MUSIC

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.

For more than two decades, Dr. Dog have maintained a shared devotion to the unruly alchemy of making music. When it came time to create their eleventh studio album, the Philadelphia-bred band adopted an entirely new way of working together, embracing a multilayered process designed to foster a deeper synergy among its five members (bassist Toby Leaman, lead guitarist Scott McMicken, rhythm guitarist Frank McElroy, keyboardist Zach Miller, and drummer Eric Slick). After beginning that journey with a close-knit session at Leaman's uncle's cabin in the Pennsylvania woods, Dr. Dog steadily made their way toward the joyfully unfettered psych-rock of their new self-titled LP.Mixed by multi-Grammy-winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers), Dr. Dog finds McMicken taking the helm as producer for the first time in the history of the decidedly egalitarian band. True to the eclectic spirit that's always animated the band, Dr. Dog's 11 tracks shift from soul to surf-rock to symphonic pop with an exuberance made all the more powerful by their revitalized creative energy. "There isn't really a concept or cohesive idea that unifies this collection of tunes," says McMicken. "In the end it's about us being together, doing the work, and showing up as our truest selves." Their first full-length since 2018's Critical Equation, Dr. Dog reveals a band – over twenty years into their storied career – growing together and evolving, fully committed to the singular work of dreaming up songs that brighten the mind and expand the soul.

Australian duo Armlock make music for having your head in the clouds. On new album Seashell Angel Lucky Charm, Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell bring you on a steady ascension through compressed and heavenly sonic realms. The band's second proper release, and first for Run For Cover Records, showcases the songwriters' experimental electronic roots through an indie rock lens. Free from distortion or overindulgence, Seashell Angel Lucky Charm is a collection of consistent rhythms decorated with clean guitar tones and eccentricities. Through playful layers of vocal harmony and minimal arrangements, Armlock capture the inventive and uncomplicated essence of Pinback or Alex G.Self-described as "indie rock with a touch of spirituality and emo," Armlock's journey into a higher realm is seeped with the looming confusion that comes with exploring the unknown. With an introverted demeanor, Armlock explores the human desire to find guidance in a world much bigger than its people. Album highlight "Guardian" cuts to the heart of the album and its central theme — the desperate search for a spiritual guide. Vocalist Lam sifts through his everyday life that feels laden with meaning. "Ready for my essence to be found / Cos I'm seeing their number all around / Guide me safe lead me from harm / My seashell angel lucky charm." Guitar bends and piano rolls ping across the song's structure until it fades into an airy soundscape where Lam yearns for his "guardian" through hushed vocals and chirping birds.Armlock's genre-spanning musical influences coalesce best on album opener "Ice Cold." One trap beat away from a Bladee track, the song begins with robotic voices reminiscent of Boards of Canada and evolves into the meditative warmth found in Adrianne Lenker's more lo-fi work. There’s a subdued tenderness to Lam's vocal delivery as he ponders the loss of a friendship and introduces the album's fixation on air signs and higher dimensions. Every sound on Seashell Angel Lucky Charm feels precise and intentional, making the anthemic choruses on tracks like "Fear" and "El Oh Ve Ee" feel expertly placed and pop-oriented. These two songs show Armlock's savvy with harmony as they use octaves of angelic sounds to stretch a simple one-word chorus until it soars with meaning. Unlike most indie rockers, Armlock use guitar as a tool in their belt rather than a vessel for songwriting. Where their 2021 EP Trust set foundations in downtempo acoustic guitar, Lam and Mitchell's evolved songwriting is a testament to where an electric guitar can amplify a song’s groove, or usher in sonic space.

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.

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.

