling in the color of someone you’re just getting to know. “I love creating rooms,” Hall emphasizes, and this record “feels more inside of me than anything.” The oldest (and only proper love song), “soot,” was the first song to come after a period of static creativity, and effectively opened a floodgate that inspired him to finish half of ‘rainbow music’ in the forthcoming two months. Each track weighs with its own impact, as Hall grapples with endings and beginnings side by side, a rebirth that Hall equates to be as cathartic as crying. Many came about in a sudden stream of consciousness: the bare-boned structures of “rest” were recorded entirely in a day, and was an immediate reaction to his pet’s death and a way to process those feelings. More upbeat “maisy” and glitch-filled “cut” also came together tangentially to one another. “I feel more secure in my relationship to music,” Hall muses. With his previous work, “I was trying different things on, but ‘rainbow music’ feels more certain: this is me for better for worse at this period of time.” There’s a push and pull across the eleven songs, a sort of immediacy that’s made even more effective by Hall’s retrospective reflection. “comfort (rainbow)” was written in half prior to most of the grief that would alter Hall’s life, and was completed months later by the tuner who fixed the upright piano in his house. Produced almost entirely by Hall, the only further collaborator was Bennett Littlejohn (who has also contributed to Hovvdy and Katy Kirby’s projects), and these specific touches are integral to the cohesive footprint of ‘rainbow music’s miniature universes. Hall has previously described his work as “memory storage”, and in a way ‘rainbow music’ functions as an hourglass measuring out spoonfuls of both the past and future. An oscillating palette of instruments flit between acoustic guitar, piano and even fluttering drum and bass, where synths patter like barely discernible heartbeats and vocals feel more like an instrument than decipherable words. Hall has never released the lyrics to his music, but throughout the album’s insular quality sometimes you can hear smidges of the outside world from far away; a call and return echoed by repetition where meaning is sketched out in a dreamscape and a subtle darkness always surrounds the fringes. Like “songs in the key of life,” the title ‘rainbow music’ refers to the myriad of colors and qualities within Hall that are refracted throughout. It’s a symbolization of hope and the aftermath, the flickering light at the end of the tunnel (or “when a rainbow shows up after a big storm”). “Wish I could have fun anymore,” Hall ruminates on “dancing”, as well as confessing he “wish he made more upbeat bangers.” But reality packs more of a punch, and this collection of songs sees him finally be at peace with the current state of affairs. Relatable to anyone who has contemplated what it means to settle down, or even just catch your breath in an era where anguish is commonplace, the release of ‘rainbow music’ is a happy ending in its own right, a marker of survival that remains close to the bone.

Sea of Trees from Japanese producer T5UMUT5UMU. "T5UMUT5UMU has built up a reputation in the last few years for his ability not just to recreate club styles but to flip them into almost unrecognizable dancefloor hybrids, he has melted together gqom and techno, deconstructed grime and welded dubstep to traditional music from Japan and India. Here, he's operating completely off the grid, pulling raw materials from across the globe and hammering them into confounding shapes and patterns. On its surface, 'Fireball' sounds like a liquid metal approximation of South African gqom, but move in closer and you can make out dubstep bass squelches, trap hats, and industrial techno jet propulsion filling in the gaps with rubberized mortar. 'Desert' is the EP's most lightheaded cut, a psychedelic percussive spiral that curves micro-tuned mbira clangs around bee sting bass, aerated noise blasts and sub-aqueous kicks. It's a hard track to place, but fits in somewhere between Donato Dozzy, Menzi and 33EMYBW, all shifting rhythms and precision-edited sound design. 'Sea of Trees' retains this momentum, pushing the tempo and interspersing woodblock vibrations with syncopated bass drums and goosebump-inducing synths, while closer 'Bottomless Valley' shifts back into a gqom framework, shuffling the expected pulse with a powerful dembow swing, half step subs and Indian-inspired rattles."

Hugging the bend and blowing kisses since 2012, Antinote has been a vessel of choice for lovers of left-of-centre dance music and retro-laced boogie. Covering a supremely wide range of styles, the Parisian outlet has carved out a musical lane truly its own by putting on a nonstop celebration of electronics’ inexhaustible power of enthralment. A pledge of quality-driven curation and never-ending search for the next thrill that’s proven untiringly relevant throughout the years and opens onto its second decade of existence with equal panache. Toasting to its ten years splashing the game with continuously reasserted outsider bravura, label captain Zaltan has bottled some of the finest expressions out Antinote’s versatile vaults of sound to form the present “X” compilation, “ten years of loving notes and foolin around 2012-2022". From totem animal IUEKE’s oddball musique concrète (“fiano-church") to the candid synth-pop of Latvian outfit Domenique Dumont (“La Dolce Vita"), via Feminielli’s outré mix of ghetto-house and ominous croon (“Nobody’s Boy”) and Tel-Aviv vibist Alek Lee’s signature synth-splattered 80s wave (“Different Plans”), it’s a smorgasbord of colours and vibrations that prepares to avalanche across your sound system. Take the esoteric shoegaze of Epsilove, Shelter and Thomas Riguelle (“From The Spaceship in My Room”) and prepare to move upstream a river of saturated guitars and all-engulfing reverbs; let Low Jack’s jagged floor aggressor drill a hole in your head (“Feel 2020”) or opt for further ankle-breaking UK-bass-influenced riddim traction from DK & Geena (“BelleTech One”). A further cosmic-friendly epic, Chimère FM (I:Cube!) embarks us on a ride near Saturn’s belt (“La Genèse du Monstre à Suze") whereas former Antinote apprentice River Yarra snipes a hail of Italo-informed arpeggios and giallo-esque bass murk to compelling effect (“Blooms”) and L.I.E.S. head honcho Ron Morelli goes all in with a formidable, old-school dusty house chugger (“Tribute”). There’s obviously more to "Antinote X" than the sum of its parts, and Jean Luc’s post-Plantasia jazz hybrid (“La Truite”), Arabica’s decadent, anti-colonial spoken number (“Multo Storia") or fellow Antinote in-house visual designer Nico Motte’s vintage disco churner (“All The Money In The World”) are there to attest. Not to forget Panoptique, up with a lashing, dissonant treat for the senses (“Un Licenciement”), Leo Martelli under guise as Sammy Patanegra with a tribal jacking weapon (“Maria”), Pont Levis floating into emotional hyperspace (“L’Espace et le Coeur de L'Âme”), Trigger Moral in with a marvel of a hip-hop gem emerged from some retro-futuristic wormhole (“soul assssn”) and Laporte rounding it off downtempo, modular ambient style for good measure (“Sleepers”). Ten years on, Antinote still leading the pack.

