MUSIC

Holy Tongue are a trio composed of Valentina Magaletti, Al Wootton and Susumu Mukai. Accomplished musicians in their own right, they combined to create psychedelic, free-form, high energy, spiritual dub-dance music across a trilogy of critically acclaimed EPs and their debut album Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare. Their high energy live performances invoke the experimental dub of On-U-Sound, the frenetic rhythms of 23 Skidoo, Liquid Liquid and ESG, and the spiritual energy of free jazz. The trio’s dynamic collaboration extends in their meeting with Shackleton, one of the most original and critically lauded voices in electronic music. Shackleton has moved from the depths of the early 2000s dubstep underground to a diverse range of international collaborations and commissions over the last two decades. After honing his hypnotic beats on the cult UK record label Skull Disco, his unique rhythmic touch is now heard on some of the most adventurous and progressive projects that have emerged from the European dance scene in recent years. Shackleton’s work explores conceptual and spiritual themes with an emotional depth beyond most artists working in European dance music today, and his visions of inner space, apocalypse and dread are more timely than ever before. This record was conceived after Holy Tongue and Shackleton shared a festival line up in Sweden. Holy Tongue were initially keen to get Shackleton to remix one of their existing tracks but they soon decided to have a project together and work on some fresh new music, allowing Shackleton to do something more creative with it in the studio. Thus Holy Tongue recorded a collection of raw material in the studio and sent it to Shackleton. The result is far more than the sum of its parts. A psychedelic, ritualistic, dub trip, oscillating between the maximal and the minimal, the internal and the external, the micro and the macro, ecstasy and agony, all the tumbling psychic joy of now.

"Sandman has added South Indian music to the genre-bending mix, along with funk grooves and nods to the Heath Robinson analog-synth adventures of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1950s and 1960s" ⭐️ All About Jazz (UK) ⭐️ “The Sandman Project speaks the universal language of…global pop” ⭐️ Bayern Radio 7.4/10 (DE) ⭐️ “An exhilarating ten-track oeuvre, an evocative, borderless potpourri of global surf 'n' turf styles with a jazz ethos" ⭐️ Greedy For Best (DE) ⭐️ “It pivots around the character of Mulatu Astatke and the Fleet Foxes with winds and guitar and a little electronic touch from Brian Eno” ⭐️ DJ Magazine (ES) ⭐️ “This outfit is a jack of all trades and, on this evidence, a master of them all too” ⭐️ Pipelines Magazine (UK) ⭐️ “Brilliant album, will playlist on my PBB Radio show” ⭐️ Laurent Garnier (FR) ⭐️ Sandman Project’s long awaited debut album Where Did You Go? is a borderless amalgam of brass heavy sounds, a document of a band whose musical tendencies mimic their open-minded ethic where Ethio- jazz, Afrobeat, American soul music and psychedelic, Mediterranean funk traverse. Led by guitarist and composer Tal Sandman, Tel Aviv based Sandman Projects’s last release was in 2018 on their debut EP, their only existing recording. Six years later and it is no surprise this expansive work is positively brimming with an ocean of ideas, rooted in jazz, exceptionally crafted and boasting a myriad of musical pivots with a subtle but crucial production and synth touch by producer Tomer Baruch. Absolutely key to this new recording and Tal’s adult musical upbringing and education is the ongoing influence of saxophonist Abate Barihun, sometimes known as the Ethiopian John Coltrane who is an Ethiopian Jew who emigrated to Israel in 1999. Whilst he doesn’t feature directly on the record, Tal has long been mentored and stewarded by him and she affirms that “his inspiration continues to play a crucial role in my creative process.” And so, to the album’s title track Where Did you Go which oozes film- noir with Tal’s omnipresent Tizta sound using the Tezeta scales from Ethiopia dictating the mood whilst synths transcend and build an immersive soundscape something akin to Mulatu Astake jamming with the Fleet Foxes with Brian Eno-esque electronic manipulation. The Sandman project line up comprises of 5 core musicians with Tal Sandman on electric guitar, Tal Avraham playing trumpet, Tal Eyal on percussion, Noam Cherchie on drums and Ariel Harrosh on bass. Additional synth and organ provided by producer Tomer Baruch and guest vocalist Dafna Shilon joins on the album closer The Other Side. The group all live in Tel Aviv with Tal living in the Jaffa neighborhood for 12 years and the official birth-place of the Sandman Project. Jaffa is a diverse urban region where Arabs, Jews, Christians and many more live harmoniously together and it’s here where Tal has been active in building community ties and where she has recently started learning Arabic. The recent and shocking violence and war in Israel and Palestine has strengthened the bonds within the Jaffa community and a sense of unity and desire for peace has pervaded echoing Tal’s wish for peace, for real and imagined boundaries to dissolve and war and survival to be replaced with compassion and humanity. Jaffa is also Tal’s place of respite and spiritual place of being, where she returned to after significant musical and creative excursions to Goa in India (where she formed the Goa Afrobeat Band) and to London where she created a branch of the Sandman Project. Tal’s recent trip to Goa is effectively soundtracked on the album opener Karnataka, which borrows from the east, both the spirit and it’s drumming, inspired by a South Indian wedding ceremony. Trumpets and Tal’s incessant but measured guitar riffing using Indian scales transcends into a beautiful soundtrack of jazz and psychedelia energized with a propulsive funk. Temptation & Figs reverberates with a sly groove, an organ filled and chilled groove given a life affirming vibe with it repetitive and harmonized vocal pass building to a trumpet crescendo. The cine flavoured edge of Sandman Project goes wide screen on The X Files as bizarre electronic gurgling remiss of early BBC Radiophonic recordings intertwine with horn stabs and a percussion solo. Further vintage synth excursions repeat on Cauda Equina, with Tal’s heavy fretting giving the track a funk feel, and a dreamy one as the trumpet builds. Dafna Shilon’s entrance at the end of the album on The Other Side is unique in that it brings a skank to proceedings and is the only lyrical song from the collection. Six years in the waiting, and with plentiful personal and collective transformation giving Where Did You Go? a deeper sense of geography and global nuance, the new sound of Sandman Project is rich, porous and dreamy and essentially, full of hope.

