MUSIC

'Skinned' is the debut album from Danish composer, producer and singer ML Buch. After releasing her debut EP Fleshy in 2017 ML Buch is ready with her first full-length album Skinned that takes her expansive guitar work and catchy melodies to another territory. With her unique experimental pop and vocals that seem to slide into your ears as fluorescent liquid, ML Buch portrays the reality of intimacy in a digital era. Working primarily with synthetic midi sounds, the general love of songwriting and guitar music is ever present. The album comes with an extensive visual side in the form of five music videos acting as tableaus that echo the encounter between screens and skin and how the senses wriggle, flutter and weave in and out of our online presence and intimate lives. As if in search for something real, ML Buch takes the listener on the other side of the skin. Led by tender love songs like I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL and Can’t Get Over You With You we journey through her throat and into her intestines, discovering a fascinating realm of shiny mucus and bile in flesh and yellowish colors. Panoramic images were captured by a small pill camera travelling through the body of ML Buch and act as extentions of the architecture of the music. This literal way of internalizing modern technology is symbolic of Skinned where eclectic instrumental compositions share the space with strong hooks and ML Buch’s spherical voice.

One of very few labels we can think of around atm that have a certified buy-on-sight status, Wino consistently do it with 100% suss and 0% fuss, here with the solo debut of Wino co-founder Omid Geadizadeh, with Morgan Buckley on the remix.

A follow-up to that deadly Wino-E LP (quietly, inarguably one of the records of the year - just incred), 'Like The Sea Knows Blue' deploys a trio of percolating summer jams like some lost dubplate of skanking 1980’s basement jams relocated from NYC to Tehran, powered by a glorious santur. Think Tapes via Wackies, with added sunbeams.

On the remix, Morgan Buckley gives it a 90’s breakbeat heat, with subs and chopped vocal samples to boot.

They never miss.

2024 Repress. Tokyo's Ai Aso is a Japanese psychedelic pop singer-songwriter whose work has a whisper-thin acid-folk quality to it. She started performing as a solo singer around 2000. Her solo work, infrequent collaborations with White Heaven members You Ishihara and Michio Kurihara, Yurayura Teikoku, and Boris bring a level of fragility and hypnotism to the stage, recalling lost memories, small flavors of Coil, and serial playing on the verge of evaporation. As for her recent activities, she has performed on bills together with Sunn O))), Boris, Masaki Batoh (Ghost), Touri Kudoh, Kim Doo Soo, Mark Fry, Simon Finn, etc. Cut by CGB at Dubplates & Mastering.

Malian guitar sorcery of the highest order.

You shall not pass. Connecting Wasulu hunter music, griot praises, Senufo pastoral dances, Fula and Mandingo repertoire alongside Western psychedelia, blues and afro-beat, Zani Diabaté’s Super Djata Band was among Mali’s top orchestras of the 1980s. For their 1981 album, the Bamako-based orchestra discovers the wah-wah pedal, delivering six mind-ravishing guitar workouts for the proletariat.

For fans of: Glass Beams, Derya Yıldırım, LA LOM, and hip hop producer Oh No’s

Ouzo Bazooka enchant on Kapaim, drawing listeners through a maze of hypnotic, head-snapping grooves, cosmic string bending, and swirling guitar explorations. As trailblazers of the new Middle Eastern psychedelia movement, the band fuse traditional folk sounds with gritty soul, funk, and rock. Their latest release is a testament to their boundary-pushing spirit, offering a soundscape that is both otherworldly and deeply rooted.

Across five albums and a decade, Ouzo Bazooka have gained acclaim for their pioneering blend of Middle Eastern sounds, psych, and surf rock. The band has achieved international recognition for their music and performances, from the UK all the way to Japan, including The Great Escape, Fuji Rock, and Sziget Festivals. At one point, they played over 150 shows annually, solidifying their reputation as a powerhouse live act. Their critically acclaimed EP, Songs From 1001 Nights, was hailed as "a soaring adventure in exotic reverb and swirling lysergic synth hooks”.

