MUSIC

Milton Nascimento’s 1969 ‘Courage’ blends Brazilian music with jazz, marking his international debut. Featuring Herbie Hancock and arranged by Eumir Deodato, the album highlights Nascimento’s emotive vocals and lush arrangements. A timeless introduction to one of Brazil’s most unique voices.

For our 100th Eccentric Soul 45, Numero returns to our Ohio roots with three replica 45s from the Capsoul universe. Marion Black's timeless two-sider "Who Knows" b/w "Go On Fool" made a few blips upon its 1970 release, but has taken on a life of its own soundtracking prestige TV and car commercials around the globe and finally going gold after 65 years. We discovered Ron Harrington's "Because You're Mine" demo amongst the Capsoul tapes, a demo cut for founder Bill Moss that never escaped greater Columbus. The mid-tempo harmony joint "It Happened To Me Again" adorns the flip, with a lo-fi funk backbeat tossed in for good measure. Capsoul's crown jewel group harmony quartet Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr cut just two records in their short time together, but the quartet's "You Can't Blame Me" has endured as a classic example of the raw and unhinged soul sound that Numero is known for. Eccentric Soul from the heart of it all.

On the eve of Drop Nineteens' first live performances in 30 years, we are excited to announce the reissue of the band's 1992 shoegaze masterpiece, Delaware. "Reissue" is slightly misleading as Delaware has never actually been issued on vinyl in the United States. Delaware is the debut studio album by American band Drop Nineteens released on June 19, 1992. Despite the albums release over 30 years ago, and the band remaining inactive from 1993 onwards this album has remained a favorite of shoegaze fans for decades, and was listed as one of the 50 best shoegaze albums of all time by Pitchfork in 2016. This lasting love of the record has cemented the band as one of the most influential bands of the genre from their time. Over the last several years the album has found a new audience that has championed Delaware along side of the band's mostly UK 90's contemporaries. A new legion of Drop Nineteens fans have likely discovered their music through streaming services, rather than on 120 Minutes. Tracks like the towering "Kick The Tragedy" and pop songs "Winona" & "Delaware" sit next to more experimental moments like "Reberrymemberer." And while the album is certainly a wild ride, it all flows together as easily as singers' Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley's vocals.Now for the first time, this record will be available via a USA pressing on yellow colored vinyl. Remastered for vinyl by Carl Saff the album will be available on June 21st.

