MUSIC

Following on the heels of Light In The Attic’s vinyl LP release of One and Two From The Vault comes the final release in the trilogy of From The Vault releases by the Grateful Dead. These releases are distinguished from the more abundant Dick’s Picks series in that Dick’s Picks are “direct from the soundboard” recordings, while the From The Vault series were professionally recorded on multi-track tape and then mixed down (decades) later for release. Recorded live at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, NY) in 1971, this is the worldwide vinyl debut release of this seminal show featuring the 5 piece line-up of Pigpen, Garcia, Weir, Lesh, and Kruetzmann (Mickey Hart had temporarily left the band at that point), freshly remastered in 2014 by Joe Gastwirt for your pleasure. 20 classic songs on 8 sides of wax, this show has previously only been available on CD; this is the first ever vinyl LP release! The band played six shows over the course of seven nights at the Capitol Theatre in February of 1971, and this was the second of that run, recorded on the 19th. Their previous two studio albums had been their landmark recordings of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, and while songs from those albums were certainly featured, the Dead debuted seven brand new songs on this night–all of which went on to become Dead “standards” including “Playing in the Band,” “Greatest Story Ever Told,” and two absolute classics: “Bird Song” and “Deal.” Essential Dead.

The new quickly, quickly EP finds Portland, Oregon’s Graham Jonson back in his home studio, engrossed in ‘60s psychedelic soul music, imagining some bygone era where it was all about the drum sounds and tape decay. He calls it Easy Listening; the songs are short and inviting, modest yet loaded with ideas. Each started with the drum part, a loose grid for Jonson to paint his idiosyncratic psych-pop across, again playing nearly every instrument. The set follows his 2021 LP, The Long And The Short of It, the 22-year-old musician’s debut on Ghostly International, a coming-of-age jump from the chill beats-oriented corners of the internet to a full-fledged songwriting project with hi-fi sophistication. The moment culminated with Pitchfork’s Rising profile, “quickly, quickly’s Technicolor Pop Bursts Beyond the Algorithm,” and kickstarted the formation of his 6-piece live band for a run of exploratory shows along the west coast. But as the tangible demands for his music pulled him outward and some growing pains in his personal life ensued, Jonson focused his energy back inside; to the comforts of home recording, filling his space with more gear and sessions with friends. Maybe a bit of a droll title for a hard time, Easy Listening briefly pauses for air, offering five of his breeziest basement jams for public enjoyment. That basement is home to racks of synthesizers and an array of drum machines, guitars, bongos, xylophones, and the like. One notable addition to the Easy Listening setup was the Teac reel-to-reel tape machine he found on eBay and hooked up to Ableton. “I used it frequently to add color/texture to the project by running individual instruments through and warping the tape with my finger. After I had finished all the songs, I ran the full mix of every song in a row through the tape to add one more layer of low-fidelity weirdness.” “Colors” opens the portal to Jonson’s retro-tinged dream world; a symphonic section pulls the curtain back to reveal a drum kit spattering rapid fills as the bassline grooves deeply between organ shimmers and hazy hums. The din of what sounds like a ‘60s church service appears here and throughout the collection; the words are blurred by decades of tape mold, adding to an overall hypnotic, disorienting feel. “Satellite,” one of Jonson’s funkiest and catchiest tracks to date, is either a love letter to technology or a tongue-in-cheek song about surveillance. The jazzy percussion taps from the get-go as he peppers clever lines to his subject in the sky, at one point losing his wallet (evoking the comedic tone of Thundercat’s “Captain Stupido”), before riding out on a squealing synth solo. The campy, softly psychedelic “Falling Apart Without You” is in the vein of Stereolab. It started out as a fictional breakup song but ultimately became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only cut from the EP that Jonson and his band have played live so far, it’s easy to picture it translating on stage; the lovesick singer flanked by a tight ensemble on keys, bass, and drums. Next, he slows it down for “Photobook,” the first half is an organ-led ballad for self-improvement — “I think I can, think I can…” Jonson trails off into a rhythmic reverie. We end on the wistful, soulful “Natural Form,” featuring The Long And The Short of It collaborator Elliot Cleverdon on strings. “I can’t say goodbye,” are Jonson’s parting words; it’s a sweet outro, some healing for him, and for us as fans, it’s a lovely place to leave quickly, quickly for now.