Core member and multi-instrumentalist Uri Brauner Kinrot—musician, composer, and producer—has been active in the international music scene for over two decades. He has played in acclaimed and diverse groups such as Balkan Beat Box, Firewater, Shotnez, and Boom Pam, who also collaborated with Anatolian rock legend Selda Bağcan, and recorded frequently with Kutiman. Kinrot’s ear for production and arrangement has led him to work with internationally recognised artists, including Israeli-Persian musician Liraz.

Launched as a solo project, Ouzo Bazooka quickly morphed into a full-fledged group. However, Kapaim (Hebrew for “palms”) sees Kinrot refining the Ouzo Bazooka sound back into a largely solo endeavour. With more space to experiment, the mostly instrumental album is beautifully arranged and given room to breathe. The bass grooves, wonky synth motifs, head-nodding percussion, and soaring guitar solos create a hypnotic and uplifting experience.

Opening the album, “Asia” begins with an almost pensive bassline that initiates a languid groove. As drums, guitars, and synths join, the melody feels both thoughtful and nostalgic yet hopeful. The consistent bassline conveys a sense of roots and continuity as the song evolves.

The title track, “Kapaim”, urges listeners to clap along to a groove as solid as steel, fusing the legendary New Orleans instrumental funk of The Meters with snake-charming synths and cosmic Anatolian guitar licks.

An otherworldly intro gives way to a tight bass-and-funk groove reminiscent of Bob James’ heavily sampled “Nautilus” on “Seed”, before Kinrot makes a rare vocal appearance, imagining himself as a seed at the centre of the universe.

Having played a key role in the global instrumental movement, Kinrot stands among peers such as JJ Whitefield, Shawn Lee and Kutiman. The album recalls the cinematic depth of David Axelrod but with a distinctive Middle Eastern/Mediterranean touch. Fans of Glass Beams, Derya Yıldırım, LA LOM, and hip hop producer Oh No’s sample-heavy tour of Turkish, Lebanese and Greek psych, Dr. No’s Oxperiment, will find much to love.

A testament to Kinrot’s incredible talent - not least his meticulous arranging, production skills, and ear for soul, funk, and psychedelic rock, as well as his ability to blend musical traditions across cultures and eras - Kapaim carries a deep emotional resonance. It is Ouzo Bazooka’s most personal and addictive album to date, radiating joy, creativity, and a spirit of boundless freedom.

Middle Eastern psych, funk, disco, and Japanese folk and pop, converge to create a mesmerising new sound on ‘Kokoro’, Sababa 5 and Yurika’s collaborative debut album for Batov Records, collecting four acclaimed singles and four brand new songs. Renowned for their innovative approach to merging Middle Eastern psych, funk and disco grooves, Sababa 5 found their perfect partner in Japanese singer and belly dancer Yurika Hanashima, who having graced stages dancing with Boom Pam and Ouzo Bazooka, found her own voice alongside the group, and together yielded hits "Tokyo Midnight", "Nasnusa," and "Crossroad of Love," earning accolades from tastemakers such as Gilles Peterson, Cerys Mathews, and Jeremy Sole. In ‘Kokoro’, Sababa 5 and Yurika present a collection of tracks that transcend cultural boundaries and delve into the depths of human emotion. From the nostalgic romance of “Nasnusa" to the carefree "Halilim Halilim", each song on the album tells a story of love, sisterhood, and the journey of the soul. The title track, "Kokoro", which embodies the essence of the album's musical exploration, refers to the sky, the performers’ journey together, and the moment. Psychedelic soul, with touches of the Mediterranean coast and desert. Opener “Empty Hands” explores Yurika’s theory that “when you have empty hands you get everything”, countered by the hypnotising keys of Eitan Drabkin. over an Afrobeat inspired groove, and bittersweet bassline from Amir Sadot, The playful and summery “Halilim Halilim” was inadvertently named by Dani Ever Hadani of Middle Eastern psych and surf rockers, Ouzo Bazouka, and alludes to how love enters and leaves our lives like the air blown through a flute. Ilam Smilan’s exceptional guitar playing stands out, as does the unwavering groove and rhythm of drummer Raz Man; recently heard among a coterie of feted studio musicians for Mr Bongo signing Project Gemini. On "A Flower Called Indica”, Yurika’s Japanese vocal pays tribute to the ubiquitous allure of flowers, and the powerful bonds between friends, over Sababa 5’s psychedelic groove. The second half of the record collects Sababa 5 and Yurika’s earlier and incredibly popular singles. The dance floor smashing “Tokyo Midnight” is an uptempo psychedelic funk ripper, whilst “Nasnusa”, with its walking bassline and nostalgic love story, is the biggest hit in Sababa 5’s repertoire thus far. Love in the moment is a recurring theme as the “Crossroad Of Love” (Ai no Kousaten) delivers another timeless moment of Mediterranean meets Japanese soul. The attraction of Yurika's mesmerising vocals over Sababa 5's infectious grooves is irresistible across ‘Kokoro’, and the album marks a significant milestone in both their musical journeys. As Sababa 5 continue to redefine their sound, and Yurika establishes herself as a vocalist of note, ‘Kokoro’ stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and the timeless bonds of music, love and romance.