Back in 1980, The Pump sessions prefigured Nocturnal Emissions. The same personnel (Nigel and Daniel Ayers + Caroline K) was later credited in the first NE performance in March 1981. Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire opened a path and a kind of DIY sound collage practice became popular in the underground. More punk than punk, right? With synth, bass, guitar and vocals, The Pump could almost be mistaken for a new wave band, but it was the start of a long, prolific and eclectic journey for Nigel Ayers, sole member of Nocturnal Emissions for quite a while now. Although it is not at all obvious, by 1980 Nigel had been exposed to a few dub tricks and mainly the otherwordly spatial sounds and breaks: «In the late 70s I became aware that dub producers such as Lee Scratch Perry, Prince Far I - and sound systems - were doing something with sound that was a very new and different approach. It was in the separation of recorded sound into very spatial elements, working very sculpturally with sound. I had absorbed the space concerns of Hendrix years before I got into dub, and the spatial elements within Gong, Hawkwind, early Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, etc. When we did The Pump, we lived in Brixton and spent a lot of time absorbing dub in the streets and shebeens.» Growing up in the Peak District (northern England) during the 1960s didn't put one directly in touch with black culture or music. There was one black kid at school and «to see a black person you'd have to go to Manchester or Sheffield.» And mainstream culture tends to ridicule outsider forms and expressions, so a popular idea of reggae came through in things such as the novelty single "Johnny Reggae" by The Piglets, released in 1971. By that time, Nigel was already listening to a few reggae singles his dad brought home from Sheffield, where he worked. He remembers the labels being scratched and thinking it must be because the records were so rude, meaning lyrical content. His artistic inclinations led him to spend more time at home trying out his skills with Super8 films and pasting soundtracks onto them. One of the first he remembers was a loop worked out from side B of one of those singles (the traditional instrumental Version on reggae singles). First heard about tape loops from "Dr Who" on TV, a weekly show that imprinted strange sounds and sights on kids' minds since the first episode in 1963. More experiments followed, loops and cut-ups recorded to cassette with full conscience that non-musicianly, non-conventional approaches were sanctioned by such names as Captain Beefheart and Brian Eno. Punk made it easier for everyone aspiring to make a point with music, it created a context for rawness and spontaneity. «Punk was a necessary break from virtuosity, and a good thing. I dug punk, a lot of ideas about accessibility, tackling racism, sexism and species-ism, were brought to the foreground. And it created an infrastructure for the zine culture, and cassette culture, autonomous collectives & networked DIY.» Only the way most early punk bands recreated dub and reggae didn't strike a chord with Nigel Ayers: «That's more to do with questions of my own personal taste and preference, which is by no means fixed.» Things became more serious when "Tissue Of Lies" came out in 1980 and Nocturnal Emissions steadily became hot within the so-called industrial culture (or counterculture). Although never explicitly adopting a dub format, its techniques and inspiration certainly informed many of the more rhythmic tracks NE recorded over the years. «Personally I was trying to create something that integrated my own personal experience and had a focussed ethic in content, personnel, production and distribution. Women collaborators have been vital , for example, as active creators - not as set dressing. Caroline K (for example) had technical proficiencies that aren't often expected in a male-dominated music world, she ran her own studio and later became a telecommunications engineer.» Come 2010 and the love of dub finally surfaced explicitly on a very limited "In Dub" CDR. All the space is there, some might say also the industrial weight and - dare we say it - the weight of crumbling capitalism (notoriously visible after 2008). There's a sort of robotic pace in these dry statements of political commentary, not really the same as in 80s digital dancehall or 90s digidub. It sounds like the kind of autonomous zone dreamed about since the punk and cut-up years and informed by all the accumulated background in electronic music and knowledge and respect for dub pioneers. "In Dub Volume 2" appeared in 2020, also strictly limited, framed by the early stages of the COVID experience, expanding on the same sonics, gently dragging the listener along for a thoughtful ride. The music on both volumes was recorded at leisure over a period of roughly 12 years and it hovers timelessly above. Heavily synthetic, learned and respectful music, alienated and in sync with the desire to escape (even if temporarily) to an artificial and abstract safe zone. We now present carefully selected tracks from both volumes, given a proper boost for vinyl by Douglas Wardrop (Bush Chemists, Conscious Sounds).