Across the last 15 years, Ryan Gustafson of The Dead Tongues has emerged as one of modern folk’s most distinct voices. As idiosyncratic and spectral as the songs have sometimes been, Gustafson has always tied his visions and verses to the kinds of hooks you tuck away like talismans, pulled out in case of emergency. Dust, Unsung Passage, Desert: The Dead Tongues’ albums remain some of the more compelling and curious works in their field on this side of a century. The latest edition to The Dead Tongues’ catalog, the song-centric and magnetic Body of Light and the discursive and wonderfully elliptical I Am a Cloud, is 16 complete tunes split across interweaving and disparate albums. Before heading to Betty’s, Gustafson spent a month at “the Shack,” a primitive and private structure in rural western North Carolina, working on new material and sorting through piles of poems, sticky notes scattered across the windows, and stacks of free writing streams of thought. Most of the songs were written during this time – the exquisite “Daylily,” a warm little gift for his partner, or “I’m a Cloud Now,” a fever dream of song and spoken-word about the toggle between identity and ephemerality. The creative energy was free flowing, deep and explorative, songs somehow coming together in a manner both freakishly fast and patient. In this energy and specific space the groundwork for the album was rooted, springing forth from the thick of the elemental and natural beauty these songs reference. The daylily on the cover of the album was picked from the land the shack is built upon - there’s a connection between the physical natural setting and the creative work itself, intertwined and natural bloom. Gustafson wanted to continue with that explorative energy once he got into the formal studio, allowing it to lead the group of players assembled – the albums feature performances by Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Bon Iver), Mat Davidson (Twain), Matt Douglas (The Mountain Goats), Joe Westerlund (Califone, Megafaun), Jeff Ratner (Bing and Ruth), and more. Gustafson wanted to dedicate the studio time to not just recording songs but also making something new, with new improvisations. The results feel at once casual and tremendous, the camaraderie and conversation between the players resulting in pieces that are lived-in but new. “Baby there ain’t no rules here/We can just slide,” Gustafson sings at the start of Body of Light’s opening title track, establishing a collective credo inside this gorgeous anthem about finding sanctuary with someone else. Notice how it seems to nod to flamenco before lifting into electronic abstraction, or how Wasner’s harmonies summon the deepest Southern soul over electric phosphorescence. And then there’s “Dirt for a Dying Sun,” where freight-train harmonica and spectral guitar frame a romantic dust-to-dust realism, where the best we can do is live wildly before we die. The characters on Body of Light are restless, damaged, and beautiful, whether clinging to an underground amid gentrification’s high rises during “Wolves” or holding on to the most intoxicating wisps of love during “Moon Shadow.” The band plays as if they’re just meeting these people for the first time, responding with an admixture of recognition and astonishment. The collected crew takes that approach to the next plane on I Am a Cloud, an intersection of Gustafson’s tone poems and top-tier improvisation. “Formations” is an exquisite instrumental, a soul-jazz dream of horns and bells, bejeweled drones and broken rhythms. Remembering the birthday night he spent alone on an Irish cliff as the Summer solstice neared several years ago, Gustafson narrates “A Bridge” as if he’s peering into his own mind with wonder and surprise. The finale, “Even Here, Even Now,” is a spiral galaxy, with the songs of crickets, the hums of a Shruti box, and the touch of percussion lifting Gustafson’s mantric statement of purpose—to keep moving, to keep singing, no matter what may come. It is a wondrous piece of devotional music that seems to praise sound itself—the gift that can open us up, when we’re no longer sure that can even happen anymore. “Sometimes it’s hard to be anyone anywhere it seems,” Gustafson, his voice as understanding as empathy, sings to start the second verse of “Hard Times, Sore Eyes,” the farewell for Body of Light. That may read like a bummer, a concise and crippling encapsulation of our struggles to make meaning that’s as right as rain. But, really, it’s a permission slip to elide expectation, to try something different. Maybe in the past, Gustafson was seen as the singer-songwriter in a folk-rock band called The Dead Tongues. But when he started to let that go, he found something fascinating, new, and absorbing. Body of Light and I Am A Cloud are brilliant chapters written after Gustafson wondered if he’d closed the book, and they are, in turn, hard to put down.

Arriving as the hippy movement was discovering its peaceful easy '70s feelings, Sandy Harless' Songs LP is Chillicothe, Ohio's lone contribution to the Cosmic American Music movement. Financed from a 27-aquarium fish breeding business, the album shows its Appalachian roots with a tight weave of mountain folk, rural rock, and pastoral country. Real people music.

Queer country rock from south of the Mason-Dixon line. High school folkie Charles Brown teamed up with regional rural rock rascals Sleepy Creek, triggering an unrequited inter-band love story and this album's melancholy title track. This 15-song LP gathers Brown's solo and band work from 1976-'82, and Jon Freeman's accompanying essay dissects the origin story of this private press pioneer.