Irish experimental pop artist Elaine Howley, known for her work with psychedelic rock group The Altered Hours and ambient trio Crevice, returns with a new 7-inch single for the revered Modern Love imprint. A delicate interplay of dreamy synth layers and minimalist rhythmic patterns forms the backdrop, as her inward-facing, intimate vocals gently rise to the surface. Cloaked in hazy reverb and subtle lo-fi textures, the track drifts between emotional resonance and sonic experimentation—tracing the blurred edges of post-ambient and contemporary experimental pop. A quiet gem of the current scene, mastered by none other than Rashad Becker.

Martin Rev’s fifth solo album – Strangeworld – was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio’s Sähkö Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound.
Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin, an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals.
Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev’s voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part.

Artist: Flower Travellin' Band, 50 motorcycles and others
Album title: Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles

=Special Edition=
Format: 10-inch LP & CD + CD-R
Catalog #: EMC-023SP/OP-0018SP

Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. The event gained international acclaim for its adventurous architectural design, visual art and electronic music. Some of Japan’s most renowned composers were involved, but also present were the now-legendary rockers, the Flower Travellin' Band. A series of performances, billed as “Night Events” were held at the Expo; the most radical of these was "Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles”, but its anti-establishment feel and general madness took the Expo organizers by surprise and it was cancelled after only one night, despite being scheduled for a longer run. An air of myth developed around the event, but a recording of the event has been discovered and this release is the result. And what an event it was: a night-time sound-bomb with a fabled band, electronic sound and 50 motorcycles with horns blaring, spotlights, electronic billboards and a robot ― all flashing, roaring and howling at the night sky. This release comprises a CD, a 10-inch record with fold-out sleeve and large obi, plus fascinating notes in Japanese and English by Kenichi Yasuda, an expert on Japanese rock music, and Koji Kawasaki, a renowned researcher of Japanese electronic music, as well as rare photos. No download code/ticket available.

Special Edition includes a CD-R of a interview program with the producers of "Beam Penetration" in 1970. At the end of the program, the Flower Travellin' Band appeared with motorcycles and performed in the studio. Also includes insert with English translation of the interview.

TRACKS:
CD “Beam Penetration” (full-length) [45:49]

10-inch (excerpts)
Side A “Beam Penetration” [14:52]
Side B “Beam Penetration” [15:15]

CD-R (Special Editon only extra disc)
"Beam Penetration" Interview & Performance on TV shop on July 13, 1970 

Artist: Flower Travellin' Band, 50 motorcycles and others
Album title: Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles

=Regular Edition=
Format: 10-inch LP & CD
Catalog #: EMC-023/OP-0018

Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. The event gained international acclaim for its adventurous architectural design, visual art and electronic music. Some of Japan’s most renowned composers were involved, but also present were the now-legendary rockers, the Flower Travellin' Band. A series of performances, billed as “Night Events” were held at the Expo; the most radical of these was "Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles”, but its anti-establishment feel and general madness took the Expo organizers by surprise and it was cancelled after only one night, despite being scheduled for a longer run. An air of myth developed around the event, but a recording of the event has been discovered and this release is the result. And what an event it was: a night-time sound-bomb with a fabled band, electronic sound and 50 motorcycles with horns blaring, spotlights, electronic billboards and a robot ― all flashing, roaring and howling at the night sky. This release comprises a CD, a 10-inch record with fold-out sleeve and large obi, plus fascinating notes in Japanese and English by Kenichi Yasuda, an expert on Japanese rock music, and Koji Kawasaki, a renowned researcher of Japanese electronic music, as well as rare photos. No download code/ticket available.