Latvian producer mu tate joins Utter with the ‘Faded’ EP, a collection of five mesmerising ambient electronica pieces. mu tate - real name Artur Strekalov - has been diligently and unceremoniously weaving his musical magic for the past half-decade. ‘Faded’ walks the same spectral path as his feted album ‘Let Me Put Myself Together’ (Experiences Ltd, 2020), which introduced many to Strekalov’s highly atmospheric, blissed-out sonic explorations. The EP glides along, each track enveloping the listener in a cocoon of undulating frequencies and ghostly rhythm, softly contained yet stretching out beyond into wide open space. Delicate, crackling sparks fizz in and out of perception above. It’s a trip alright! ‘Faded’ is available on limited vinyl and digital formats, mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at D&M. Artwork by AS, laid out by Alex Egan. A special insert designed by Art Crime is also included with physical copies.

A self-released record with three previously unreleased versions & reworks of tracks from the last 7 years, originally released via Blackest Ever Black, Berceuse Heroique and Noods Radio. TEXT FROM RWDFWD.COM: "Red X, Information & Drum Tangle. Originally relesead via Blackest Ever Black, Berceuse Heroique and Noods Radio, respectively (go seek them out if you haven't yet!) - this self-released 12" features three previously unheard cuts & versions of recent time - dubbed, live & direct - straight from Ossia's mixing desk. Red X, which was the title track to Ossia's debut solo record on Blackest in 2015, is served up on the A side of this record (now cut at 45rpm, so you can test it at slow motion dread speed too). This new cut is titled 'Red X (Vertigo Version)' and keen ears and eyes might recognise the additional inclusion of the String & electone organ part which appeared on the final track 'Vertigo' at the end of Ossia's recent album 'Devil's Dance'. The strings - played by the great Rakhi Singh - come searing in over the spring reverberated breakdown section, and burn over the final crescendo of the track - something Ossia had been testing out in live shows from time to time, but only recently commited to a proper recording - now also including extra splashes of echo & reverb over Peter Tosh's Red X vocal excerpts, for extra menace. On the B Side, we get two dubwise versions, raw dub style - First up, 'Information' which came out on a 2 x 12" va Berceuse Heroique in 2016, gets the rework / dub mix treatment. Some of you might remember that the original 'Information' already had a version to it on the B side of it's original release, which explored an even more minimalist angle. Upping the energy levels for this counterpart, some years later, the 'Raw 2020 Version' on this new record features a reworked bassline which revolves into more stepping kind of techno territory - with the remnants of pads, and percussion getting squeezed through broken mixing desk faders, their echo'd signals left to feedback into the void as the bass tumbles down on you. Play it loud, or don't. The final cut on this disc is also the most 'recent' - The original cut of Drum Tangle came out in 2021 on a various artists 12" via our friends at Noods Radio. We have the last copies of this 12" available here by the way - And if you don't already own it, then we'd recommend grabbing a copy of that one, so you can play this new version right after the original cut. Because, as in best Jamaican style dub tradition, the idea is that the dub should follow the original cut - allowing you to explore the foundations of the rhythm in a newly focused way. Plus, this part two, the 'Raw Dub' of Drum Tangle lets loose on those snares which were only teased in during the final part of the original Drum Tangle cut - listen closely and they might just whisper at you, whilst the bassline shudders below."