Etran de L’Aïr the STARS OF THE AÏR, the longest running wedding band in AGADEZ, capital of Tuareg guitar, return with a new album of sun-schlazed desert sound! Their first album, No.1, brought their music to critics and fans. Their second album, Agadez, sent them into the international touring circuit. And now they're back with 100% SAHARA GUITAR, ready to take on the world, with those swinging melodies, like a sandstorm blowing in from across the sea. Etran de L’Aïr are 100% SAHARA, and that goes same for the band, all sons of AGADEZ, including brothers Moussa, Abdoulaye, and Abdourahamane, and their dear friend, the youngest of the group, Alghabid. All the brothers write and play guitar, swapping out instruments while Alghabid keeps the FOUR ON THE FLOOR. In 100% SAHARA GUITAR, Etran de L’Aïr are back to claim the throne, with their first studio album! And what a sound it is. Recorded in sunny studios on the WEST COAST, the brothers take that old Agadez sound to new levels, adding even more guitars into the mix, weaving layers of reverb-laden melodies and shimmering harmonies into a tapestry of sound. How much guitar can they fit into one record? The answer is 100%.

A pillowcase filled to the brim with delectable Halloween treats from across the Numeroverse, Haunted Presence is a fun size mix of ghoulish garage, skeleton-rattling soul, mutant proto-metal, and spine-chilling ’60s kitsch. With a wingspan of 20 tracks, this double LP is certain to liven up any costume party, séance, or monster mash. Warning: Prolonged exposure may cause ear decay.

Sensational reissue for the first volume of iconic compilation Simla Beat 70. A psych garage manifesto, the record consisted of groups who appeared at the All-India Simla Beat ‘battle of the bands’ contest held in two years (1970 and '71) in Bombay. The annual event and the records were sponsored by The Imperial Tobacco Company. Bands from all around India would compete for first prize. The album - indeed - was not recorded live on the stage but in a primitive makeshift studio using very little overdubbing or sound reinforcement. The sound is generally influenced by the proto-garage western movement of the mid sixties and later became a massive cult for all the 70s rock fans.

//"How long has that been there?"// //"What importance has it lost? Gained? When? Why?"// //"What has occurred here?"// //"..And before that?"//

“...as important to Korean rock in 1970-75 as Phil Spector had been to America's pop scene a decade earlier, and every bit as busy.” - MOJO Shin Joong Hyun’s tale is personal, spiritual, and deep, not only reflecting the full spectrum of human emotions but also reverberating with echoes of sound, some beautiful and life-giving, others restless and ungovernable. These career-spanning anthologies gather Shin’s work as a guitarist, songwriter, producer and arranger of mind-altering experimental pop, acid-folk, and extended psych-funk jams. A musical trip existing somewhere between Motown, Hendrix, and the Velvet Underground.