TRACKS:
CD “Beam Penetration” (full-length) [45:49]

10-inch (excerpts)
Side A “Beam Penetration” [14:52]
Side B “Beam Penetration” [15:15] 

Anvar Kalandarov is a music archaeologist, musician and producer from Tashkent, Uzbekistan with a focus on unearthing rare and hard to find gems from across Central Asia. Last year he compiled Synthesizing the Silk Roads: Uzbek Disco, Tajik Folktronica, Uyghur Rock & Tatar Jazz, released in collaboration with Ostinato Records. He also runs his own label Maqom Soul Records. Digging Central Asia is a mixtape that journeys through the psychedelic landscapes of the Silk Road, featuring recordings recorded between the 1970s through to the early 1990s.

»Carpet Of Fallen Leaves« is an introduction to the folk-pop world of Eddie Marcon. It follows in the footsteps of other collections of Japanese artists on Morr Music, such as yumbo, Andersens, and the »Minna Miteru« compilations, »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves« draws together songs from Eddie Marcon’s twenty-two-year history, including fragile, yet rich in melody material, collected from a prodigious run of limited edition, self-released CD-Rs.

Eddie Marcon is the project of Eddie Corman and Jules Marcon, who met through their involvement in Japan’s underground music scene. Eddie was a member of noise-rock duo Coa, while both Eddie and Marcon were part of psych-rock collective LSD-March. Forming in 2001, Eddie Marcon’s sound is markedly different from these groups, though they do, at times, share a sense of psychedelic dislocation, through the gentle, limpid pace of their songs. But with Eddie Marcon, melody and gentleness is at the music’s core.

They’ve long marked out their own, unique territory within a worldwide community of psych-folk and folk-pop artists; sharing their music through a subterranean network of colleagues and friends, they count groups like The Pastels and The Notwist as their fans, and Eddie has collaborated with the likes of Shintaro Sakamoto, and Aki Tsuyuko (in Tondekebana, and with Marcon and Ippei Matsui in the quartet Wasurerogusa). Eddie Marcon have also recently worked with drummer Ikuro Takahashi, who’s played with groups such as Fushitsusha, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and Nagisa Ni Te.

Across the songs on »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves«, Eddie Marcon’s songs are performed by Eddie on guitar, organ and vocals, and Marcon on bass; they’re variously joined by Takahashi, Yojiro Tatekawa (drums), Tomoko Kageyama (vibraphone), Yasuhisa Mizutani (flute), Madoka Asakura (vocals), and Ztom Motoyama (pedal steel). The arrangements are pared back to best serve the core of each song, and the playing is gorgeous – fluent but not showy; capable of great intricacy, but aware that simplicity is key to direct communication.

Songs like »Mayonaka No Ongaku« stretch their limbs languidly, the music shivering with beauty as guitar and cymbal drift across Eddie’s poised vocal delivery. »Tora To Lion« began as an improvisation, but it’s become a firm favourite of the group’s fans: as Eddie says, »it has become a very important song for us, to the extent that it can be said to be our representative song.«

Perhaps the most moving thing about »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves«, though, is the way it captures the subtle yet significant moments of everydayness that ask for our attention. »Shoujo«, a song for a beloved cat who passed away, possesses rare emotional resonance. »At the end of the song,« Eddie remembers, »I wanted to have her throat rumbling endlessly.« When the song was cut, a television voice appeared behind the purring, saying ›thank you‹. »For us, it felt like words from Poco-chan, and tears came to our eyes.« 