Less than a hundred miles inland from the capital city of Lima lies the great Peruvian jungle, an untamed land of impenetrable forests and endless winding rivers. In its isolated cities, cut off from the fashions of the capital, a unique style of music began to develop, inspired equally by the sounds of the surrounding forests, the roll of the mighty Amazon and Ucayali Rivers, and the rhythms of cumbia picked up from distant stations on transistor radios. With the arrival of electricity, a new generation of young musicians started plugging in their guitars and trading in their accordions for synthesizers: Amazonian cumbia was born. Powered by fast-paced timbale rhythms, driven by spidery, treble-damaged guitar lines, and drenched in bright splashes of organ, Amazonian cumbia was like a hyperactive distant cousin of surf music crossed with an all-night dance party in the heart of the forest. While many of the genre’s greatest tracks were instrumental, and others were simple celebrations of life in the jungle, the goal of every song was to keep the party going. Radio stations in Lima remained unaware of the new electric sounds emanating from the jungle, but a handful of pioneering record producers ventured over the mountain passes to the cities of Tarapoto, Moyobamba, Pucallpa – even Iquitos, a city reachable only by boat or plane – and lured dozens of bands to the recording studios of the capital to lay down their best tracks. Although many became local hits, few were ever heard outside the Amazonian region... until now. With eighteen tracks from some of the greatest names in Amazonian cumbia, Perú Selvatico is both the improbable soundtrack to a beach party on a banks of the Amazon and a psychedelic safari into the sylvan mysteries of the Peruvian jungle.

Guitar and bass duo Gong Gong Gong (工工工) charge out from Beijing’s underground scene with a distinct vision and uncompromising sense of purpose. The duo taps into a wavelength uniting musical cultures, drawing on inspirations ranging from Bo Diddley to Cantonese opera, West African desert blues, drone, and the structures of electronic music. Gong Gong Gong’s debut LP, Phantom Rhythm, is their mission statement: between the locomotive chug and banjo twang of Tom Ng’s guitar and Joshua Frank’s thumping bass harmonics, an aura of ghostly snare hits and timpani overtones emerges. Over Frank’s enigmatic melodies, Ng sings in Cantonese, piecing together abstract tales of absurdity and doubt, desire and lust. Formed in 2015, the band’s earliest shows were in Beijing underpass tunnels and DIY spaces. Ng and Frank are both outsiders who call the city their home: Ng, who was born in Hong Kong, defiantly sings in his native tongue, while Frank, originally from Montreal, has lived in Beijing on and off since childhood. (He is the English translator of Ng’s lyrics, adding another layer to the duo’s close collaboration). A compact, almost telepathic unit, Gong Gong Gong use their minimalistic tools and idiosyncratic playing style to challenge the notions of rock n’ roll, stripping the form down to its bare essentials: rhythm, melody, and grit

In March 1969, the Velvets (with Doug Yule now on bass) embarked on a nationwide tour. One of these included a stint at the "End Of Cole Avenue" club in Dallas - one of the Velvets' few live performances where a professional sound engineer was actually on hand to record the sets. Some of the songs recorded over those few nights showed up in 1974 on their "1969: Velvet Underground Live" album, but the sound quality was not great due to the use of 3rd or 4th generation tapes. However, the first generation tapes have since resurfaced, and the difference in sound quality (heard here) is a welcome one

April 30, 1967 recording of a performance at The Gymnasium (424 E. 71st St) in New York City. So its Velvet's White Light/White Heat period in full gloom. In fact, it contains the first public performance of 'Sister Ray' (it clocks 19:10"! ) and the previously unreleased songs 'I'm Not a Young Man Anymore' and the R&B number Booker T. Mastered form recently sourced tapes not comparable with any previous versions