Ever since he made his first trip to Japan to DJ, Optimo Music founder JD Twitch has been bewitched by Japanese music, and particularly the vibrant, imaginative, and often far-sighted sounds which emerged from the island nation during the 1980s. Now he’s put years of digging in Japanese record shops to good use on Polyphonic Cosmos, the latest release on his compilation-focused Cease & Desist imprint. Subtitled ‘A Beginners Guide to Japan In The ‘80s’, the collection offers a personal selection of Japanese gems recorded and released between 1981 and ’86 – a period when advances in recording and musical technology offered the nation’s artists and producers a whole new tool kit to employ. When combined with the unique musical culture of Japan, where local traditions are frequently fused with Western styles to create timeless, off-kilter aural fusions, this embrace of locally pioneered music technology had spectacular, often unusual results. Eight years in the making, Polyphonic Cosmos provides an endlessly entertaining musical snapshot of Japanese music of the early-to-mid ‘80s with all of the open-minded eclecticism and sonic twists that you would expect from the Glasgow-based DJ. Compare and contrast, for example, the gently breezy, morning-fresh folk-plus-electronics bliss of ‘ばら二曲 Baranikyoku (Fellini&Rota)’ by World Standard – the most familiar alias of long-serving musician/producer Sohichiro Suzuki – and the hallucinatory, slow-motion tribal rhythms, post-punk rhythms and tape delay-laden electronics of Imitation’s ‘Exotic Dance’. Or, for that matter, the tipsy mid-‘80s electronic reggae of Pecker’s ‘Sha La La’, the grungy but melodic post-punk strut of ‘You Go On Natural’ by Earthling (a track Twitch accurately describes as “sheer unrelenting groove”), and the unearthly, swirling sonics, new age instrumentation and flotation tank vocals of prolific (and seemingly mysterious) act Geinoh Yamashirogumi’s ‘Rimme Kohkyogaku Meiki’. It’s a credit to JD Twitch’s curatorial skills that the quality never dips, and sonic surprises lurk around every corner. Consider for a moment the hard to describe, far-sighted audio immersion of D-Day’s ‘Ki-Ra’ – all languid post-pop guitar, enveloping chords, spoken word vocals, shuffling 808 beats and marimba melodies – and the two contributions from video games soundtrack specialist (and driving instrumental synth-pop specialist) Hiroyuki Namba. The collection naturally includes some selections that have long been favourites in Twitch’s DJ sets – see Masumi Hara’s ‘Your Dream’ – as well as a handful of tracks from artists who may be more recognisable to those with only rudimentary knowledge of Japanese musical culture. The great Yasuaki Shimizu, whose work as Mariah has become far better known in recent years thanks to reissues of some of his most magical albums, is represented via ‘The Crow’, a picturesque chunk of horizontal, hard-to-define jazz-not-jazz smokiness, while the collection fittingly concludes with a sublimely funky, oddball electronic workout from Yellow Magic Orchestra legend Ryuichi Sakamoto (the frankly incredible ‘Wongga Dance Song’). Optimo’s JD Twitch extends a guided tour of his Japanese record collection, acquired on DJ jaunts to the Far East and spanning obscurities by Yasuaki Shimizu, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Normal Brain, a.o. The second release on Twitch’s Cease & Desist label, which delivered the ace Sheffield bleep & bass retrospective in 2020, ‘Sonic Innovations in Japan (1980-1986)’ dives deep into a pivotal era of Japanese music around its ‘80s economic boom time, when leaps in musical technology and recording brought the future into much sharper focus. The selection effectively takes Twitch’s ‘Polyphonic Cosmos’ mixtape (one of many exquisite selections along with Belgian new beat, Jamaican dub, and mooching goth) as jump off point into the rarified realms of ‘80s Japanese music, spelled out in full fat, legit licensed cuts that work equally well as a mixtape in their own right, or component joints to fetishise and send heads scurrying down discogs wormholes. Fans of YouTube algorithms will no doubt be enticed by yasuaki Shimizu’s opening gambit, the sultry lounge stroller ‘Crow’, while the DJs, dancers and Kraftwerk fiends will plug right into the speak ’n spell electro-pop of ‘M.U.S.I.C.’ by Normal Brain, the glittering uptempo disco energy of Hiroyuki Namba’s ‘Who Done It? (Part 2)’ and likewise their Pet Shop Boys-on-holiday viber ‘Tropical Exposition’. There’s also a super juicy cut of bendy-limbed post-punk from Pecker and EP-4, and, for the wee small hours, sexier turns of dry-iced electro boogie glyde on ‘Your Dream’ from Masumi Hara and the breezy beauty ‘Ki-Ra-I’ by D-Day.

ロンドンを拠点に、カリブ地域や西アフリカを含めた世界各地のディスコやファンク、ソウルを発掘する〈Kalita Records〉からは、西アフリカの伝統的な旋律なメロディーをシンセサイザー、ディスコ、ブギーとクロスオーバーさせ、1980年代以降にガーナで人気を博した「バーガー・ハイライフ」現象にフォーカスした初のコンピレーション・アルバム『Borga Revolution! Ghanaian Dance Music In The Digital Age, 1983-1992 (Volume 1)』が登場！

1970年代、ガーナでは欧米の音楽が盛んに放送され、ファンク、ソウル、ディスコなどのサウンドが紹介されていた一方で、ガーナは経済的な混乱にも見舞われ、貧困の増大、軍事独裁政権、長期の外出禁止令など、アーティストが生き残っていくには困難な状況にありました。そんな中で広い視野を持った多くのガーナ人アーティストが、欧米でキャリアを積むようになり、スターダムを求めて欧米へと渡ることに。ここで、西洋な現代的な音楽スタイルと、DX7シンセサイザーや様々なドラムマシンなどの新規なテクノロジーを導入したデジタル版ハイライフ・ミュージックを開発。ガーナのダンス・ミュージックの進化と「バーガー・ハイライフ」の出現は、このような背景の中で生まれたとのこと。

本作『Borga Revolution!』には、Thomas FrempongやGeorge Darkoなどのジャンルを代表するアーティストから、AbanやUncle Joe's Afri-Beatなどの無名のバンドによるトラックまで、重要な録音を収録した意欲的な一枚！ゲートフォールド・スリーヴ仕様。各アーティストによるインタビューを元にしたライナーノーツと豪華未発表写真を掲載した16ページに及ぶブックレットが付属しています。

The other day, Koshiro Hino, who succeeded in the Tokyo premiere of his masterpiece "Virginal Variations" as a composer, is finally attracting attention from both inside and outside the country. His solo unit YPY's worldwide distribution album is finally released. The undisputed 2010s talent, Hino, is a track maker / musician who emerged from the club scene, but due to his strong writer's ability to be inversely proportional to his low waist, he couldn't fit in an underground box, and the creative power that erupted. The state of holding down. YPY is devoted to live performances and recordings every day, but in reality there are few releases and the value of this work is quite high. This album reveals an early impulsive and multifaceted rhythmic quest that is different from the stoic attitude of his band, goat. This time, his ally, Yosuke Yukimatsu, gave advice on song selection, and Hino's urge was firmly established in the album. One of the characteristics of YPY is that it has a compressed and massive sound and the style is electronic music, but it has a strange organic feeling like a living thing like the indigenous music of Africa, which is a cassette tape for sound making. It is also related to the use of. The title song "Zurirezumu" is a mysterious work that takes advantage of the equipment trouble that happened by chance, and is YPY's first recording!