El Michels Affair follows up the massive success of their full length Yeti Season with The Abominable EP. A collection of unreleased tracks, alternate takes, and instrumentals from the Yeti Season recording sessions. EMA’s blending their signature cinematic soul sound with influences from Turkish Funk and the grittiest of Bollywood soundtracks yielded an instant classic The Fader calls “a carnival of dusty funk and soul.” The EP starts off with the unreleased gem “Messy Grass” whose synth intro, peppered with distant yeti cries, gives way to a tremendous backing track that Tamer Pinarbasi’s Qanun dances over. On “Cham Cham” EMA invites Piya Malik to the microphone again to share her styled storytelling vocals over the instrumental track from Yeti Season’s “Perfect Harmony.” Where some of the tunes on the EP have vocals added, some of them have them removed letting the band take center stage; “Poison Song,” “Uncut Gem,” “Smoked,” and “Progress” are all instrumental here giving them a wholly different energy than the vocal versions. The EP is being released with two different covers, each one has two paintings from different Ghanaian mobile cinema artists commissioned through Chicago’s Deadly Prey Gallery and are interpretations of the original album artwork. One version is paintings by Stoger and Heavy J, who also contributed cover paintings to the Return To The 37th Chamber album. The other version of the cover is two paintings by Teshie and Farkira.

Recorded in 1970 during the same period of "Overground", UNDERGROUND was recorded into 2 volumes (RT 104 and RT 16), both released in the same year in may and june at Dirmaphon studios, Roma. Together with Overground these records are really fascinating instrumental Free Jazzy/Psych Library, released with the auxiliary of historical Rai session musicians like guitarist Silvano Chimenti and organist Giorgio Carnini. This record collects all Underground' tracks in 1 LP. Established Jazz composer, Sandro Brugnolini written some among the greatest Italian soundtracks and Library music ever.

It was so hard to get our heads around the William Onyeabor story when we first started working with him.. No one knew anything about him and that’s the way he liked it.

Now it’s 10 years later after releasing his records and what would have been William’s 79th birthday so we are releasing two of his magical lps in COLOR. 

1978’s Atomic Bomb in Fission Red and 1980’s Body and Soul in Magic Ministries Blue.

You can pre-order them today on Bandcamp (it’s Bandcamp Friday), where were also throwing up some other paraphernalia, new and old. 

Though we grew to love and respect Mr. Onyeabor, as we called him, we still know so little about him.

Love,

Luaka Bop

Reinvigorated by months of shutdown woodshedding, David developed new works for guitar, as well as a piano piece and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. Inspired by the deep dive into Gastr del Sol’s duo magic that facilitated last year’s compilation box, David opened his deeply personal solo pieces for engaging conversational gambits with modern masters Rhodri Davies, Andrea Belfi, Nikos Veliotis, Nate Wooley, and Cleek Schrey.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 406px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1317089149/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://davidgrubbs.bandcamp.com/album/whistle-from-above">Whistle from Above by David Grubbs</a></iframe>

 

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

In his 1954 book The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley theorized that every person lives and experiences life on their own island universe. We can try to explain our experience to others using language, symbols, and art, but we’ll never be sure that we’re feeling something precisely the same as anyone else. This line of thinking has become a source of inspiration for many prolific artists. Now, Cincinnati-based producer Jason Grimez is inviting us to hear what it sounds like on an island of his own creation.   The Island of Dr. Bionic is the third installment in Dr. Bionic’s Terrestrial Radio series. Due out 5/2/2025 on Chiefdom Records, it’s a collection of instrumental fusion for fans of hip-hop, jazz, funk, and beyond. Grimez is the producer, mixer, and mastermind behind Dr. Bionic. He’s a Cincinnati-based creator with a deep understanding of 90s hip-hop and DJ culture, and he draws inspiration from music of all kinds.  Grimez’ ever-growing catalog is best described as organic groove. He calls on a rotating cast of veteran musicians to join him at his home studio to write, record, and try out new ideas. Long-time listeners will find some familiar names in the liner notes, for good reason. “Life Span” (track 14) features a head-bobbing beat from Marvin Hawkins. Nick Brown is responsible for the dreamy Rhodes performance on “Shell Of The Soul” (track 11). If Charlie Suit’s unforgettable sax performance on “The Path Of Stars” (track 16) is stuck in your head for more than 3 days, please consult Dr. Bionic. Once the recording sessions are complete, the real production work begins. “We get together and record a ton of stuff, and then I’ll go back and cut it and mix it together,” Grimez explained. “It all finds a home over time.”  As a chapter of the Terrestrial Radio series, The Island of Dr. Bionic is a fresh mixtape of musical loops and ideas, curated to flow naturally from one song into the next. Listen in the car, on a turntable, or on your own little island for a glimpse inside the Dr. Bionic universe.