Culled from half a decade of home four-tracking, Remote Echoes is a hissy, crumbly, and ungrounded expression of Clay Parton and Canaan Amber's ongoing Duster project. A mix of cassette only demos released under the banners Christmas Dust and On The Dodge, this 14 track album also includes a bevy of previously unissued stragglers. Duster's unique blend of fuzzy guitars, bargain synths, muffled percussion, and hushed vocals anticipated chillwave, mumblecore, and corecore, elegantly illustrating the holy trinity of slacker vices: cigarettes, coffee, and the weed supreme.。

With pop music’s volume knob adjusted for deflation in the early '70s, softness begat smoothness. Crewmen arrived from the worlds of jazz, folk, rock, and soul, all peddling a product that was sincere, leisurely, and lofty. A sound that was buoyant, crisp, defined. Sometimes classified as West Coast—and, later, Yacht Rock—the compass points of our Private Yacht expedition are the blue-eyed harmonies of Hall and Oates, the cocaine-dusted Fender Rhodes of Michael McDonald, and the combover strums of James Taylor. Here, at the glassy apex of rock’s softer side, 20 strong swimmers are gathered together. An album for both relaxation and reflection, where listeners can enjoy the present, a cool breeze, and a taste of the good life. As if fired from a cannon, the cacophony of ’60s rock left a ringing in some ears. Burned out or bummed out, fatigue had set in. Free Love had come at a price. Many young couples had become young families, with their bandleaders-turned-breadwinners gracious they’d purchased a station wagon rather than the customary van. As rock began to mellow and folk began to solidify, “Our House” became a work of nonfiction—with a mortgage. Some escaped the vortex of the collective cul-de-sac and lived to headbang another day, while others followed their collective hairlines, receding into the margins of the counterculture. Stretching an extension chord to the bonfire had always posed an obstacle for lackadaisical strummers. Likewise, plugging in poolside proved a new hazard. Others found it less of a bother to get an acoustic guitar in and out of rehab than an amplifier. Everywhere the wind blew, James Taylor and Carly Simon were soft rock’s power couple, with a combined catalog mellow enough to enjoy after the kids had been put to bed. This is not to say soft rock was a sacrifice. Rather, it reflected the refined tastes of the boomers: better wages, better dwellings, better drugs. Greater musicianship led to improved songwriting, chord voicing, and a deeper respect for harmony. Sometimes classified as West Coast—and, later, Yacht Rock—the architects of this sound were not exclusively Californians or mariners. These were stylistic tides felt in North Dakota and Colorado, along the Outer Banks and the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Softer fare could occasionally serve as a salve for city life, a coping mechanism for strong swimmers still treading the nations’ metropolises. With pop music’s volume knob adjusted for deflation, softness begat smoothness. Songs conceived on the Gibson Dreadnought were embellished with Fender Rhodes, hand percussion, and chimes. Crewmen arrived from the worlds of jazz, folk, rock, and soul, all peddling a product that was sincere, leisurely, and lofty. A sound that was buoyant, crisp, defined. Numerous artists were able to coexist along this narrow stylistic isthmus. There was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young—and, eventually, Scaggs, Rundgren, Hall & Oates. All the while, James Taylor was still plucking away with a beautiful head of hair, no end in sight to where a capo could take him. The hands that hoisted the sail over the ’70s went down with the ship in the early ’80s. Feeding tributaries of Caucasian reggae, Salsalito, and Marina Rock, some ponds were drained while others stagnated, and others still overflowed. With the pop charts littered with shiny keyboards, sherbet guitars, and gated reverb, our celebrated strain of rock became a casualty of the gluttonous hair decade. Marriages capsized. Staring out from either coast, a thin membrane is almost visible, one that separates the calmness of the sky from the stillness of the sea. Likewise, it’s hard to distinguish the event horizon where acoustic forces swirled around thoughtful rock, creating the estuary subgenre to which this compilation is devoted. There, at the glassy apex of rock’s softer side, away from all of the commotion, exists a place for both relaxation and reflection, where listeners can enjoy the present, a cool breeze—a taste of the good life.