"The trajectory from the initial impulse of Koshiro Hino = YPY as a track maker, not as a brain of goat, bonanzas. However, the trajectory does not mean that it is heading straight somewhere. , The path is constantly ZURE. Why. Because he is constantly trying. Why keep trying. It is to explore the possibilities hidden there. Here is a fragment of Koshiro Hino so far. And the pieces from now on will also ZURE polyrhythmically. Are your ears listening to the sound of the heart? John Cage continued to question the possibility of hearing. The possibility awaits us. ing."
-Yosuke Yukimatsu
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"I listened to it and thought," It's the sound of a live house! " There is no so-called chord feeling or melody, it is not noise, it is not music that can be heard only by "sound", it is not dance music, but it is a familiar sound. Is it physical music? It is a playful work. You should listen to it first without thinking about anything. -Phew

As the sun sets on a quaint East Nashville house, a young man bares a piece of his soul. Facing the camera, sporting a silky suit jacket/shirt/slacks/fingerless gloves ensemble that announces "singer" before he's even opened his mouth, Lee Tracy Johnson settles onto his stage, the front yard. He sways to the dirge-like drum machine pulse of a synth-soaked slow jam, extends his arms as if gaining his balance, and croons in affecting, fragile earnest, "I need your love… oh baby…" Dogs in the yard next door begin barking. A mysterious cardboard robot figure, beamed in from galaxies unknown and affixed to a tree, is less vocal. Lee doesn't acknowledge either's presence. He's busy feeling it, arms and hands gesticulating. His voice rises in falsetto over the now-quiet dogs, over the ambient noise from the street that seeps into the handheld camcorder's microphone, over the recording of his own voice played back from a boombox off-camera. After six minutes the single, continuous shot ends. In this intimate creative universe there are no re-takes. There are many more music videos to shoot, and as Lee later puts it, "The first time you do it is actually the best. Because you can never get that again. You expressing yourself from within." "I Need Your Love" dates from a lost heyday. From some time in the '80s or early '90s, when Lee Tracy (as he was known in performance) and his music partner/producer/manager Isaac Manning committed hours upon hours of their sonic and visual ideas to tape. Embracing drum machines and synthesizers – electronics that made their personal futurism palpable – they recorded exclusively at home, live in a room into a simple cassette deck. Soul, funk, electro and new wave informed their songs, yet Lee and Isaac eschewed the confinement of conventional categories and genres, preferring to let experimentation guide them. "Anytime somebody put out a new record they had the same instruments or the same sound," explains Isaac. "So I basically wanted to find something that's really gonna stand out away from all of the rest of 'em." Their ethos meant that every idea they came up with was at least worth trying: echoed out half-rapped exhortations over frantic techno-style beats, gospel synth soul, modal electro-funk, oddball pop reinterpretations, emo AOR balladry, nods to Prince and the Fat Boys, or arrangements that might collapse mid-song into a mess of arcade game-ish blips before rallying to reach the finish line. All of it conjoined by consistent tape hiss, and most vitally, Lee's chameleonic voice, which managed to wildly shape shift and still evoke something sincere – whether toggling between falsetto and tenor exalting Jesus's return, or punctuating a melismatic romantic adlib with a succinct, "We all know how it feels to be alone." "People think we went to a studio," says Isaac derisively. "We never went to no studio. We didn't have the money to go to no studio! We did this stuff at home. I shot videos in my front yard with whatever we could to get things together." Sometimes Isaac would just put on an instrumental record, be it "Planet Rock" or "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (from Evita), press "record," and let Lee improvise over it, yielding peculiar love songs, would-be patriotic anthems, or Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe tributes. Technical limitations and a lack of professional polish never dissuaded them. They believed they were onto something. "That struggle," Isaac says, "made that sound sound good to me." In the parlance of modern music criticism Lee and Isaac's dizzying DIY efforts would inevitably be described as "outsider." But "outsider" carries the burden of untold additional layers of meaning if you're Black and from the South, creating on a budget, and trying to get someone, anyone within the country music capital of the world to take your vision seriously. "What category should we put it in?" Isaac asks rhetorically. "I don't know. All I know is feeling. I ain't gonna name it nothing. It's music. If it grabs your soul and touch your heart that's what it basically is supposed to do."

** 1st pressing- restricted to 1500 units **An unbelievable post-punk shuffler from 1981, by Tel-Aviv-Brussels band Minimal Compact! This tune is one of our favorite tracks ever and we've been wanting to reissue it since day one. But this is no ordinary reissue! The 12'' includes an unreleased instrumental version plus a spaced-out extended dub mix by the living legend, Mad Professor! Killer stuff as ever from the Fortuna Records crew!!!

Long playing second release by the ever busy RS Produções, showcasing an update of the crew's particularly moody dance beats. Their debut "Bagdad Style" featured only the main core of Narciso and Nuno Beats but RS is expanded with Farucox for this album, adding more oblique ryhthms to the whole. The crew seems to be happy the bleakest and most stressful days of COVID are past them, celebrating the fact with a self-evident title and the opening prayer by Narciso, redirecting God's blessings to the whole family of RS DJs and producers. What we experience on the 13 tracks (including interludes) is a burst of energy. If not exactly extroverted, it communicates a commitment to the purest strain of batida and, for those able to detect hidden feelings, this music might convey some melancholic undertones true to this part of the world. Beats and off-beats invite your most abstract dance moves and even the album´s most melodic piece is "headless" (Farucox's spacey afro house "Sem Cabeça"). The slow moving tarraxos are uncompromising but never emotionally detached. "Bolor" by Narciso might be the most demanding moment here, with so many crashing elements that, when reviewing the listening experience, we feel a direct connection to a very unique underground expression of dance music. A good part of its power resides in the dislocation of our senses to a different tuning and the consequent opening up of possibilities. This means access to different territories, vibes and points of view. The idealized way of the world.