Limited edition gatefold double LP. Includes 12 page booklet of liner notes, photos, band ephemera and other visual miscellanea. Bulbous Monocle focuses its lens further into the legacy and archives of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. These Things Remain Unassigned — a phrase coined by Brian Hageman, one of the band’s musical snake appendages emanating from its Medusa crown — is presented by Bulbous Monocle as a double LP (gatefold jacket with a twelve page libretto). BM-03 gathers together the band’s singles, compilation tracks, outtakes and never before released gems encompassing the arc of TFUL’s musical corpus. Every track has been surgically remastered by Mark Gergis (Porest/Sublime Frequencies/Mono Pause) with his signature craftsman approach. This collection is an auditory and visual feast. The extensive booklet included features band ephemera, concert flyers, photographs, and commentary about each track from Mark Davies. Beyond the rare singles and unreleased tracks from the TFUL archives, are cover versions from such disparate artists and composers as: Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda, The Residents, The Shaggs, Caroliner Rainbow and Pérez Prado. “…In addition to these compilation one-offs, there were also a few studio recordings that were never quite completed or released. Throw in an alternate mix or two and the handful of singles that came out on various labels over the years, and you end up with what I feel works well as its own body of work, a bunch of adopted oddballs that somehow fit together as a family. I hope youʼll agree with me that these things are now no longer unassigned, but part of a somewhat cohesive whole, stitched together into something mysterious and glistening —Mark Davies (2023)”

After the success of Codeine's Frigid Stars LP, the trio of Stephen Immerwahr, John Engle, and Chris Brokaw booked time at Harold Dessau Recording in June 1992 to track an eight-song sophomore album. A few days and a couple of unexplainable high-pitched frequencies later, the record was scrapped, shelved, and forgotten about. Brokaw left the band shortly after, and these songs were re-tracked in various iterations for Codeine's final LP. On its 30th anniversary, Numero has unearthed these recordings, restoring the original White Birch to the band's exacting standards with producer Mike McMackin. A slowcore masterpiece hidden in plain sight.

In the fall of 2022, celebrated UK chill-out institution Seahawks landed in Los Angeles for the first time in their 15-year history, with plans to record a sweeping new age downtempo “exploration of visionary California.” Instead, they immediately fell ill with flu (Fowler collapsed next to a taco truck; 911 was called), and were bedridden for the better part of a week. Upon recovering, they resituated at the synthesizer sanctuary of Brian Foote (Peak Oil, Kranky, Leech), channeling their post-sickness psychedelia into one of the band’s lushest and most elevated creations to date: Time Enough For Love. Inspired by the “groove and mood” of Harry Nilsson demos, as well as its wider 70’s wavelength – Rhodes, Wurlitzer, wood paneling – Seahawks transposed their classic post-rave ambient exotica onto a warm and woozy Golden State palette. Buoyed by the liquid touch of English maestro Kenny Dickenson on keys, the results rank high among the duo’s smoothest and most multi-sensory voyages. “Sail Across The Moon” delivers on its title, a simmering, phaser-smeared cruise through the beauty of the night. “Messengers” echoes the cosmic lounge of Air’s Moon Safari, shuffling, weightless, and ethereal, while “Falling Deep” reaches for the stars, pure cascading bliss, the ecstatic moment writ large. The album skews steadily more astral as it progresses, drifting towards jazzy, galactic outer reaches. “Like A Grain Of Sand” opens with a spoken sample by the celebrated late American poet Rachel Sherwood (“The children watch, breathless / with the birds / They feel an emanation / from this shuddering place”), before taking flight on a Balearic trip through island house, PM Dawn gold dust, upright bass meditation, and kaleidoscopic light. A remix of the title track by Chicago trio Purelink closes the record in a suitably subdued and skittery state of mind. Time Enough For Love radiates color, complexity, and positivity, infused by the “life enhancing” nature of the band's time in Los Angeles – sunsets, sound systems, and sativa, framed by coastlines and cloudbanks, the city’s mystic sprawl glittering beneath purple dusk.