Margo Guryan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and lyricist who witnessed a revolution in jazz and pop music and earned a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, yet remained obscure for decades.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Emile Mosseri, and Ghostly will be making a donation from today’s Bandcamp Friday sales of their collaborative album, I Could Be Your Dog/I Could Be Your Moon to support reproductive rights via Noise For Now. "His music filled me with the urge to connect with the world," Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith says of Emile Mosseri. She first heard his work while watching the 2019 film The Last Black Man In San Francisco; just minutes in, she paused it to look up who did the score and wrote to him immediately. "I love Emile's ability to create melodies that feel magically scenic and familiar like they are reminding you of the innocence of loving life.” Those talents saw recognition in 2020 with an Oscar nomination for Mosseri’s original score to the film Minari. He was already a fan of Smith’s and became increasingly intrigued by her impressionistic process as they started to talk. "The music feels so spiritual and alive and made from the earth," Mosseri says. "I think of her as the great conductor, summoning musical poetry from her orchestra of machines." I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon, their two-part collaborative album, introduces an uncanny fusion of their sonics. Constructed using synthesizer, piano, electronics, and voice, this soft-focus dream world is lush, evocative, and fleeting. It finds two composers tuning their respective styles inward as an ode to mutual inspiration, a celebration of the human spirit and its will to surrender to the currents of life. Early into their correspondence, Smith and Mosseri realized they were neighbors in Los Angeles and met up for a few hikes. Their conversations led to a musical exchange over email. The exercise became a sketch, the start of their first song together, "Log In Your Fire,” with Mosseri finding flourishes in Smith’s cathartic synth lines to intonate and harmonize alongside. Lyrically, it's a beautiful, open-ended sentiment. "Being a log in someone's fire, to me, means letting go, and surrendering to that feeling," says Mosseri. From there, the pair composed a series of musical foundations, trading files from afar, nurturing the eventual expansion as the remote days of 2020 set in. Smith likens the collaborative experience to the exciting uncertainty of starting a garden, "doing what I can to facilitate growth while enjoying the process of being surprised by what will actually grow." In the summer of 2021, the duo finished work on the sequel, I Could Be Your Moon, expanding their musical language as the first part reached its September release. Songs from these more recent exchanges find them even more synced, forging into percussive and harmonic experiments, leaning further into their “unused musical muscles,” as Smith and Mosseri put it. A unified vocal presence emerged. “As the friendship grew I think we both learned how to support each other more and musically that was communicated through singing together,” adds Smith. Now taken as a full album set, I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon moves fluidly from track to track, panning through textural vignettes. Two roughly 17-minute halves, the set evokes the bittersweet sense of something too bright or rare to last, a short-lived glimpse into a golden hour. "Moon In Your Eye" sends a choral refrain skyward; we stay behind, watching it haze away in the heavens. "Brush" bubbles with Smith's characteristic wonder and curiosity, expressed in a flutter of horn-like sounds, leading into the album's central expression, its titular track. Above pulsing harmonies, in his tender falsetto, Mosseri repeats variations of the mantra, "I don't want to feel / lost anymore /I can’t make you what I am." He says the idea they are reaching for is more abstract and universal, "It could mean I could be your friend / buddy, I could be someone / something else, I could transform, I could be your companion, etc. What I like about it is it could change based on what that means to you, or what the word dog means to you." The orchestral march of 'oohs and ahhs' on "Blink Twice” could register as both triumphant and tragic. "Moonweed," strays closer to the latter, with low and slow piano keys guiding the alien hums of a starlit goodbye. I Could Be Your Moon, the second installment and side B of the record, opens with the striking “Green To You.” Depicting a dream or a need for renewal — to be new in the eyes of another, all excitement of seeing and being seen as imagined, idealized versions of ourselves — the song unveils the duo’s newly fused voice. “I only want to be green to you,” they sing, as an organ phrase swirls underneath. There’s a wistful sense that bleeds into instrumental “Amber” and continues across “Standing In Your Light,” a piano ballad-turned-mini-symphony that traces over feelings of remorse (“I was distracted / overreacted… come to your senses”). “Shim Sham” starts woozily in anticipation before flipping on a drum break, becoming the collection’s energetic apex; their hums dance with the beat, wordless yet undoubtedly expressive. Once introduced, the percussion stays and syncopates for “Golden Cow,” another radiant duet that reads like a playful plea, or a reminder to their creative selves (“slow down / be careful now / you’ve done this one before”). The record ends inside “Radio Replacement,” a swan song in the lineage of somber album outros; lyrically they reflect on past loves and the passage of time, personifying the music (“I would really love to be / your favorite melody / for a while”). There is a dreamy, elemental intention to this music, which Smith and Mosseri say came naturally, as they both embraced intuitive interplay throughout their creative back-and-forth. The stylistic threads of each composer are recognizable yet become more ambiguous as the album progresses, sewn into a singular vision. "I'm so grateful that my musical ideas could dance with hers with some grace and harmony," says Mosseri. Smith adds that this experience helped her "remember that music can be a connecting layer of friendship, especially in a time when the usual ways were out of reach."

Another side of Serge Gainsbourg permeates this 1963 film soundtrack about 'a stripper lost in the nocturnal world' of Paris, according to director Jacques Poitrenaud, who cast Nico in the lead role (after her appearance in La Dolce Vita and just prior to the single she cut with Jimmy Page for Andrew Loog Oldham). Created by Gainsbourg with arranger and longstanding collaborator Alain Gourager, the music is fittingly the cool jazz of dingy nightclubs and seedy bordellos, with Gainsbourg on piano, and there's the sultry title track, delivered breathlessly by Juliette Greco. Another lost gem for all serious Gainsbourg fans.