Descending out of the southern night sky through a turbulent cloud of dreams, memory, longing and psychedelia, Saigon Soul Revival’s second full length album — Mối Lương Duyên — represents the latest act in the group’s resuscitation of the raw, heavy and subversive sounds of 1960s and 70s Saigon. Roughly translated to “destiny”, Mối Lương Duyên is a journey through eight original compositions and three soul-stirring reinterpretations of Saigonese nhạc vàng or golden music: the soundtrack to a Saigon once thought lost to history and amnesia. Driven by Western influences rock, bolero, soul, jazz and the rich heritage of Vietnamese ballads, Mối Lương Duyên delivers a seamless blend of genres and traditional instrumentation (Đàn Tranh, Đàn Bầu & Đàn Nguyệt) with themes from across time and space. Nguyễn Anh Minh's seductive vocals glide through this multi-stylistic tapestry of sound, going beyond the universal concepts of love and heartbreak to explore how destiny can be forged through individual experiences... or as she puts it in her own words: "Anything and anyone that comes into your life, every occurrence, whatever comes and whatever goes. It all happens as it is meant to. Whatever you have to face, whoever you love or lose - we must accept it. We can’t choose our physical body, family, happiness or misery, our place in the world, in the universe...but we have the power to embrace and welcome our destiny. In Vietnamese "Mối Lương Duyên" means destiny but it doesn't only refer to love. It can mean many things, for example: How we all came together to form this band." In this way - by being part of the unfolding story - the album also attempts to musically connect the past with Vietnam's evolving future. And the fact that Saigon Soul Revival seems to succeed in this is perhaps also the reason why the song ĐÁM CƯỚI NHÀ EM will be featured in the upcoming HBO Mini-Serie „The Symphatizer“ (directed by Par Chan-Wook (Oldboy) / Robert Downey Junior producer and actor), which is based on the novel of the same name (Pulitzer Prize 2016) by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

Shoukichi Kina, who was born in Koza City (now Okinawa City) in 1948, grew up listening to the sound of sanshin played by his father, Shoei, a master of Okinawan music. While in senior high school, Shoukichi Kina composed “Hai Sai Ojisan,” which later became one of the greatest hit tunes ever to originate in Okinawa. After he entered university in Okinawa in 1966, Shoukichi Kina formed Champloose and, finding it difficult to take his studies seriously, devoted much of his time to music, eventually leaving school entirely. It was around this time that various stories began to emerge — some true, some not quite — of his being a kind of nocturnal “King of Koza,” that he managed the folk music club Mikado, and that he made quite a lot of money as a dealer in a gambling casino. In any case, perhaps because his first efforts at forming a band were not too successful, it wasn’t until ten years later, in 1976, that he reformed the band around his father’s folk music group. It was from then that the distinctive “Champloose Sound” began to emerge — a unique combination of rock and Okinawan folk that was exactly right for those times, and these times, too. Before long, the “sound” found avid listeners among musicians and fans on the Japanese main islands, and such was its power that an album was quickly planned and, in 1977, recorded (at the Mikado, as it happened.) That album, Shoukichi Kina and Champloose, today considered a seminal chapter in the annals of Japanese rock, received overwhelming public attention, particularly as Makoto Yano, Akiko Yano and other famed musical innovators participated in the sessions as guests. Thanks to its nearly instant popularity — and to some adroit timing — the first Champloose concert outside Okinawa, in December 1977, was also a crowning success, with round after round of standing ovations from the sell-out crowd at Tokyo’s Nakano Sun Plaza. The second Champloose album, Blood Line, released in 1980, was not as quick in coming. But the wait was worth it, for the sessions, recorded in Hawaii with guests including Ry Cooder, Haruomi Hosono, and Makoto Kubota resulted in numbers such as “Jing Jing” (which rose to the Number Two spot on the British disco charts), “Hana…” which was sung by Tomoko Kina, covered by many others and is now a standard in Thailand, and other memorable cuts. The third and fourth albums, Matsuri, recorded in 1982 in collaboration with Makoto Yano, and Celebration Live, a live album released in 1983, did not disappoint the many fans Champloose had gathered during these busy and fruitful years. Unfortunately, those fans had to wait another seven years for the next album. Again the wait paid off: in August 1990, a 32-track digital recording machine was “imported” into Okinawa for the sole purpose of capturing the latest Champloose sound — a sound that by then had evolved and expanded to include, in addition to contemporary rock and Okinawan folk, a number of other musical factors ranging from reggae to jazz to Ainu melodies and more. Furthermore, both as a symbol of the wide scope of the group’s musical concepts and as a tribute to the inspiration they had received from Shoukichi Kina’s father, the latter also participated in the recordings. After the release of that fifth album, fittingly called Nirai Kanai — Paradise, the group returned to active performance, and from May 1991, began work on their sixth and latest album, Earth Spirit. Five of the 11 numbers on Earth Spirit are traditional Okinawan songs, and while such music normally has no choruses, Kina — joined by his fellow band members and by some outstanding guests from the fertile ethno-pop world of Paris — managed to weave some in, along with (not surprisingly) the irresistible flavors of Africa and the Caribbean as well.