Bog Bodies - the band consisting of Robert Stillman, Anders Holst and Seán Carpio delve into deep time to carve sonic abstractions across their self-titled new album on MIC. Navigating the “liminal territory between noise and signal, chaos and control, form and abstraction,” the trio recorded and mixed the album on an 8-track cassette machine. Bog Bodies is a searching inquiry into the mythologies and magical undercurrents that knit together our existence in the information age. Bog Bodies opens with a leftfield homage to Superman III, exploring the mythical qualities of technology through a series of angular horn lines that dissolve into the mire of feedback noise on the album’s raking, anthemic title track. Reverberating in tectonic sheets of sound on ‘One That Is Reflected In The Image Becomes All’ and Bog Bodies reaches its climax on the 11-minute ‘Cave Painting 2019’ - a subterranean epic of mystic force, drawn up from the earth in sweeping drones. Bringing together their combined experiences playing with the likes of Manuel Göttsching, Luke Temple, The Smile and more recently Coby Sey.

"Ebi Soda drop a major gem with the arrival of their ethereal and electric, dance-inspired album Ugh." – Okayplayer 

"Shifting between breakbeats and loping tempos, the quintet beams out melodies like wide smiles." – Bandcamp 

"Scorching funk-leaning jazz with plenty of left field influences" – Clash 

"Ebi Soda continue to make their mark as one of today’s most forward-thinking new jazz bands." – Twistedsoul 

"Lively, frenetic tunes that will work the dancefloor, through to more meditative, cosmic psychedelia. Absolute killer!" – Sounds Of The Universe 

"Just fucking cool-sounding... great grooves from a great band yet again." – Jazz Revelations 

'Ugh', is a collection of tunes from Ebi Soda's first ventures into professional recording. The band have made sure to carry their DIY-centric identity with them, creating a beautifully-produced record with the band's raw energy still at the forefront. Explosive drum grooves and a heavy-usage of electronic effects characterise the fluid jams we hear on 'Ugh', with the project's opener 'Ecchi' setting the tone straight away as the song moves from upbeat dance-y rhythms to a nightmare-inducing dub soundscape. 

The ten-track project was recorded over a year from numerous different sessions, leading it to carry an air of sporadicity to it, with its genre-switching nature leading the band to consider it more of a mixtape than an album. Ebi Soda seek to surprise and alarm listeners with this project. 

The 3rd NYE at Winterland (2nd that was taped) is known for having the first Big River and Chinatown Shuffle, as well as the last Dancin' (until '76). Same Thing hadn't been played since '67 and this was the last Pigpen version, Bobby taking it up again 20 years later. This is also the first show with Donna, though she's not a big presence. She would officially join at the upcoming Academy shows.

Tracklist:
 
Dancing In The Streets
Loser China Cat Sunflower
I Know You Rider
Brown-Eyed Woman
Sugar Magnolia
Sunshine Daydream
Not Fade Away
Going Down
The Road Feeling Bad 

Pearl & the Oysters first album made after their move from the neon swamps of Florida to the glittering lights of L.A. is just as bright and bubbly as their past work. In fact, the only thing Joachim Polack and Juliette Davis change on Coast 2 Coast is the set of collaborators. Old friends Dent May and Mild High Clubs Alex Brettin are on board again, and this time Riley Geare of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Alan Palomo of Neon Indian fame, and most excitingly, Laetitia Sadier join up to add their talents to the mix. Polack and Davis are the stars, though, creating a sound that is warmly familiar while still delivering little jolts of sonic surprise along the way. A few of the most alluring are the funky guitar groove on "Konami," the dubby effects on "Loading Screen" that perfectly match the wry subject matter, the harps that trill magically through the enchanting "Moon Canyon Park," the free jazz sax solo on "Joyful Science," and the warped synths that frame the melancholy vocals on "Paraiso." While these novel sounds give the duos already shiny surfaces something of a glow-up, one thing that didnt need any kind of upgrade or alteration is Davis vocals. Her dulcet tones again prove to be up to any challenge, whether its slinking gracefully through late-night soft rock on "Pacific Ave," crooning with birdlike simplicity on "Space Coast," or teaming with Sadier on one of the albums highlights, "Read the Room," a chugging Stereolab-inspired rocker that thrillingly breaks out into little bursts of baroque metal guitar solos before swinging back into the groove. The extra layering of sound in the arrangements and the overall relaxed feel of the record mean that its not quite as immediate as previous efforts; however, an extra bit of attention on the part of the listener will result in an experience thats suitably easy, breezy, and light, but also deeper and more resonant. Its clear that Polack and Davis keep growing as writers and musicians, and where it might once have been reasonable to knock off a point or two for the novelty-adjacent nature of the songs, any traces of novelty have definitely worn off. What remains is purely enjoyable pop music that should appeal to anyone with a wide definition of the sound and an affinity for lightly seasoned melodies and full-to-the-brim arrangements. ~ Tim Sendra