Disiniblud, the thrilling new collaborative album project from the composers/producers/multi-instrumentalists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith. Rachika and Nina meet on complementary but seemingly disparate musical grounds. On her 2022 breakout LP Heaven Come Crashing, Rachika departed from her usual ambient guitar in favor of maximalist synths, sub-bass, and flickers of Amen breaks. Her distinct fusion of post-rock and electronica earned her accolades as Pitchfork's Best New Music, on several best of the year lists (The New York Times, Stereogum, Fader, GQ, Bandcamp, etc), and as the opening act on tour with M83. Nina, meanwhile, is best known for her self-trained approach to composition, as evident on her 2019 debut MARANASATI 19111 and its delicate medley of cello, piano, clarinet, and flute, used to explore a personal history marked by community tragedy and paranormal incidents. On Disiniblud, the two’s self-described “wordless conversation,” orbits such themes as mortality, reinvention through destruction, and sublimating fractured histories into music—all resulting in a work that suggests sweeping transformation can come from embracing old wounds with childlike wonder. Nina envisions this as she and Rachika's younger selves packing a satchel, holding hands, and daring one another to run away into a place of "wounds and wonder," only to discover an unforeseeable magic in an amalgam of post-rock, glitchy indie electronica, ambient, and pop genres in this co-created realm. Disiniblud features guest appearances from Julianna Barwick, Tujiko Noriko, Cassandra Croft, ASPIDISTRAFLY, Katie Dey, June McDoom and Ponytail's Willy Siegel.

"When I was little, I could open the window and go right up to the roof. I didn't have a balcony, so I would lie on the roof and watch the night sky." A dream to be releasing the first vinyl edition of Yahho no Potori, a treasured recording by one of our most cherished contemporary Japanese folk outfits, Eddie Marcon. Comprised of the core duo of Eddie Corman and Jules Marcon, Eddie Marcon was formed in Himeji in 2001, following Corman's involvement in noise-rock duo Coa and Shinsuke Michishita's fabled psychedelic outfit, LSD March. Marking a stylistic shift into delicate, acoustic territories, the duo would release dozens of albums and singles, mostly self-released through their Pong-Kong imprint, that have seen little distribution outside of Japan. An'archives helped us source some of their recent 7" singles, while Preservation, who compiled their earliest works in 2005, remains the only other label outside of Japan to have released their work exclusively. Recorded over a particularly humid summer and autumn, Yahho no Potori sees Eddie Marcon drifting from the delicate psychedelia of their debut EP (2002) into traditional song-based structures, first hinted at in their preceding and debut album, Aoi Ashioto (2005). A document of tenderness, wistfulness and joy, Marcon's deft yet effortless guitar strum sets a stylish backdrop for Corman's voice to ascend. Desirous yet self-assured, Corman breathes life into an intimate space adorned by the elegant instrumentation of Yashuhisa Mizatani, Yoriro Tatekawa, Ran Mizutani and Saya Ueno, whose ingenuous collaborative instinct has been gifted to listeners through collectives such as Tenniscoats, Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Spirit Fest. Here, she also lends her engineering prowess, having produced the entire album. Devotees of ambitious yet beautifully understated songwriting will find much to adore in the songs of Eddie Marcon, and followers of Reiko and Tori Kudo, Nagisa Ni Te, Ai Aso, and those curious about the wider contemporary Japanese underground, will not be surprised by the inclusion of the album's devastating climax, 'Toratolion', in Morr Music's Minna Miteru compilation in 2020. An intense and heartbreaking piece where Corman's voice takes centre stage, it remains a favourite amongst listeners and a centrepiece of Eddie Marcon's live performances. Released on vinyl on June 14 with remastered audio, faithful artwork and Japanese lyric sheet, A Colourful Storm is proud to give new life to a shimmering, underappreciated gem.

Graham Jonson is drawn to the comforts of melody and noise. How the two conspire in tension, tonally and atonally, stirring up memory and mood. This quality animates the technicolor world of quickly, quickly, the psych-pop project that emanates from Kenton Sound, his basement studio in Portland, Oregon. “Everywhere your eye lands, there’s another curio to marvel over,” noted Pitchfork’s Philip Sherburne when he visited Jonson’s recording space for a Rising feature just after the release of his “strikingly original” 2021 debut LP, The Long and Short of It. Since then, Jonson formed a live band, released his Easy Listening EP in 2023, got into production projects (for Moses Sumney, Kid LAROI, and SahBabii), and navigated the up-and-downs of a young musician, the sustainability of tours and relationships. While shaped by personal bouts and fallouts, his highly-anticipated full-length follow-up finds Jonson making music that’s universal, open-ended, and rewarding, like great songwriters can do. He set out to make a folk album but couldn’t help coloring it in with noise; a confluence of lush instrumentation and unexpected sounds. Ambitious yet intimate, hi-fi yet homespun, the idiosyncratic songs on I Heard That Noise curve around the contours of everyday life with warmth, wit, and dissonance.