Horse Lords bring the fervor and fury of their live show to the confines and comfort of your trusted playback device with As It Happened: Horse Lords Live, a collection of recordings that capture the quartet’s galvanic energy as never before while toying with the trope of the live album. Captured at a series of concerts across Europe spanning Horse Lords’ multiple 2022 and 2023 tours, As It Happened is a mediated, sometimes obviously edited presentation of a live performance that strives for a certain level of idealization. With performance at the center of the band’s practice, and elements of chance colliding with Horse Lords’ tightly composed and complex music, As it Happened works as both provocation and total jam.

A new series from Jazzman featuring selections from Greasy Mike, the notoriously shady Super Spiv from the dark underworld of super rare records! After many years in hiding, Greasy Mike has finally opened up his vinyl dungeon, and we were first to raid it! What did we find? Only the lowest of the lowball schlock n' roll 45s never known to exist! We have left no box untouched, no crate unrummaged, no pile unpilfered! Just the greasiest and grimiest, the most shocking and sordid 45s have made it onto our selections. Watch out for more!!! But first - and just in time for your Halloween Horror Shock Hop - Greasy Mike has unearthed his all-time all-hallowed Halloween Monsters: The Zombie Walk, Night Sweats, the Chiller, Prowler and Screaming Vampire! Putrid pieces of raucous rot n' roll records direct from Greasy Mike's manky mitts! Not to be missed! Oww-ooooh!!!

The third in a new series from Jazzman featuring selections from Greasy Mike, the notoriously shady Super Spiv from the dark underworld of super rare records! After many years in hiding, we've finally persuaded Greasy Mike to open up his vinyl dungeon, and we were first to raid it! We have left no box untouched, no crate unrummaged, no pile unpilfered! Just the greasiest and grimiest, the most shocking and sordid 45s have made it onto our black wax long player vinyl editions. Watch out for more!!! In this adventure Greasy Mike finds himself lost in the wilderness; hot, thirsty and alone under the unforgiving desert sun. He's been days without food and water; the heat of the day stifling almost beyond endurance, the cold of night a trial of torment. Survival seems impossible - or does it? Staggering across the sandy plains, the eerie yet unmistakable sound of a snake charmer's reed curiously winds its way into his ears. Instinctively he turns his head towards the sound - and lo! An oasis just ahead! Music, laughter - and belly dancers!!!

Bill Laswellプロデュースの超傑作!! ビート・ジェネレーションの作家やRolling Stoneのブライアン・ジョーンズ、オーネット・コールマン、マーク・リボーらとの関わりも知られる、モロッコはベルベル人スリフ族の神秘主義トランス集団、Master Musicians of Joujoukaの92年作が初となるヴァイナル復刻！ビート作家のブライオン・ガイシンがタンジールにある自身のレストランへと招聘して西洋でも注目を集めた彼ら、2017年には来日公演も果たした名グループ！ガイシンはもちろん、バロウズなどの欧米のビート・ジェネレーションの作家やヒッピーたちから信望され、ブライアン・ジョーンズの71年作「Brian Jones Plays With The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka」の功績により、世界へとその名を轟かせた伝説の民族音楽集団、Joujouka。15世紀にはスーフィストの聖人からも「バラカ」（神の恩寵）と祝福され、歴史的にも非常に重要な存在として記録されているとのこと。栄えあるジャジューカ村の演奏家たちが、独自のリードやパイプ、リラを手に奏でる霊性の巨大な渦の如し集団即興の波、その途轍もない深さやサイケデリアたるやどこまでも吸い込まれるばかりです。こんな音楽、この広い地球上どこを探してもそうはありません！名技師Helmut ErlerによってD&Mでヴァイナル・リマスタリングと盤質もカンペキ。180G重量盤。限定1000枚。まずは一度浴びましょう！

One of the furthest experiments in library music, first official vinyl reissue under Sonor Music Production license. ‘Chitarre Folk’ was conceived in July 1974 and produced by the small publishing company Nike, the album is brilliantly propelled by the two six-string players Bruno Battisti D’Amario and Silvano Chimenti (long-time collaborator of I Gres, Pulsar and Piero Umiliani E La Sua Orchestra), touching avant-folk themes surrounded by Maestro Sandro Brugnolini’s lush arrangements and Edda Dell’Orso’s ghostly vocals. Ethereal psych-folk melodies akin to the imaginary landscapes of John Fahey and Robbie Basho.