Sun, sea, and surf rock converge with dreamy hypnagogic pop on 'Dmaot,' the enchanting sophomore album by the guitar-wielding, vocal-harmonising trio, Rasco. Named after Charlie Megira's acclaimed track "At the Rasco" and influenced by iconic artists like The Cramps, Beach Boys, Elvis, April March, and others, Rasco carefully extracts the essence and distinctive sound of sixties surf and garage bands and distils them into a modern and distinctly Mediterranean context. Blending ethereal vocal harmonies with irresistible guitar riffs, Rasco skillfully creates a one-of-a-kind sonic blueprint that sounds like something you dreamed of hearing at Twin Peaks infamous Roadhouse. Electric guitarist Eden Atiya and bass guitar Gaya Wajsman first crossed paths in a smoky cave in Jerusalem, eventually teaming up with drummer Itay Hamudi to form Rasco. Their self-titled debut album, characterised by catchy guitar riffs entwined with mysterious, ethereal vocals, sung in Hebrew, garnered attention and playlistings from the likes of acclaimed pianist, singer, and composer Hania Rani, and Spotify’s editorial team. Rasco’s hypnotic guitar and vocal-heavy sound have earned the group coveted opportunities to share the spotlight on stage alongside global psych bands such as Altin Gun, Boom Pam, and Messer Chups. The trio’s musical journey has taken them on tour in Germany and led to their billing on Cologne's famed c/o pop Festival, solidifying their place in the contemporary psych and surf rock scene. 'Dmaot' (Tears) represents a significant evolution from Rasco's debut, showcasing a darker, and denser side with a shift towards the shoegazing sounds of the '80s. The album, produced by multi-instrumentalist Uri Brauner Kinrot, leader of Boom Pam, pioneers of today’s resurgence in Middle Eastern surf rock and now labelmates on Batov Records, packs a heavier punch while maintaining Rasco's signature hypnotising power. The album delves into dreamlike landscapes, capturing the essence of different scenarios. "Layla" conjures hazy night-drives into the mountains, whilst "Nahar/Rau" reflects prophecies in rivers, birds, and sand. "Suzi Suzuki" is an ode to Japan, and "Louisa" pays homage to Hamudi's Grandma. According to Eden, there's a prevalent theme of "nostalgia for something you've never experienced." Similarly, “Sleeping Sea”, hints at the omnipresent power of the sea, even at its stillest, with its brooding hammond chords and almost C&W guitar, paints memories of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Games”. 'Dmaot' also explores the dichotomy between life in the city and life in the countryside. Eden notes, "It's definitely something to define our songwriting by - the mix between electric heavier sounds and mystical, nature-inspired lyrics”. Commencing with a chime-like guitar motif before the first heavy wave of shoegaze-like tremolo hits, “Layla” alternates with an almost Lynchian pre-chorus, whilst the song earworms its way to your brain. “Nahur Rau” almost screams “garage rock anthem” with it’s clap-accompanied beat group rhythm, and fuzz guitar riffs, but the energetic delivery is balanced by Rasco’s laidback style. It would be remiss to omit mention of the group’s incredible cover of Tears For Fears’ “Head Over Heels”, that seamlessly connects The Smiths, Julee Cruise and the B-52s, in the group’s own haunting style. Rasco is a genre-defying trio that transcends the boundaries of surf rock and psych, creating a mesmerising blend of sound and emotion. 'Dmaot' is a testament to their evolution as artists and their ability to weave a tapestry of sonic landscapes into their own world.

Kraftwerk is the self-titled debut album by the Düsseldorf band Kraftwerk. It was produced by Conny Plank and released in 1970. LP on 180-gram vinyl with gatefold sleeve.