When asked to unpack the inputs of I Heard That Noise, Jonson cites the unpredictable vocal melodies and sound design of Phil Elverum (The Microphones, Mount Eerie), the raw emotion of Dijon, and the timeless cadence of Nick Drake. While drums were the focus of Easy Listening, he challenged himself to think outside of the beat with new material: “to see how much I could do with a song, specifically with production, without having a beat to it… there are moments with drums but it was more about the space in between.” Songs utilize visceral delay and distortion; sometimes, they melt out of frame before the peak or take sharp turns with sudden chord changes or sweeping jolts he likens to “jump scares” in film. “Experimenting with the idea of being comfortable, and then some crazy shit flies at you, takes you out of it for a second, and then maybe brings you back in.” What makes these non-linear choices effective is that Jonson remains a natural pop architect, knowing where to push and pull, add and subtract; and essentially, how to draw in and hold one’s attention.

Themes reach from recent experiences — a breakup followed by “periods of either being miserable or, like, living…trying to better myself” — to childhood memories. There’s a recurring low-frequency hum in his neighborhood; he and his friends have come to know it as the “Kenton Sound” (which gives his studio its name), and they’ve narrowed it down to some industrial testing site nearby. Every time it vibrates, he thinks of that time he heard “that noise” while skateboarding outside his mom’s house. Similar, but louder, scarier, a sky siren of sorts. “I remember all the dogs started barking in the neighborhood at the same time...a really weird, bizarre phenomenon.” The thought pattern, scattered with a cathartic headspace, led him to record the title track, where an abrasive intro dissipates into a sweet piano ballad about remembering and surrendering.

Jonson has a knack for interludes and outros, and he’s in full stride here; the opener’s ambient wobbles snap into the stomp of “Enything,” which at one point swelled with so much information he needed to get a new computer. Above bright and jagged guitar lines, harmonized with backing vocals from friend and past tourmate Julia Logue, Jonson playfully rattles through everything he’d do (“for you”). He’s quick to admit he often dreads the process of writing lyrics, yet the loose wordplay of “Enything” is proof his subconscious runs clever.

On “Take It From Me,” subtle sonic flourishes surround acoustic strums and tender keys as Jonson recalls the resignation of a night when a relationship’s end was imminent (“a great storm is coming over the hill.”). He explains, “I've always found peace in knowing that other people, even if I don't know their exact experience, may have the same feeling that I do.” The mantra-like reprise of “Take It from Me” carries that notion, a soft reassurance before the song washes away.

Kenton Sound’s ceiling can attest to the truth of “I Punched Through A Wall.” Jonson says in reality, the act emerged from a silly intrusive thought. The image (“The silhouette of myself”) lent a figurative scene to wrap real angst around. “I feel love like a cannon ball / I like being ripped apart,” he sings over one of the record’s sweetest, most pop-forward arrangements. As the chorus takes its final pass, a gentle piano phrase gets clipped by an outburst of power chords and feedback, repeating the lines twice as loud.

“Raven” crosses fable-like fiction with the sad story of a friend who lost his way; and just when the track’s innocent country twang settles in, he pulls the rug out with near-metal levels of heavy. The juxtaposition gets to the heart of I Heard That Noise. By excavating the extremes of his sound, Jonson not only brings the best out of himself but introduces myriad ways to engage with his music, which grows ever more inviting and boundless. 
<p><iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=824606394/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 472px;">I Heard That Noise quickly, quickly</iframe></p>

Compiled here are 25 of Shiptown's most compelling sides recorded between 1965-1977, from the likes of Ida Sands, The Soul Duo, The Anglos, Dream Team, The Grooms, Positive Sounds, Barbara Stant, Wilson Williams, Art Ensley, and yes, Flip Flop Stevens.