Sound Limited, formed at the end of 1969, recorded three albums in quick succession in 1970, as if to reflect Takeshi Inomata's enthusiasm. The third of these was “New Rock In Europe. This album was composed mainly of songs by European musicians such as the Beatles, Donovan, and Nino Rota. The album features many highlights, such as “Something” with the shimmering guitar of Kosei Mizutani and “Barabajagal” with its tight and exciting groove, but it was a pleasure to hear “Mustache,” an original by Inomata, which is a part of the group's repertoire. This is the third recording following “Sounds Of Sound L.T.D.” and “Sensational Jazz Vol. 1/2,” and the version here is glossy and psychedelic, as if it concentrates the atmosphere of the entire album. It is a monumental work that shows that Inomata's jazz-rock has entered a new dimension. text by Yusuke Ogawa

Banabila returns with a second LP release on Knekelhuis. The renowned Dutch producer is up there among the stars when it comes to ambient music and the so-called ‘fourth world’ legacy. On this eleven-track album, we witness soul-wrenching, kraut-tinted, and early-yet-modernist electronics. Coming from his heart, these imaginative recordings center around otherworldly voices – fictional characters chanting in a made-up language, imbued with a captivating spirit, transcending linguistic barriers. Through remarkable complexity and technique, 'Unspeakable Visions' is full of sonic textures, together evoking a layered, emotional arc. While the track 'Rattles' still references the artist's first album on Knekelhuis, 'Echo Transformations', the style of most other tracks departs towards an intriguing new mix of both pop-infused songs and gloomy abstraction, balancing between a sense of anticipation and desolation. (Luke Cohlen, May 2024)

YĪN YĪN, the highly touted Dutch quartet from Maastricht, returns with a sonically expansive third album Mount Matsu. Recorded collectively in their own studio in the Belgian countryside, the album is a kaleidoscope of sounds and influences, occupying a no man’s land between Khruangbin and Kraftwerk, surf music and Southeast Asian psychedelia, Stax soul and mutant 80s disco, City pop and Japanese instrumental folk (sōkyoku). Mount Matsu sees YĪN YĪN at their most mature and adventurous stage yet. Infectious pentatonic melodicism calling for multiple rewinds.

Bad vibes, habits, and breath collide on this ten-song pile up on the freeway to nowhere. Melting neo-grunge, swamprock, and noise punk in a cauldron of drug-addled psychosis, 1985's You Get What You Deserve continues Australia's prison-as-country tradition of unhinged lunacy in the face of cultural isolation. Nuke nostalgia, femme fatale sharpshooters, demolition derbies, and a vacation at Hell Beach await.

For over half a century, Takehisa Kosugi was one of the most unique and enduring figures in the Japanese underground. As an art student in Tokyo in the early 1960s, he joined the Fluxus-styled performance unit Hi Re Centre and founded the improvisational ensemble Group Ongaku, but his most legendary project was The Taj-Mahal Travelers – a multicellular organism that included Kosugi, Ryo Koike, Yukio Tsuchiya, Seiji Nagai, Michihiro Kimura, Tokio Hasegawa and sound engineer Kinji Hayashi. With a penchant for long psychedelic jams (some lasting 12 hours or more) The Taj-Mahal Travelers lived up to their name. Touring in a Volkswagen van across Europe and Asia in the early '70s, they eventually reached the actual Taj Mahal in India. Upon their return to Japan, they held a concert to raise more touring funds and released their very first recordings. Their debut album, July 15, 1972, would extend the band's matter-of-fact titling: all the tracks were named precisely for the times they began and ended. With a grab bag of instrumentation (electric violin, double bass, santoor, vibraphone, harmonica, radio oscillators, sheet iron, etc.), The Taj-Mahal Travelers weave together mesmerizing waves of sonic texture. Featuring longtone concepts that Kosugi discovered while working with sound generators in New York in the mid-'60s, July 15, 1972 remains just as much a collective tone poem as psych workout. These leader-less sounds coalesce into a unified whole that feels both subconscious and sublime, as if the waveforms bypass the listener's ears and land directly inside one's synapses. This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 750 numbered copies. Comes with poster.