For the very first time on vinyl, Jah Wobble's 1997 extraordinary descent into downtempo and world beat science. Released on his now-defunct 30 Hertz label, »The Light Programme« showcased an excellent cast of musicians. On board are historical Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit – with more of his African-induced rhythms – multi-instrumentalist - and The Wire contributor - Clive Bell, conga player Neville Murray, guitar and synth player Mark Ferda and the exceptional harpist Zi-Lan Liao. If you enjoyed »My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts« you’ll fall in love with »The Light Programme.«

PJ Harvey’s performance at the Avalon in Boston on November 2nd, 1998, is often remembered as an electrifying and intense concert experience. During this period, PJ Harvey’s live performances were known for their raw energy and emotional depth, with Harvey captivating audiences with her powerful vocals and dynamic stage presence.

Amazing collection that gathers some of the rarest Persian 45s. Such an eclectic mix of styles, from garage rock to cool Persian beat, exotic rock and roll and astonishing prog / psych numbers. Featuring female drummer and singer Zangoleah with some killer garage / rockin' tracks, obscure bands like Takkhalha doing a fab cover of the Stones 'Play With Fire' and an amazing take on the Persian traditional song 'Mastom, Mastom', Golden Ring-styled beat by Big Boys, exotic Persian beat by Saeed and Tigers, terrific garage-beat by Ojubeha and the two sides of the Kambiz 45, probably the major discovery from Iran in the recent years and one of the few, if not the only truly Persian prog / psych 45s ever recorded.

Bill Fay is one of English music’s best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s, he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums but his contract wasn’t renewed, which left his LPs and his reputation to become cult items. But he never stopped writing, the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced Life Is People, a brand new studio album that shows his profoundly humanist vision is as strong as it ever was.

Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation – in effect, looking beneath the hood of several decades of progression to review and renew the revolutionary intent of their microntonal foundation credo. This new Orchestra – Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger and Joachim Schütz – combine effortlessly to explore new scalar dimensions. PLAY LOUD.

Klara Lewis and Yuki Tsuji's collaboration builds on Tsuji's singular guitar playing and Lewis's resolutely explorative soundscapes. Salt Water is their debut album. Klara Lewis is a sound sculptor and loop finder. She has spent the last decade creating albums equally tender and brutal for Editions Mego as well as in collaborations with Nik Colk Void, Peder Mannerfelt and now Yuki Tsujii. Lewis has presented her audiovisual work at festivals such as Sonar, Mutek, Dark Mofo and Atonal. Yuki Tsujii is a guitarist from Japan-via-London, now based in Stockholm. In the last 15 years, as a member of Bo Ningen, Tsujii has performed extensively across the world in festivals such as Coachella, Glastonbury, and Yoko Ono’s Meltdown and collaborated with artists across different disciplines such as Faust, Lydia Lunch, Keiji Haino, Alexander McQueen and Juergen Teller.

Combined with the planet’s leading Afrocentric confectionary and its derivative beverage, more than a few light bulbs were set to go off in newly christened practice spaces globally upon Hot Chocolate’s inevitable suggestion. Little did Ragland know, an interracial band of musical Englishmen were eyeballing the same nom de chanson in their native Brixton. They approached John Lennon for clearance for their reggae cover of “Give Peace a Chance,” but the powerful Beatle liked their interpretation so much, he added them to the band’s Apple Records roster, thrusting the Brits ahead in the race to make Hot Chocolate a household name for something other than dark, sweet beverages. Despite the potential confusion—and perhaps in hope of capitalizing on it—Lou Ragland began filling his mug with a host of recordings that would make up his Hot Chocolate’s eponymous debut. The album would be released on the oh-so-cleverly-named Co-Co label in 1971 and bankrolled by a five-pointed council that included Ragland, Lyman Moffat, Loretta Walker, Tom Threat, and Leonard Jackson. Executed at Agency Recording and engineered by longtime Ragland associate Don White, the seven-song affair is a team of vocal numbers and instrumentals in search of a leader. Volcanic Eruption’s James McClain showed up to provide vocals for the chorus to “Ain’t That A Groove,” but the rest of the record is all Hot Chocolate. After a solid year on stage, the group had many originals in their repertoire, but they chose to mint songs that Trina’s patrons had indicated, by ballot, they’d like to hear on the LP. Designed to capture the impulsive nature of the live show, most of the material ignores the industry-standard three-minute mark, a feature that might’ve appealed to disc jockeys craving a cigarette or sandwich—had the record been serviced to anyone outside of Cleveland. Dick Dugan, the Cleveland Plain Dealer sports illustrator who’d later conceive iconic mascots for the pro baseball Indians and pro football Browns during his career, was commissioned to sketch out the Hot Chocolate cover for a paltry $100. Working from a photograph, Dugan penned an imaginative rendering of the group, performing in a mugfull of their namesake dessert drink. The album was intended primarily as a keepsake for Trina’s patrons, who scooped up the 1000-copy pressing before slamming down another round.