Steeped in equal parts golden age hip-hop sensibilities and lost 60s and 70s film scores, the debut LP from Leroi Conroy weighs in heavy and has been years in the making. The first two tracks from the album were released in 2017 as a 45, which were sampled in the years that followed by DJ Premier, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Macklemore, Phantogram, and more. But after its release, Terry Cole aka Leroi Conroy spent much of his time growing his indie soul label Colemine Records and producing records for others (Okonski, Parlor Greens, Wesley Bright, Black Market Brass, Kendra Morris, Rudy De Anda, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Andrew Gabbard) as opposed to his own. Now, eight years after many of the rhythm tracks were put to tape on the trusted Tascam 388, Leroi Conroy’s debut LP, A Tiger’s Tale, will be released. The album is conceptualized as a hypothetical soundtrack to an alternate telling of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. The narrative here being man’s quest to tame and bend nature to his will...and nature’s response. The album is a mix of triumphant instrumental scores alongside absolutely grim, dark, and at times dissonant moody tracks. The underlying element of hip-hop’s sample culture is obvious throughout and there’s no doubt many of these tracks will be flipped in the years to come. Sonically, the record fits right in the cut alongside many other Colemine instrumental artists: dirty lo-fi drums, blaring horns, wah guitar, Hammond organ, and plenty of cinematic sprinklings like flute, nylon guitar, and vibraphone. Drums are courtesy of Cole’s longtime collaborator Rob Houk and are truly the backbone of the record. And with a couple of features from Colemine artists Kelly Finnigan and Jimmy James, the record is truly a family affair. File under: To Be Sampled

Nobody feels the sound fracturing as Masami Akita, nobody understands noise better than Merzbow. This Japanese artist is for more than forty years the maximum exponent of a style that has been catalogued and denominated with perhaps, the most descriptive word of modern music. Noise can have very diverse connotations, however, when we transfer this term to the pleasure and enjoyment that a piece of music generates in the listener, when we treat non-music as music, we understand that sound expressions can be endless, and that noise is a sound tool with the same recreational functionality as any other musical genre.

Blod, together with Heathens, is a Swedish platform that operates as a single entity and divides its activity between experimental music (Blod) and music created expressly for the dancefloor (Heathens). Blod allies with the Spanish label Industrial Complexx to release Hatonal, a work that shows the evolution, style and strength of Merzbow to generate an extreme sound, based on chaos, in the sum of frequencies, in its subsequent distortion and in a continuous and controlled feedback. The release is divided into two pieces of absolute psychological cut, with electric impulses, metallic scratches, pumping feedbacks and expansive dissonances.

Squarepusher's debut album has been remastered and reissued for the 25th anniversary! Feed Me Weird Things", the shocking debut album by the genius Squarepusher, had a huge impact on the music scene. The long-awaited reissue of the album, which has not been available on CD, LP, streaming or download for more than 10 years, is scheduled for June 4th, exactly 25 years after its release! To coincide with the announcement, "Theme From Ernest Borgnine" was released! This reissue, supervised by Squarepusher himself, has been remastered from the original DAT, and includes the two songs "Theme From Goodbye" and "Deep Borgnine" that appeared on the B-side of the EP "Squarepusher Plays..." released at the same time. The 16-page booklet includes self-reflective liner notes, explanations of each song including information on the equipment used, and rare photos and notes from the early days of the band's career. The domestic CD with paper jacket comes in high quality UHQCD (playable on all CD players) and includes a translation of the booklet, a bilingual translation of Richard D. James' contribution, and a commentary. His latest album, "Be Up A Hello," released in 2020, drew attention for its extensive use of 90's equipment, but if you listen to "Feed Me Weird Things," which includes songs he wrote when he was just 19 years old, you will understand that the early impulses of that time still drive him today, and that he continues to create unconventional works. One of the reasons why "Me Weird Things" shines so brightly in the electronic music scene, where various sub-genres have emerged, and stands out from other good works by other artists of the same era, is that Tom Jenkinson, who was strongly influenced by jazz, has achieved a revolutionary fusion of jazz and electronics, and has been able to create a new style of music that is very different from the one that has come before. One of the reasons it stood apart from the better works of its time was that it was the first work in which Tom Jenkinson, heavily influenced by jazz, achieved an innovative fusion of jazz and electronics, and showcased his superb bass playing. While the intricately composed and sometimes super-fast developing beats were inspiring, the already accomplished bass playing sounded pleasant and appealing, captivating all progressive music fans. Squarepusher is a man who wonders what kind of sound he can make without using the flute as an instrument, using only the holes in the flute. Richard Rodgers and Julie Andrews brought us the Sound of Music, or the sound of music, John Cage and Simon & Garfunkel brought us the sound of silence (in "4:33" and "The Sound of Silence"), and now Square Pusher is bringing us the sound of music that has never been heard before. And now, Square Pusher brings us the "Sound of Sound," or "the sound of sound. - Richard D. Jams Richard D. James (original text on artwork) The track list of "Feed Me Weird Things", one of the most important works for "Rephlex" run by Richard D. James and Grant Wilson Claridge, was supervised by Richard based on the tape given to him by Tom. The artwork also includes the only contribution Richard has ever written for another artist (a bilingual translation is included in the commentary of the domestic CD). After his early EPs and "Feed Me Weird Things" released in 1996, Squarepusher signed with Warp and released "Port Rhombus EP" at the end of the same year, followed by "Vic Acid EP" and "Hard Normal Daddy" in 1997, and has been at the forefront of the label ever since.