9ms is the duo of Simon Popp and Florian König. On their wide ranging debut album ‚Pleats‘ the tech-savvy drummers offer grooves from the dubbier realms of World Music and Krautrock - some meditative and light, some thick as wall and steady as a clock. The album was recorded live in a large wooden hall in the Bavarian Alps with only three microphones. Using various infrared and magnetic field sensors, Popp and König were able to translate their movements into control voltage, which they then used to trigger and tweak synthesizers and a myriad of effects. A way for two humans to become one with their mystic machinery.

Cucina Povera and Ben Vince’s debut full-length collaboration deploys an engrossing suite of noirish nocturnes based around Maria Rossi aka Cucina Povera’s muzzy vocal loops and Ben Vince’s accompaniments on saxophone, synth and piano. Born out of wonder, innocence and creative discovery, it’s the sound of two exploratory collaborators swimming into each other's ideas, from Terry Riley-esque transcendence to late-night sax swirls shrouding Rossi’s distinctive voice in dimly lit psychedelic smoke. London’s abundant waterways and parks provide an oneiric muse for Cucina Povera and Ben Vince’s resounding debut full-length collaboration, an engrossing suite of weightless sax, synth and disklavier-bedded soundscapes that land somewhere between Grouper and Terry Riley. As a newcomer to London, Rossi was caught up in a sort of wondrous reverie - a feeling that seeps through every movement of thia almost hour long album. Vince's plasmic echoes and Rossi's aerial delivery form a poetic union, twisting and painting each sound in pearlescent shades, finding a musical confluence between Rossi's words - fluid, dreamy, hazy ideations - and Vince's shadowy renditions. Rossi's folk roots shine through like cracks of dawn sunlight on 'Sumu Puistossa' ("fog in the park"), reverberating over organ and dream-zone sax; her words tip into muted surrealism thanks to the controlled chaos of Vince's bleak treatments. His grasp of jazz is transfixing: bending sax motifs like ghostly memories of music from another timeline, smudging them into the soundfield. It’s most effective on the title tracx, where sickly, dissonant notes flicker like an almost-extinguished candle alongside motorised furniture music courtesy of a Disklavier. From the Terry Riley-esque transcendence of '∞' to the sacred incantation of long-form closer 'Pikku Muurahaiskeko' ("little anthill"), the pair expose a new layer of creativity with each turn, gradually zooming out from discreet, vulnerable beauty to encompass a gently orchestrated chaos of sustained, sublime tension. Stunning.

теплота is the London-based duo of Grundik Kasyansky & Tom Wheatley. Their work interrogates the haptic, social and liberating relationships with technologies old and new; using feedback synthesizer and computer-acoustic bass, they fuse a spontaneous interplay orthogonally over cyclical structures, with techno as perpetual fulcrum. Following their debut HEAT/WORK on Cafe Oto’s TakuRoku label and the monthly ЭС research series, Skynned will be landing on Accidental Meetings. Half techno, half free jazz, the music is both hypnotic and open-ended, relentless and ephemeral.