Impeccably produced and gripping West Mineral wooze from Naarm’s Yunzero, adding to our sizeable appreciation for the Aussie school with a sublime and frazzled set of gaseous, crumbling loops and effervescent soundscapes that plays like a mixtape we can imagine a descendant of Left Ear would grip in 2045. Based in Naarm, Jim Sellars is a strong new addition to the West Mineral stable, bringing with him a profound understanding of textural ambient, bass-heavy dubwise sounds and fractured beat music. After a few cassette releases for Naarm's own .jpeg Artefacts and the Chicago-based Lillerne Tape Club - home of West Mineral's Mister Water Wet and Ben Bondy - Sellars has assembled a record that jumps through sonic wormholes as it drags through soundscapes and meticulously chiseled technoid sketches. Dancing in and around an airspun grid weft with sampledelic fragments of ‘90s ambient dance music, Yunzero lucidly works a sound close to the expansive heart of West Mineral, measured with an equilibrium of drifting out-of-the-lines gauze and cogent, semi-melodic structures that move against convention. From our detached perspective, in the humid post-industrial flatlands of south Manchester, Yunzero’s music feels as though it maps mountain ranges and subtropical climes in its scale and democratic ecology of sounds, projecting escapist sojourns on the back of the eyelids. ‘Butterfly DNA’ lands gently on the mind, with imperceptible jump-cuts and transitions lending to the rolling rural simulacra feel. Plunging in with the cool splash and viscosity to ‘Drop of Honey’, the breezy tendrils of ‘Leaf’ give way to recycled ambient beat loops in ‘Ice Punk’ and the album’s most substantial cut - a nugget of a DJ Plead-like groove on ‘Cupid Television’. From herein the thread gets beautifully frayed between the kaleidoscope turns of slurred downbeats in ‘Snail’ and ambient floor hugger ‘Graffitti In The Pond’, while bush doof echoes perfuse ‘Acrylic Germ’ in a more fractious outburst that brings the album down to close with a surprise in the tail, a reminder that nature can nip as well as soothe.

Hailing from Łódź, Poland, Justyna Banaszczyk aka FOQL was raised in the post-industrial decay of the city beloved by David Lynch for its abundant, knackered architecture (think ‘Eraserhead’, or run go check his warehouse photo studies). ‘Wehikuł’ translating to ‘Vehicle’, echoes its provenance and dark surreality across eight cuts of intricate post-techno pulses webbed with brooding synths that lend a fine new stripe of influence to MAL’s unpredictable ‘Rebel Music’ agenda, perfectly in step with its off-road vectors.

A long-awaited repress of Detroit's H-Fusion's 2019 2LP masterpiece, which has been featured on Theo Parrish's Sound Signature and Derrick May's Transmat. The long-awaited repress! In the midst of the rave techno frenzy, Urban Tribe, Omar-S, Aaron Dilloway, and The Automatic Group mingle to create a psychotic, sagging monster of a record. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering. Limited to 500 copies.

merch video community Tascam Space Season by Noda & Wolfers Share / Embed You own this supported by mackadub thumbnail mackadub I´m in love with this album! :) I can only recommend to give it a try!! Favorite track: スーパーナチュラル・ミキシング・デスク Supernatural Mixing Desk. Elastico solido thumbnail Elastico solido Best soundtrack for the upcoming season Favorite track: 奇妙な秋 Strange Autumn. Lord Dubious thumbnail Lord Dubious Proper 21st century rockers-like dubwise. Refreshingly lofi with no absence of heaviness. Favorite track: ダブの原型 Archetypes in Dub. more... JT thumbnail emjaycee thumbnail high_peak_drifter thumbnail Lowmo thumbnail cooling_the_medium thumbnail deeplhouzz thumbnail draygun thumbnail Con Man thumbnail Anton Nordström thumbnail Raffer7 thumbnail dʒay thumbnail bnips thumbnail renhop thumbnail stevietink thumbnail 謙太郎 金田 thumbnail davidedel thumbnail james1208 thumbnail Glen Cutwerk thumbnail Ron Ron Jones thumbnail Susannarrr thumbnail Scott Rutherford thumbnail riccardo ramello thumbnail jns.kln thumbnail Rol[s]an thumbnail from a height thumbnail Sebastian B thumbnail Ken Hidaka thumbnail GARY WARNER thumbnail Lost in Stars thumbnail Kool Hersh thumbnail Happy Folks Together thumbnail seth ogden thumbnail Pete Morrish thumbnail Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens thumbnail mummdad thumbnail Owen Knowles thumbnail D O G B I T E S V R thumbnail jbhood1487 thumbnail The Abominable Slowman thumbnail Silent Season thumbnail Toblermone thumbnail HARKO™ thumbnail aairplane77 thumbnail Jeff Stanfield thumbnail Jazzmond Farquhar thumbnail Atom Jetsam thumbnail jchiverton thumbnail Keefism thumbnail rtype thumbnail crippled_lucifer thumbnail Guillaume Lafrance thumbnail ‎‎​‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ thumbnail Dapej thumbnail kyril garcia thumbnail yex_x thumbnail ktz thumbnail sim0n. thumbnail Kevin1976 thumbnail 87477741 thumbnail mikeliss thumbnail more... エコーの儚き目的 The Transient Purpose of Echo 02:37 / 03:36 Digital Album Streaming + Download Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app. You own this Send as Gift 1. スーパーナチュラル・ミキシング・デスク Supernatural Mixing Desk 05:47 2. エコーの儚き目的 The Transient Purpose of Echo 03:36 buy track 3. 現実とは反対に In Opposite Reality 05:12 4. 奇妙な秋 Strange Autumn 04:22 5. 未知なるもののラジカルな形態 Radical Forms of the Unknown 05:43 6. ダブの原型 Archetypes in Dub 05:20 7. ブロークン・ドリーム・テープ・サチュレーション Broken Dream Tape Saturation 04:30 about Something special on Nightwind records: Last December Danny Wolfers met up with Japansese digital dub legend Taka Noda aka Mystica Tribe to produce this Far East style heavy digital dub album. Custom made lo-fi oozing echo effects transform synthesizers and drummachines into a comforting mist of arcane sludge, laced with Taka Noda's enchanting melodica playing.