Get onboard with this explosive encounter of Japanese folk songs and latin rhythms!

"For Japanese people, min'yō is both the closest, and most distant, folk music” explains band-leader Katsumi Tanaka. “We may not feel it in our daily, urban lives, yet the melodies, the style of singing and the rhythm of the taiko drums are engrained in our DNA”.

Initially indifferent to min'yō, a tragic event in recent Japanese history set Tanaka on his current path: “Following the Tohoku earthquake of 2011, I reflected on my life, work and identity. A fan of world music, I began searching for Japanese roots music I could identify with. Discovering mid-late 20th century acts like Hibari Misora, Chiemi Eri and the Tokyo Cuban Boys, I was captivated by their eccentric arrangements and how they mixed min'yō with latin and jazz music.”

Lead singer Freddie Tsukamoto fell for min'yō after hearing a song from his hometown on a TV competition whilst in a restaurant. It was a revelation – until then he had been an aspiring jazz singer yet was uncomfortable singing in English. The restaurateur told him a min'yō teacher was his neighbour and the two connected. Tanaka and Freddie formed Minyo Crusaders in 2011 in Fussa, a city where the US military Yokota Air Base is located, in western Tokyo.

Recruiting other local musicians versed in afro and latin rhythms, they began hosting jam sessions at the Banana House, a building that was previously part of the military base and that used to house US soldiers. The band started recording their music, and their debut album "Echoes Of Japan" was released in 2017. It received huge acclaim in Japan and abroad, and was also released by British label Mais Um in 2019. Several European tours followed, as well as some US and South America gigs.

In this second opus, the Minyo Crusaders take us on a trip to Japanese folk songs fused with latin rhythms. Their unique arrangements breathe new life to classics like Kiso Bushi, Sado Okesa or Soran Bushi, among many other min'yō songs from all over Japan that were originally performed by Japanese fishermen, coal miners and sumo wrestlers hundreds of years ago. The magical groove created here proves once again that the Minyo Crusaders are one of the most dynamic representatives of the current Japanese world music scene. Yoi Yoi, Enjoy!

Following the release of Drop Nineteens’ first album in 30 years, Hard Light and the re-issue of their 1992 shoegaze masterwork Delaware, we are excited to announce the official release of Drop Nineteens’ 1991. This LP comprises the band’s first two demo sessions which were mailed out via cassette to labels in 1991 finding their way to the UK music press and generating instant buzz and an ensuing feeding frenzy to sign the band. After signing with Caroline Records Drop Nineteens decided to write an entirely new record, Delaware, for their first official release, leaving the songs on 1991 behind, frozen in time. Swells of layered guitars and buried vocal harmonies adorn these tracks, displaying Drop Nineteens when the comparison to their UK contemporaries like Slowdive and Ride were apt. 1991’s songs, recorded with a low fi charm, show an ambitious young band capable of writing songs filled with texture and hooks, on the eve of their breakthrough with Delaware.