From the academy of deep soul and no ego, Reverend Baron delivers visions of liquor store East LA, the off-the-freeway dry mirage of slow motion graffiti and lonely seagulls. A nylon stringed zen fog with themes of woozy love, layered dimensions of nostalgia and glazed neighborhood tales that roll in with a natural ease. After notching a permanent status in the skateboarding orbit as Danny Garcia, he transferred his effortless style, dedication and authenticity into music. Practicing a philosophy of demystifying the process and doing it yourself, he has become a proficient multi-instrumentalist, engineer, and producer of his own and other artist's music. All streams of curiosity converge into the river. An enigma, Reverend Baron emerges from the proverbial gray overpass with no sense of urgency. He takes a sharp gaze at his surroundings and processes them through a factory of depth and gentle swag to yield a sound that sits as easy as fallen molasses on the bodega shelf. The songs are an unassuming invitation to either walk through the doorway or lean on the wall outside, either way something beautiful and rare.

Barely disco and hardly jazz, Rupa Biswas' music the halfway point between Bollywood and Balearic. Tracked in 1982 at Calgary’s Living Room Studios with a crack team of Indian and Canadian studio rats alike, both “Moja Bhari Moja” and “East West Shuffle” are the perfect fusion sarod and synthesizer. Remastered from original analogue source material and with permission and blessing of the producers and performers.

Ali Farka Touré is well known as one of the most influential and talented guitarists that Africa has ever produced. His legacy and impact are hard to overstate. Ali’s sound merged his much-loved traditional Malian musical styles with distinct elements of the blues, singing in the local languages of Fulfulde, Tamasheq, Songhay and Bambara. The result was the creation of a groundbreaking new genre, now well known as the ‘desert blues’, earning him three Grammy awards, widespread reverence and the nickname of the ‘African John Lee Hooker’. Though he transcended in 2006, Ali’s musical legacy lives on through his son, Vieux aka “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” an accomplished guitarist and champion of Malian music in his own right. On Ali, his collaborative album with Khruangbin, Vieux pays homage to his father by recreating some of his most resonant work, putting new twists on it while maintaining the original’s integrity. The result is a rightful ode to a legend. Ali isn’t just a greatest hits compilation. It’s a lullaby, a remembrance of Ali's life through known highlights and B-sides from his catalog. It is a testament to what happens when creativity is approached through open arms and open hearts. “To me, music is magic, it is spontaneous, it is the energy between people,” Vieux says. “I think Khruangbin understands this very well.” The genesis of the album dates back to 2019, when Khruangbin, coming off their breakthrough album Con Todo el Mundo, was beginning to play to bigger crowds. The record was finished in 2021, as a global pandemic shuttered businesses and forced us to take stock of what Earth was becoming. Indirectly, Ali captures this as a moment of peace within a raging storm, a conversation between past and present without allegiance to suffering. Now, given Khruangbin’s reach as a unit with legions of fans (including the likes of Jay-Z and Paul McCartney), they’re poised to bring Malian music to broader groups of listeners. Ali is a masterful work in which the love surrounding it is just as vital as the music itself, driving it to unforeseen places; Vieux and Khruangbin are spreading the good word to a completely new generation. “I hope it takes them somewhere new, or puts them in a place they haven't felt or heard,” Lee says. “It is about the love of new friendship and making something beautiful together,” Vieux continues. “It is about pouring your love into something old to make it new again. In the end and in a word it is love, that's all.”

5AM is a band, and a group effort by long time adulthood friends 5ive, Andry and Moko. 5ive is known for his ongoing contribution for music-duo Cos/Mes and other various projects, Andry is a multidisciplinary designer and Moko works as DJ and producer under her project Powder. After a long period of hanging out and sharing music to each, the band 5AM was naturally found in 2019, and soon made a small debut. 5AM plays about time, sings about observation and thinks about texture, atmosphere, and listening-space and random other stuff. Caring of subtle things for the big picture. Pre Zz is the first album by 5AM, recorded through 2020 and 2021, packaged day to day remixed feelings about that time, but not necessary just about that time. The album captures the moment of changes — Pre something — as like before a sleep after a long stay up Zz.