Soundway's telescope to forgotten and lesser known musical realms extends to Argentina on a brand new, triple vinyl compilation, Síntesis Moderna: An Alternative Vision Of Argentinian Music 1980-1990. A digital rewilding of computer and synth powered music, dripping with an impressive variety of influence, from Italo disco, electro-funk, post punk, tango, ambience, jazz-fusion, Afro-folk and techno pop, the record is a cultural document of a musical decade transformed after the lifting of restrictions of English language music post Malvinas War (Falklands), and the end of Argentina's military dictatorship. Síntesis Moderna: An Alternative Vision Of Argentinian Music 1980-1990 is set for release on Soundway Records this October 21st. Painstakingly crafted by record collectors, DJs and producers Ric Piccolo and Ariel Harari and conceived over 5 years ago, the duo have selected an eccentric selection, some avant garde cult obscurities, long-lost B sides and experimental versions of once-famous tracks from an array of artists, some of whom disappeared as quickly as they appeared whilst others by household names in Argentina. Ric and Ariel also weigh in with two edits, subtle rewirings, geared towards the dance-floor and a compliment to their careful curation. “They’ve come through really good on this one…” - Gilles Peterson “The latest compilation from Soundway Records, captures a kaleidoscopic landscape of Italo disco, proto-techno, and loungy ambient sounds” - Bandcamp “Fun survey of quirky punk-funk and weirdo synth-pop from the era of Maradona and Sabatini.” - UNCUT “A mix of avant-garde sounds, cult obscurities and proto-styles that predate the emergence of house and disco.” - DJ Mag “A wealth of wonderful strangeness.” - The Wire “Like mutated versions of what was happening in Europe – Kraftwerk and ZTT records chewed up and spat out with an irresistible Argentinian twist.” - Electronic Sound Mag

One afternoon a couple of years ago, an excited Ronald Langestraat could barely contain himself. “I’ve started dancing!” he exclaimed. “I never did it before - I’d always admired it in the past, but just wasn’t able to move like that!” But then, at the ripe old age of 81, Ronald was gripped by the urge to respond to the rhythm and express himself in this physical way. For a man who’s dedicated his life to music, in particular Jazz with a funky Latin inflection, it feels like an especially sage realization - like the treasure at the end of a long quest, or the princess after the end-game boss. The prize is freedom, and the shapes we make on the dance floor are mirrored in that piano solo over the stanzas - a caravan that trips from smokey basement clubs all the way to Shiva’s Tandava on the edge of the universe. The music on this album is inspired by this revelation. Although these songs were written many moons ago, their interpretation is modern, full of renewed energy, with young, yet well-worn players. While it slots neatly into the daily music practice that Ronald adheres to, it’s a new chapter in a story that is still being written - and an invitation to get in touch with your dancing self and try out some new moves.

Following releases on West Mineral and Lillerne Tapes, Iggy Romeu’s inimitable Mister Water Wet project makes its Soda Gong debut. “Top Natural Drum” feels like a double entendre ode to digging culture, drawing equally from the plantlife in the dirt and the grooves in the stacks. Tracks like opener “Soak” concoct a haze of resonant ceramic/wooden percs, skittering drum programming, and addictive yet diffuse melodic and harmonic textures. Dusty-fingered nodders like “Caged at Last”, “Classicfit,” and “Gossamer Hits Softly Spun” harken back to the glory days of instrumental hiphop and downtempo, sounding a bit like transmissions from some lost Landspeed Records or Mo’ Wax comp, or like field recordings from the courtyard at Scribble Jam that have been infused with the slippery sonic signatures and sleights of hand that define MWW productions. What links these two distinctive tonal registers is a sort of lingering warmth – warmth like the saturation of natural dye or sunlight on a brisk, clear Midwestern autumn day.

Acoustic, no-age krautrock from Berlin releasing on Glasgow label, Phase Group. 