Philosopher, musician and anti-art activist, Henry Flynt has long foregone the academicism often associated with “serious music” in favor of a uniquely intuitive, emotional approach to composition. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a part of NYC’s vibrant avant-garde scene, studying with Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath and developing his own proprietary technique on violin. You Are My Everlovin’, Flynt’s first published musical work, finds the composer in peak form at a lower Manhattan loft in late spring 1981. Featuring solo electric violin and pre-recorded tambura, this sinuous performance elegantly brings together disparate vernaculars—Southern blues, modal jazz, Appalachian fiddle, North Indian raga—into a new and bracing whole. As Flynt writes in the liner notes, “The electric violin timbre is crucial; it allows me to crush the diverse styles into a unity. I imagined the genre as open, radiant improvisation…an open plain that could absorb anything.” Incorporating themes and melodic phrases from his earlier work, Everlovin’ becomes Flynt’s own Gesamtkunstwerk—a work that is at once rooted in and liberated by the drone, revealing the profound mutability and utter singularity of this American iconoclast.

Cult Japanese outsider composer K. Yoshimatsu’s key 1980’s works are collected and reissued for the first time on new career retrospective Fossil Cocoon, binding ambient, abstract punk, music concréte and purist songwriting into a single unified artform. Over a furiously prolific period from 1980 to 1985, K. [Koshiro] Yoshimatsu composed, recorded and released some forty albums in the span of a few years. These records primarily appeared under his own name, some required aliases, and others saw him compose, arrange, and produce for friends and peers in his creative circle. All of them, however, surfaced on Japan’s cult and inimitably fertile DD. Records, an astonishingly exhaustive catalogue once described as “the most amazing DIY effort ever undertaken to document an alternative music scene”. Led by close Yoshimatsu associate T. [Tadashi] Kamada, DD. Records released exactly 222 cassettes of brazenly, addictively weird Japanese outsider music over a period of five years, each with typewritten liner notes and enigmatically constructed Xerox artwork of found materials. The cassettes remain the stuff of collectors’ dreams, fetching astronomic prices on the rare occasions they surface in record stores or private sales. However, a keen archivist, Koshiro Yoshimatsu’s master recordings remained in his possession (a not unreasonable outcome given that his work was all self-recorded in his home) and meticulously filed, ready for rediscovery. Conversely, label boss Tadashi Kamada is no longer in the public eye, and not even known to have any personal online presence. He is, writes one observer, “unlikely even aware of his cult following”. Only extensive retroactive cataloguing (ardently fuelled by the cratedigging detective work of German collector Jörg Optiz) can offer any remaining memorial to his extraordinary achievements with DD. Records. Koshiro Yoshimatsu was born in 1960 in Yamaguchi City in the Chugoku region of southern Japan. In 1978, then a student of Yamaguchi University and already deeply engaged in the local arts scene, Yoshimatsu was introduced to the Japanese communications magazine PUMP by his classmate and future bandmate F. [Fumie] Yasumura. In the classified ads he chanced upon the creative work and curatorial interests of the aforementioned Tadashi Kamada, at the time a medical student in a nearby town. From their correspondence bloomed an intensely symbiotic new friendship, initially trading homespun cassettes by mail and eventually co-forming a cassette-sharing postal society named The Recycle Circle. The Recycle Circle also included the idiosyncratic saxophonist T. [Takafumi] Isotani, a member of the university’s Light Music Club, with whom Yoshimatsu (now singing, and playing guitar, bass guitar, and synthesisers, as well as programming drum machines) went on to form the unique experimental band Juma. With fluctuating line-ups, Juma managed to compose, record, and release six albums (all via DD. Records) in a single year - 1981 - before disbanding. Yoshimatsu then graduated from Yamaguchi University and relocated to Hiroshima to pursue his passion for filmmaking, all the while continuing to release his own solo music on Kamada’s now-burgeoning label. Yoshimatsu’s first solo record was the mysteriously titled pʌls, released in 1981 while still a member of Juma, and receiving the distinction of being the third entry to DD. Records’ cassette catalogue numbers. It was not until the seventeenth that we see Yoshimatsu credited again as a solo artist, this time with the strange and delicate collage album Mirror Inside. Over the breadth of Yoshimatsu’s work - solo, ensemble, and in composition for labelmates - we see a remarkable generosity of musical talent. Some records (such as those produced for Fumie Yasamura, represented here in “Violet” and “Escape”) are formed of hazy, gliding 4-track pop songs coursing with hallucinogenic electricity. Others, such as 1982’s Poplar (and its namesake track on this collection), combine bucolic nylon-string guitar rambles, vibrantly coloured with sequenced MIDI arpeggiation and the dulcet bloops of early computer programming. Deeper still, “Pastel Nostalgia”, from the 1983 album of the same name, marries childlike piano with a wailing siren tone and dripping tap percussion. It is significantly creepier, more acerbic and disembodying than the ambient or New Age music of the era, despite a similarity in raw materials. Elsewhere, Yoshimatsu floats between ambient, rock guitar, new wave, industrial, musique concréte, abstract punk, vocal music, instrumental music and pure songwriting, all bound into a single, unified experience by his distinctive compositional voice. Compiling Fossil Cocoon was a task. Not only to pare down Yoshimatsu’s substantial catalogue into a neat collection, but also to compress these enormous abilities into single moments. Koshiro himself was an invaluable lighthouse throughout the curation process, guiding us through the depths and annals of his recording career, now forty years hence, shining light onto forgotten music rescued from home-recorded tapes. The result may be an expressly varied album, but it is held magically together by Yoshimatsu’s profoundly singular creative alchemy. Koshiro continues to reside in Hiroshima, and continues to work in film. James Vella Phantom Limb February 2024, Brighton, UK