We have repeatedly surprised you with unusual releases that sound uncharacteristic for wellknown artists Remember Merzbow with guitars, synth (almost said synth-pop) and drum machine? Well, Muslimgauze's turn came up. Emak Bakia – long out of print masterpieces from 1994. Even in the huge Bryn Jones' discography Emak Bakia really stands out of albums from the period due its rather unique (house-music related) sound and short, by the standards of Bryn Jones, tracks. Like a crossmix between Psychic TV (circa Towards Thee Infinite Beat) and Muslimgauze's trademark percussion and eastern vibes.

• Brilliantly remastered picture LP/CD with new stunning artwork! • Unique tribal dub-trance music influenced by arabic culture with a touch of post-industrial. • Hypnotic rhythms mixed with with eastern vibes. • Muslimgauze at it's best! • Released as picture LP in gimmix cover limited to 500 copies • Also available as black vinyl and CD A1 taken from VA - 110 Below - No Sleeve Notes Required (110 Below, 1995) A2 taken from VA - Assemblage Volume Two (Extreme, 1996) A3 taken from Nonplace Urban Field – Golden Star (Incoming!, 1996) B1 taken from VA - Le Sacre Du Printemps (Gonzo Circus, 1994) B2 taken from VA - X-X Section (Extreme, 1991) B3 taken from VA - Directions 2 (Direction Music, 1989)

Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators. Itself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African American experience - as one of freedom and restraint, of joy and suffering - that manifests in the triumph of spirit over the crushing prejudice of daily life. Cutting together archive reels from Black neighborhoods in Chicago with live performance footage from Sun Ra and his Arkestra among others, the film remains a radical and prescient evocation of Black pride and its roots in the history of jazz, from spirituals to blues and beyond. As South African writer Nombuso Mathibela captures in the album’s liner notes: [Music is our weapon of struggle] that radiantly holds our positive aspiration, group pride and determination as Black people. Sonics! our beautiful fire that gave light to the world. And a world that gave us blues. The blues that gave us Black in jazz Drawing a through line to today’s vibrant avant-garde, Angel Bat Dawid’s Requiem For Jazz picks up the liberation work laid out by Bland’s film, taking the message of joy and suffering within the Black classical tradition into a contemporary setting. Music from the project was originally premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019, where Angel conducted a multigenerational fifteen-piece instrumental ensemble of Black musicians from across Chicago’s creative community, alongside a four-person choir (featuring singers from Black Monument Ensemble) as well as dancers and visual artists. Recordings from the performance were then mixed and post-produced by Angel, who added interludes, vocals and additional sounds. As well as transcribing a piece from the film, Requiem For Jazz also alludes to The Cry of Jazz through contributions from the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott on the album’s final movement, which were recorded remotely at the historic Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia in late 2020. “I want us to have this very wonderful conversation that Ed Bland started over 50 years ago and I want to continue the conversation; because this is a loving conversation that we need to have with each other” - Angel Bat Dawid, Feb 2023

It's by some strange inversion that since his untimely death in 1999 Bryn Jones' Muslimgauze project has become evermore enigmatic as his publicly available recordings have become evermore vast. The Mancunian artist's sudden passing at the age of 37 prematurely resolved a body of work that remains as experimental as it is diffuse, with an informal archive that was left spread between favoured labels and confidantes. And though this monadic project never abided by genre specifications, it all feels as if it is taking the critical pulses of its time and rendering them into something other than the sum of its obscure compulsions. Jones' double album 'Veiled Sisters' from 1993 is no exception, and it persists as a magnificent outlier in his singular and bewildering discography. Originally released by the label Soleilmoon, an early and lifelong supporter of Jones' work along with Staalplaat, the album is a notable example of the uniquely recombinant fragility and fervour of Jones' work. This 3LP edition marks the album's first appearance on vinyl. Like much of the Muslimgauze catalogue, 'Veiled Sisters' is dedicated to the Palestine Liberation Organization, with its two halves—Sister One and Sister Two—calling on the history and conflicts of the modern Islamic world through opaque titles and snatches of musical oration. Forgoing the raucous timbre and abrasion that Jones could occasionally employ, this album balances a medley of shrill instrumental bursts with a complex patterning of ambient atmospheres. 'Veiled Sisters' moves with a hypnotic gait across its extended runtime with a dynamic ensemble of electronics grounded in a pulsing yet evasive combination of low-slung kicks and dub-soaked bass. The hissy wash of drums, both played and machined, decorate a restless patina all over, and the cacophony of samples send impressions scattershot into Jones' idiosyncratic yet readymade psychedelia. With a quiet intensity that is not often captured this succinctly in the Muslimgauze catalogue, this new edition of 'Veiled Sisters' is a reminder of the haunting wonder that Jones was capable of manifesting.