Originally released in 1997 by Sub Pop, 'Loneliest In The Morning' was Doiron’s second solo release and her first release as Julie Doiron (having dropped the moniker Broken Girl). This re-issue comes complete with three bonus tracks: “Second Time” from split 7” with Snailhouse and the tracks “Who Will Be The One” and “Too Much” from the 7” release Doiron recorded with the Wooden Stars. Loneliest In The Morning — an album Pitchfork described as “catchy enough to knock Liz Phair upside the head” — is a critical piece to the Doiron catalog and given the wonderful relationship Doiron and Jagjaguwar have forged over the last decade, this re-issue is particularly significant.

Julie Doiron began her career in music in 1990 at the age of 18 in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada playing bass in Eric's Trip, a folky yet psychedelic band that were to become the undisputed underground darlings of Canadian music. Eric's Trip were the first of many maritime Canadians signed to Sub Pop and found international recognition, releasing several albums and touring widely. Following 1996's Purple Blue, Eric's Trip announced their breakup and Julie Doiron embarked on her solo career, first releasing songs as Broken Girl and soon under her own name starting with Loneliest In The Morning, which was recorded in Memphis, TN with producer Dave Shouse of the Grifters. She has released seven full-lengths and three EPs, including the Juno Award-winning Julie Doiron & the Wooden Stars album. 

Jagjaguwar is proud to release the long lost Julie Doiron album 'Broken Girl', expanded to include her first two 7"s. It was originally released in 1996 by Doiron after her band--the psychedelic folk group Eric's Trip--had crumbled around her, under the temporary moniker "Broken Girl". The name did nothing to hide her feelings regarding the breakup of her band and the relationships that she shared with its members; neither did the songs on the record. The twelve songs from the original album come across like an epitaph for a departed lover. 'Broken Girl' was indeed a new beginning for Doiron, both as a solo artist as well as a record label executive. The first two Broken Girl 7"s (both included on this reissue), as well as the self-titled full-length were released on her own label Sappy Records, a label which went on to release her Juno Award-winning 'Julie Doiron & the Wooden Stars' full-length as well as releases by Moonsocket, Orange Glass, Snailhouse, and Elevator to Hell.

'Broken Girl' was a watershed for Doiron, showing her to be the sort of songwriter and performer that Eric's Trip only hinted at. Achingly beautiful and showcasing her vocal style and personality as a songwriter, the reviews immediately put her in the same class as Leonard Cohen in terms of importance as a Canadian solo artist. The album was self-recorded in the same home-y manner as the classic Eric's Trip albums which helped--along with albums by peers Sebadoh, East River Pipe and Smog--define the bedroom aesthetic of the early '90s. While some rock scribes would call it lo-fi, the fidelity of the recordings that Doiron and her Eric's Trip mates employed in the first half of the '90s was clearly the most appropriate medium. The close-mic'ing of everything from the vocals to the swirling guitars and peaking drums created a sense of real intimacy (while avoiding a lot of the awkward pitfalls that so many confessional songwriters run into) and suburban claustrophobia. It is very easy to see the four-piece as a Nick Drake-like entity who had been raised on the far East Coast of Canada in Moncton, New Brunswick on the SST catalog (Eric's Trip took their name from the Sonic Youth song from Daydream Nation) and whose nucleus was a four-fold of independently-minded co-dependents with no need for a producer or other intermediary to the recording process which might break the spell for even a moment.

Initially released in a scant edition of 1,000, 'Broken Girl' went immediately out of print and has become a highly sought-after collector's piece.

"Fellow Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen once titled an album Songs From A Room. Montreal-based Julie Doiron apparently took up residence there and removed whatever furniture was left behind."--Rob O'Connor, Rolling Stone 

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.

When not gazing out windows into the stormy Manhattan skyline, Margo Guryan spent her thirties banging out earworms for the likes of Bobbie Gentry, Jackie DeShannon, Claudine Longet, Carmen McCrae, and Julie London at CBS’s April Blackwood Music. Guryan’s timeless musings on love, Sundays, earthquakes, crying, and boys named Timothy have soundtracked countless films and viral videos—enduring masterpieces from the before times. 28 of her ’60s and ’70s songwriting demos are collected on this 25th anniversary double album edition. Get under Margo’s umbrella.