Keiji Haino is, without question, one of the truly iconic artists to rise beyond the dusk of the 20th century. An artist focused singularly of the beautiful visceral promise of music, his practice is a many headed beast taking in movements from the gentlest of guitar play, through free improvisation and noise. As divergent as the work might be, it is held tightly by his unique way in sound, one that exists moment to moment with a force like no other. 20 years since its first release, Black Blues remains one of his most provocative recordings - a collection of 6 songs, recorded twice over. On version Violent, the other Soft; and the differences could not be more radical. Black Blues exists at both margins of Haino’s sonic spectrum. At the Violent end, each piece is delivered with a sense of tangible intensity. In some moments it is as if we are inside Haino, his voice completely consuming all it comes in contact with. The guitar, carving a path that is part rhythm, part harmony, its tenderness cradling his voice with a determination and generosity. By contrast the Soft versions are almost lullabies, all be it ones that carry a mournful and anguish ladened atmosphere. Here the guitar splays out into clouds of reverb that shimmer at the edges, housing a voice which is constantly seeking a deeper resolution within the songs. Gentle but never settled. Black Blues captures the dynamic form of Keiji Haino’s work in its most raw form; voice and guitar. The songs encapsulate a very particular portrait of an artist whose work only continues to grow deeper in is wonder and profundity.

Originally released digitally by Cafe Oto in 2020, "A Queer Anthology of Drums" is Italo-British percussionist Valentina Magaletti's most satisfying set - a future-fluid evolution of post-punk/industrial murk, free-jazz fizz, electro-acoustic trickery and avant-minimalist mischief. Think Chris Corsano, Morton J. Olsen, Thomas Strønen, Han Bennink. Best known as a prized collaborator who's put in work with Raime, Helm, Jandek, Floating Points, Nico Jaar and numerous others, and making up part of Moin, Vanishing Twin, Tomaga and CZN, Valentina Magaletti is also an accomplished solo artist, and this is where her skills really tend to shine. "A Queer Anthology of Drums" stands as a blueprint for her methodology, rolling through her studied musical philosophy centering percussion without sacrificing structure, cohesion and momentum. Anyone who's heard her performances before won't be completely caught off guard, but this record is the most complete collection she's assembled thus far, balancing lucid rhythmic ritualism with playful psychedelia and fragmented melodic elements. Magaletti recorded the album at home, collaging drums, field recordings, vibraphone, toys and oscillators into a fluxing symphony of rhythm and tone. And while the original album was eight tracks, an additional piece has been added to this new remastered edition to open the record: 'She/Her/Gone', that introduces us to Magaletti's sound in a shower of delayed piano, brushed drums and jangling bells. From here, the set takes a darker turn, pattering into cavernous, metallic spaces on 'The Unity of the Mind', and erupting into a chunky, limber rhythm on the tough-as-nails title track. The fog lifts a little as the set progresses, first with the Steve Reich-cum-Broadcast lounge minimalism of 'Rumors of Bread', and then with 'Per Strada', one of the album's most disarming moments that offsets Magaletti's gamalan-influenced percussive cycles with rousing choral sounds. She utilizes these elements to illustrate her understanding of musical history - her drumming is not tied to the instrument's expected function: it's not simply jazz, or punk, and it's definitely not free improv. Her interests are deep and literate, and her sound reaches thru global folk traditions and ritual practices, touching on pop and experimental forms without mimicking them or operating in template mode. But it isn't an academic exercise either, Magaletti queers her subject matter in a way that makes it accessible and humane. Absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in percussive music, ritual music - even experimental lounge.A Queer Anthology of Drums - "a percussive collage of low-fi frequencies documenting a journey that never took place" (Takuroku), a home recording capturing Valentina's ritualistic free-improv essence, is now being presented to audiences across the world by bié Records, via both streaming services and vinyl for the first time. *A Queer Anthology of Drums was originally released on Cafe Oto's label “Takuroku” with 8 tracks solely in MP3 format. The new version by the Beijing-based bié Records, whose associate acts range across Hualun, Yu Su, Lim Giong, Gong Gong Gong and many more, is specifically remastered for vinyl format and expanded to 9 tracks with the previously unreleased “She/Her/Gone”.