It's by some strange inversion that since his untimely death in 1999 Bryn Jones' Muslimgauze project has become evermore enigmatic as his publicly available recordings have become evermore vast. The Mancunian artist's sudden passing at the age of 37 prematurely resolved a body of work that remains as experimental as it is diffuse, with an informal archive that was left spread between favoured labels and confidantes. And though this monadic project never abided by genre specifications, it all feels as if it is taking the critical pulses of its time and rendering them into something other than the sum of its obscure compulsions. Jones' double album 'Veiled Sisters' from 1993 is no exception, and it persists as a magnificent outlier in his singular and bewildering discography. Originally released by the label Soleilmoon, an early and lifelong supporter of Jones' work along with Staalplaat, the album is a notable example of the uniquely recombinant fragility and fervour of Jones' work. This 3LP edition marks the album's first appearance on vinyl. Like much of the Muslimgauze catalogue, 'Veiled Sisters' is dedicated to the Palestine Liberation Organization, with its two halves—Sister One and Sister Two—calling on the history and conflicts of the modern Islamic world through opaque titles and snatches of musical oration. Forgoing the raucous timbre and abrasion that Jones could occasionally employ, this album balances a medley of shrill instrumental bursts with a complex patterning of ambient atmospheres. 'Veiled Sisters' moves with a hypnotic gait across its extended runtime with a dynamic ensemble of electronics grounded in a pulsing yet evasive combination of low-slung kicks and dub-soaked bass. The hissy wash of drums, both played and machined, decorate a restless patina all over, and the cacophony of samples send impressions scattershot into Jones' idiosyncratic yet readymade psychedelia. With a quiet intensity that is not often captured this succinctly in the Muslimgauze catalogue, this new edition of 'Veiled Sisters' is a reminder of the haunting wonder that Jones was capable of manifesting.

NTS DJ, label boss and fabled collector Howard Williams lands on DDS with an etheric communique under his Japan Blues moniker, inspired by early C.20th Min'yō folk and avant-dub, richly spirited with field recordings and ghostly ephemera. Six years since his debut Japan Blues album ‘Sells His Record Collection’, Williams is back - and it’s been worth the wait. Based around enka and minyo recordings made with London based singer Akari Mochizuki and Tsugaru shamisen master Hibiki Ichikawa at London’s Earthworks studio back in 2018, Williams adds field recordings made while traveling through Japan, inviting The Dengie Hundred to co-produce, bringing his own sound worlds into the mix. The two spent several months shuttling ideas back and forth, processing mixes and adding environmental recordings, like snatched penny whistle melodies or the familiar whirr of an extractor fan. Singer Tamami Pearl is the final piece of the puzzle, providing an almost imperceptibly breathy aura to proceedings. The obsessively researched archivist’s resolve is still very much present, but the processing style and overall sound here is more faded than the Japan Blues of yore, transmuting discernible sounds into magickal textures that boil and bubble until all that’s left is vapour. On 'Sazanka, Hokkai Bon Uta', Japanese vocals are dubbed into bare syllables, juxtaposed with flute improvisations and muddy whirrs. Eventually, the instrumental elements turn to noise, like some shortwave radio transmission slowly falling out of range. Environmental sounds become uneven, clunking percussive currents offer a sort of dream logic, morphing into faint choirs. In the final third, Williams pulls away the veil almost entirely. The album's most compelling section is the side-long 'Soran, AIzu Bandai-San, Shimabara Lullaby'. If you've heard Robert Turman's 1981 album "Flux" - a reel-to-reel recorded slo-mo kalimba and piano masterpiece - you'll have an idea of how this one rolls. Williams and The Dengie Hundred work into the source material like modelling clay, dubbing and distorting shamisen twangs and echoing vocals into half-speed, dissociated dream visions. It's not Ambient by any means, but there are undoubtedly traces of Brian Eno's earliest, most crucial experiments. It's not Folk music either, but Williams' deep obsession with Japanese traditions allows him to integrate sounds holistically, provoking a conversation rather than simply cherry picking aesthetic decorations. He works like a dedicated DJ, giving The Dengie Hundred room to tweak the spaces in-between. Together, they create an atmosphere that's fiendishly hard to put into words, and even harder to forget. If you're into tape-damaged industrial experiments (think Skaters, Spencer Clark, Aaron Dilloway et al), the surrealist global exploration of labels like Stroom, or simply after a new perspective on Japanese folkways, "Japan Blues Meets The Dengie Hundred" is unmissable.