In Latin, the word Gemini denotes “two together” or “twins”. In astrological terms, Geminis are noted for, amongst other things, being curious and versatile. For San Diego’s 9-piece (mostly) instrumental combo The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, Jazz and Funk have always been the two genres that they’ve consistently and effectively melded together, forming the bedrock of their sound. Exercising their stylistic curiosity and versatility, they’ve expanded upon this foundation on their new 11-song long player for Colemine Records.

Recorded between late 2021 and early 2024 at The Kitchen II in their homebase of Lemon Grove, California, SFSE steer their “introspective party music” into fresh sonic realms. While their breakbeat-heavy brand of funk-soul-jazz is still the cornerstone of their sound, as displayed in tunes such as “Makin’ Moves”, “The Grifter” & “Don’t Trip”, they’ve begun to take more and more cues from library music labels such as KPM Music, spiritually-leaning jazz labels such as Tribe & Black Jazz Records and exotica-adjacent jazz artists such as Cal Tjader and Dorothy Ashby. Now leaning more into the “introspective” part of their sound, particularly on “Mother Earth”, “Freddie” and the title track, they evoke the spirits of Freddie Hubbard, Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison, Bubbha Thomas, Chester Thompson and even Cannonball Adderley at his headiest & most cosmic (listen to Adderley’s “Soul Zodiac” & “Soul of The Bible” albums for reference). “Corporatocracy” takes it a step further with an extended tabla solo, which floats in and rides the percussive wave before kicking into its funk-driven, modal vibe.

With their current lineup of Tim Felten on keys, Jake Najor on drums, Omar Lopez on bass, Kiko Cornejo Jr on conga/percussion, Aquiles “Lito” Magana on guitar, Wili Fleming on trombone, Sheryll Felten on percussion, and both Jesse Audelo & Travis Klein on saxophone & flute, SFSE maintains their commitment to keeping it funky, but dares to go where they haven’t gone before and, as a result, breaks intriguing new ground in their overall sound.