Federico Ughi Together with Leo Genovese and Brandon Lopez Explores the Spaceways in the New Multidimensional LP/CD ‘Infinite Cosmos Calling You You You, Vol. 1’ Federico Ughi, drum wizard and producer, is back with an album under his own name for the first time in five years. The project features outstanding musicians: Leo Genovese, originally from Argentina but now Brooklyn-based on keyboards and synths, and Brandon Lopez from NYC on upright bass. This album celebrates the advanced creative dialogue between these artists by fully immersing the listener in the world of sound conjured by the trio. The expansive scope of this experience suggests that Ughi's artistic enterprise extends beyond the music itself to the idea of connection between artists, music, and the audience. In this conception the musicians are conduits for the delivery of cosmic sound, the music world, the cosmic dimension of sound and light. The message is launched towards the audience and refracted back through them, aspiring to achieve a sort of universal consciousness through presence and participation. The trio moves away from a specific genre, opening up to limitless possibilities. Anything is possible when these improvisers listen to each other so closely. This music is dynamic and defies particular labels. It’s the universal language of sound, frequencies, beat and vibration. The project is strongly influenced by the music, philosophy, and persona of Sun Ra, to whom one of the tracks is dedicated. The album will be followed soon by Vol. 2, containing the other half of the material recorded on the day at Sear Sound, the oldest recording studio in NYC.

Crack Cloud has always been something beyond a rock band: both profound and grand, vaporous and elusive.The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as a proxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary. Over time, two EPs and accompanying visual pieces were produced out of the residence known as Red Mile. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver, working out of harm reduction centers and low-barrier shelters. Sobriety, self-reformation and the idealism of their work further formed an ethos for Crack Cloud. It was during these years that the band produced their astounding 2020 album Pain Olympics. At once, their vision became expansive, cinematic.Now, Red Mile is a bit of a homecoming. Members have returned to Calgary. But Calgary/home has become a liminal space, a place of flux. After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home even mean? Red Mile is, for them, something like samsara: a return and a rebirth.Red Mile's sound breathes expansive energy into the circuitous, street bound sonics of Crack Cloud's prior material. Fizzling synths intertwine with chiming pianos. Songs layer like Russian nesting dolls; one may find a Ramones chorus set within a desolate Western prog soundtrack only to watch it erupt into a joyous anthem. Real-ass guitars — alternately lilting, scuzzy and soaring — ring out across wide sun-bleached spaces. In 2024, the cumulative effect is (in rock instrumentation terms) naturalistic. Any whiff of embalmed nostalgia is absent. Even the close of the album – a winding, alllllmost Jerry Garcia guitar noodle that leads us out of Red Mile – is delivered without sentimentality. Principal songwriter Zach Choy's lyrics are cutting but merciful, with a sharp self awareness that never slides into self-satisfaction. Crack Cloud as artists are critical — and ultimately as forgiving — of themselves as they are the melting world around them. The songs balance an easy charm and cathartic power: affirming life without denying death.Recorded predominantly between the outskirts of Joshua Tree, California, and Calgary, Alberta, this record is informed by a bittersweet mélange of old and new. The sprawling, novelistic structures of their previous albums are condensed and sharpened, while maintaining their refusal to delve into superficiality. Through playful melodies and elliptical guitar soliloquy, they deliver a final product of exceptional depth and distinctly unprecious warmth. Crack Cloud have produced a mature, vital work that interrogates the platitudes of the rock-n-roll lifestyle, but ultimately exalts its sacredness.Red Mile's de facto thesis statement "The Medium" is itself a rock song meditation: an ode to the form and its practitioners. This genre that — typical, repeatable, corporatized as it can be — somehow still has the power to help us live through life. We see the dusty sentiment of "I love rock and roll" exhumed, taken apart, and stitched back together. It's a song guided by faith — if the medium helps us proclaim our love today, it’s worth protecting from derision tomorrow. We live in an era where music seems to love hitting its head against the wall. Crack Cloud's Red Mile is the sound — the feeling! — of the bricks giving way.

Opened up by the delirious alchemy of contemporary pop music, Sean O’Hagan leaps back into life with High Llamas, with a set of killer tunes reflecting on dimensional levels how definitions change over time. Arranged by Sean and produced with mix collaborator Fryars to engage the eardrums in non-stop new possibilities, Hey Panda radiates optimism inspired by the joys and sorrows felt in former lifetimes and the diverse conundrums of today alike.

A feverish essay of transcendent drumming: Chris’ solo approach, rooted in the exploration of elements of extended technique, sought another level, via possibilities facilitated by a self-made string drum! The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) brings his encompassing focus on free improvisation and noise into a granular fusion with acoustic experiments and hot-wired ideations of hard rock riffing and the post-punk sound.