If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust? This is the crucial question at the core of Julia, Julia, the moniker for Julia Kugel, founding member of garage punk icons The Coathangers and the dream pop duo Soft Palms. On her first solo full-length album Derealization, Kugel shifts her focus from collaboration and band dynamics towards a singular artistic vision and private self-discovery. Steeped in the beguiling pop elements of her past work, Derealization is a meditative deep dive into the mind of a person struggling to understand a crumbling internal and external world. The album traverses a landscape of ethereal folk, atmospheric deconstructed pop, and dubbed-out country ballads, all centered around straight forward and direct lyrics. This juxtaposition of nebulousness and lucidity gives the album a sense of clarity emerging from the haze, an apt reflection of Kugel's personal growth and journey toward self-acceptance. Derealization is based on weaving the unreal, unsaid, and unknown into an undulating sonic fabric. Vocal layering and abstract instrumentation convey a blurred desperation to connect to an emotional and psychological focal point. Moody, dark, and sumptuous, the record is a flow chart of Julia Kugel coming into herself as an artist and songwriter. The album finds Julia playing almost all the instruments and taking her first stab at engineering at COMA, her and her husband's home recording studio in Long Beach, CA. “You know how touring musicians often speak of whether home is real or tour is real? Well, it can lead you to lose grasp on ‘reality,’ especially when touring is taken away and you are left to wonder if anything was ever real, including yourself. Like you we're just playing a character,” Kugel says of her headspace leading up to the creation of Derealization. “Honestly, I kinda lost it, and through making this record I made peace with it and reconciled myself as a real person. I forgave myself and in turn forgave those around me. The song ‘Forgive Me’ is the apology I wanted to say and to hear. I wrote every song from that place and gained the confidence I was pretending to possess.” This raw and personal approach to the lyrics is present throughout Derealization. On the opening track "I Want You," Kugel creates a woozy sense of space with reverb-soaked drums and spaghetti western guitars while she lists off her desires for a mysterious “you.” Is she actually listing off her desires for herself? For the people around her? As she repeats "do you feel it?" in the song’s chorus, it feels as if she’s conjuring a magical thread by which we are all connected, showing us how our desires are all the same. On "Fever In My Heart" the listener is treated to a lush, acoustic techno track detailing the exhilarating madness of an emotional breakdown. Simple truths percolate to the surface on "Words Don't Mean Much,” as if clearing away the murk of platitudes and empty gestures. The journey continues on the detached and conflicted "Do It Or Don't,” an alluring walk through the winding road of lonely choices. The name for the project—Julia, Julia—is a look in the mirror, a reflection of what is hidden and unanswered, of what is real and what is transient. The experience of living life not as you planned it but as it unfolded, and the mysterious, magical pain that creates meaning. Suicide Squeeze Record is proud to offer up Julia, Julia’s Derealization to the world on September 30, 2022.