 The next release on Phase Group unearths a truly unique project that has existed as an outlier in the Berlin underground since 2002. 
 A stage decked out with xylophones, tambourines, timpani, wooden percussion, two drum kits, a cello, harmonicas, saxophones and pieces of scrap metal. Eight unassuming musicians playing repetitive, trance-inducing phrases, at times serene, fragile and dream-like and at others wild, primitive and driving. This isn’t a scene you might associate with hazy nights out in Berlin but it’s what you’d find if you ended up at a Kulku show. Kulku's music is a hard to define blend of percussive minimalism, folk, krautrock, post-punk and no wave, almost exclusively derived from acoustic sound sources. Their debut album ‘Fahren!' presents this unique sound-identity that they have been crafting for the best part of two decades. The A-side presents 3 tracks of percussive propulsion, minimalist xylophone motifs and repetitive drums alongside monotone organ, dramatic narration and woodwind instruments moving in and out of dissonant howls and melodic improvisation. The B-side is devoted to lighter tones, beginning with the glockenspiel minimalism of ‘Unterm Himmel’ and rounding the record out with trance inducing drone of the album’s title track which builds up into a cacophony of snare drums, dissonant accordion and melodica before fading out like dream. All songs composed and recorded in Berlin by Wenzlovar, Gatis Silde, Johannes Schmelzer-Ziringer, Johanna Riska, Cornelius Onitsch, Alexander Samuels and Maxfield Gassmann

 Artwork by Andrija Čugurović



Domestic Exile warmly welcome the return of Grim Lusk, coming full circle to follow up 2018’s ‘SUNP0101’ after releasing under their Dip Friso and Sunny Balm aliases in the interim. ‘Diving Pool’ is a hallucinogenic concoction of marshy, aquatic, oscillated dubs and skittering, microtonal beat experiments. Grim Lusk's signature production style is in full effect, often occupying some liminal space nearing offbeat discordancy, but beautifully pulling together on the brink. Gelatinous machine funk rhythms and sweet, syrupy dub bass ooozing with a vibrant convergence of bright psychedelic greens, yellows and oranges, akin to bubbling sulphur pools and lava lakes, are present throughout the 6 tracks; Nuovo takes late 80’s drum machine patterns and twists them up with rough-cut vocal chops and long-form sampling of a 60’s film on the first iteration of ‘​​Il Gruppo”. Striding into the turbulent sea, Partans is kept jovial by rim shots, cymbals and snares fed back over the forward bass buzz. Not Enough is a bizarre, primordial, stretched-out gloop sludge half-speed version of the B-side track Too Much, twisted into new rhythmic territory by an off-kilter breakbeat sample. Diving Pool takes crushed, bouncing drum machines and loop-focussed experimentation to find incidental interplay between the two, whilst somehow retaining ebullient make-you-movable gusto. Angular rhythm and zealous sample manipulation seep through in Too Much, live drums patched, extrapolated and pulled further out in the mix, where jump cuts between familiar vocal chops and distorted tape delay contort manically- a warped, swinging echo of Slum Village's ‘I Don’t Know’. Wazoo rounds things out with the most club-leaning moment of the record, a saturated, throbbing atmosphere hanging over a beat-up, lurching drum sample layered with malleable pitched percussion and fuzz guitar. Peculiar shapes, fragmented shards of rhythmic patterns, crushed, crystallised snares, and congealed, jelly-like dubs; the music embodies a sense of carefree fun and playfulness, where dissolving layers of organic echoes, warm, slippery reverbs, and expansive phaser EFX stretch out into nebulous space…

When not overseeing A&R and label operations for Isle Of Jura, label boss Kevin Griffiths makes time for music creation in his garden studio in Moana, a sleepy suburb of Adelaide in South Australia. It’s an idyllic location surrounded by palm trees and tropical birdlife and an inspiring spot to fire up the machines, typically with the studio door wide open to soak up the soundtrack provided by mother nature. The resulting tracks, recorded in the midst of the pandemic with no gig distractions, were all heavily influenced by this backdrop of tropical birdsong and wind blowing through the palms, field recordings of which made it into most of the tracks. The album traverses Deep House, Nu-disco, Balearica and Ambient along with some Leftfield samples and a heavy dose Dub throughout. The LP is Pressed on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl with sleeve design by IOJ resident designer Bradley Pinkerton.

This would have been the Brazilian post-punk supergroup. It would have, because bassist and singer Sandra Coutinho moved to Germany, leaving these recordings behind – only two songs were released, in an independent compilation (Enquanto Isso).

Sandra (Bass, As Mercenárias) along with Denise Camargo (keyboards and voice, BruhaháBabélico and Dequinha e Zaba), Biba Meira (drums, De Falla) and Karla Xavier (guitar, R. Mutt), expressive musicians in expressive bands, were AKT. And this powerful repertoire, composed and recorded in the short period of the group's existence, recorded and produced by R.H. Jackson (Caracol) the complete session remained unheard until now.

Giving sequence to the smooth noir Guerrinha first discovered in 2018’s "Wagner" LP (self-released), "Cidade Grande" expands the midi jazz quartet to an ensemble. Whereas "Wagner" dealt in firmly sculpted motifs, here we approach fusion territory, improvisational fury, while somehow still treading in a thick, longing, atmosphere. Themes will erase themselves between Joe Zawinul and Koji Kondo while erratic snare rolls à la DeJohnette froth continually. One feels surrounded, at one and the same time, by the vulgar elegance of office buildings and the stillness of one's own childhood bedroom, pitch black except for a portable videogame's screen, way past bedtime. Tracks "José pt. I" and "II", opener and closer of "Cidade Grande", offer glimpses into our opaque protagonist. In stripped-down keys and synth arrangements, windy soliloquies out of Rheji Burrell’s APTs overtake Hejiran landscapes. José is damned to megalomania—just like any other inhabitant of the big city, Guerrinha would add.