おどろおどろしくも暖かく、瞑想させる秀作です。ギターと電子音でカルトな魔術盤を残してきた米国の秘宝人、Master Wilburn Burchetteの72年盤が〈Numero Group〉よりアナログ再発！ギターの弦が持つ暖かな揺れと、墓地→宇宙シンクロな発光電子音の絶妙な温度が良い。Nurse With Wound系インダストリアルからAsh Ra Tempel以降のクラウト/サイケ、〈Creel Pone〉もの、〈Wah Wah〉の電子音楽再発部門、〈Feeding Tube〉の怪しげな再発やBobby Beausoleilなんかのファンも響く1枚！

First vinyl pressing of the long out of print 1993 classic many consider not only Skullflower's apex, but one of the finest noise rock records of the 90's. Edition of 600 clear smoke 2xLP in deluxe embossed sleeve.

New York psych-pop band Crumb return with AMAMA, their most carefree and open-hearted album to date. A soundscape full of playful and patchwork experimentation — glitchy pitch-shifted vocals, cell phone recordings, nautical blips, sax mouthpiece solos, blasted drum samples, and piano strings dampened with Silly Putty — AMAMA continues to deepen the band’s hypnotic sound in a cohesive line back through 2021’s Ice Melt, 2019’s Jinx, and breakout EPs Locket and Crumb. Without a doubt, AMAMA is Crumb — singer and multi-instrumentalist Lila Ramani, keyboardist and saxophonist Bri Aronow, bassist Jesse Brotter, and drummer Jonathan Gilad — at their most animated. Buoyed by Ramani’s songwriting, at turns poetically abstract and directly confessional, AMAMA culls the strange encounters from Crumb’s touring years, tracing the dizzying path of a group that’s been in movement for nearly a decade. “Crushxd” is an ecstatic requiem for a turtle flattened under the tires of a tour van; “(Alone in) Brussels” finds Ramani in forced isolation in a distant city. On “The Bug,” we’re at a pit stop in a seedy motel, where a critter’s bite leaves a nagging feeling: “It’s always on my mind / it’s just always on my mind,” Ramani repeats over a creeping groove as she wanders the place at night. On “Side by Side,” perhaps the most candid track on AMAMA, frenetic percussion and disorienting, layered synth envelop Ramani as she considers the personal sacrifices she’s made along the way. Even as it explores transient stops and fraught encounters, AMAMA features some of Crumb’s most vulnerable, tender searches for organic connection. “Home is what I want and what I need,” Ramani sings on the clear-sighted opener, “From Outside a Window Sill”—which samples a police radio scan about a flock of geese crossing a bridge in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where Ramani grew up. The title track, “AMAMA,” is an upbeat and hopeful homage to Ramani’s grandmother, her namesake, who sings in Malayalam in the opening sample. The two voices, Lila’s and Leela’s, separated by language and place, intertwine as if on a spotty long-distance call in what is the most direct love song of Crumb’s repertoire. On the album’s closer, “XXX,” laden with distorted, industrial sounds, we finally find respite—a house shared between two lovers, a safe place. In the last moments, Ramani asks: “Isn’t this as good as it can get?” AMAMA exists at the crossroads of psychedelia, pop, jazz, and rock, and cements Crumb as a band uniquely their own. Released independently on Crumb Records and produced alongside Johnscott Sanford and Jonathan Rado in Los Angeles, AMAMA is an incandescent statement about searching for solid ground, connection, and clarity in a life of nomadic upheaval.