"My career has been a lesson in patience," says Annahstasia, having cultivated her musical language between blazes of intimacy and independence across different lives, locations, and iterations, loves lost and gained, expectations evaded and recreated. The rising troubadour's proximity to love — for and from others, in society at large, and deeply within herself — guides the spirit of her soulful, poetic folk songcraft. Love is the elemental constant, alongside her distinctly resonant voice, shading the singer-songwriter's music since her earliest self-taught recordings, back when a 17-year-old Annahstasia Enuke was discovered and propelled into the pressures of an industry that nearly stifled her greatest strengths. Artistic resilience, gratitude, and dedication to process have yielded Tether, Annahstasia's full-length debut on art-forward indie label drink sum wtr, a collection of beaming torch songs, orchestral hymns, and astral anthems that feel lived-in, drawn from the human experience and the spectrum of love.

Annahstasia assembled the pieces of Tether slowly and with deep intention; she's carried these songs with her on the road, sang them for friends and strangers, and evolved them over time alongside her personal revelations. "The song is written, and then I have to live with it and see if I really believe what I'm saying," she explains. She brought material to sessions at the storied Valentine Studios in Los Angeles, joined by producers Jason Lader (ANOHNI and the Johnsons, Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey), Andrew Lappin (Cassandra Jenkins, L'Rain, Luna Li), Aaron Liao (Liv.e, Moses Sumney, Raveena) and a range of accomplished musicians, including featured guests aja monet and Obongjayar. The recording became instinctual, done only in live takes to capture the feeling of the room, the community of the music. The sequencing was just as essential; she arrived at a flow with shifting energies and poignant arcs. The instrumentation swells, at times understated and others supremely lush, and through each arrangement, Annahstasia's voice rings true, open-hearted, and free. "I've come into the power of my voice as a medium," she says. "As a tool of expression, I am able to shape the emotional space around me."

Lyrically, Annahstasia embraces the nuance of poetry, inviting listeners to engage in words laced with meaning, whether ruminations on romance or social constructs. She sees the opener "Be Kind" more as a poem than a song, "a reflection upon the beauty of the mundane and the grandeur of everyday life…a reminder to myself and others to be kind to each other." The track's minimalist atmosphere picks up where 2024's Surface Tension EP left off, with her vocals left bare and up-front, exploring the capacity of her gift with newfound latitude as strums, strings, and keys enter the frame.

The palette expands for "Villian," welcoming drums, brass, and horns into a sweeping nod to healing. "We are all made of both shadow and light. From some angle, we have all been the villain of the story," she adds, suggesting that often, the only way to move on is through understanding that "we are all trying our best, negotiating survival." At its triumphant peak, above gospel-like shouts, she delivers the reprise with a smile: "Take it / Take it back / This dull knife of memory / I still hear your voice inside my head / Says that I'm the villain of the story."

Album centerpiece "Slow" emerges from a chance connection with London-based Nigerian musician Steven Umoh, aka Obongjayar. After exchanging DMs, Obongjayar came to one of her shows, and the two artists talked for hours afterward; "he was like a lost brother," she says. Later, they wrote and demoed the track in the living room of her Airbnb in London, where they huddled around a single ribbon microphone. "I'm just playing the guitar, and our eyes are locked; it was very sensual and intense." Emboldened by one another, their voices orbit and coalesce, trading verses on the signals the universe sends us ("I heard it on the wind / To go slow"), harmonizing the last stanzas ("What's the worst that can happen / If we just let it happen"). Without proper album plans at the time, the song sat for a while; then, in another cosmic chance, Obongjayar happened to be in town during the Tether sessions. Annahstasia reflects, "It was a beautiful experience to have us all in the room. The artistry, the moment, a real acceptance of African art where these two Nigerian musicians are coming together and making something very tender and pretty outside genre expectations."

Later, Annahstasia finds a kindred spirit in aja monet, the NY-based surrealist blues poet and her new labelmate, who lends stunning prose and voice to "All is. Will Be. As it Was." Given only the prompt of "open air," monet wrote the lines on the ride to the studio. Together with Annahstasia on guitar and Ashley Fulton on piano, they captured the piece in its purest form as if bottling a breeze.

Annahstasia described the EP prelude to this culminating set as a "romantic war," and the artist truly thrives amidst and after drama. She taps into a punk sensibility for "Silk and Velvet" — "I'd say it's punk in the sense that it is really dry, really stark and selectively dissonant." A clashing of cello and piano mirror pointed lyrics about "living with the hypocrisy of having revolutionary ideologies but consumerist tendencies." The tension comes full circle on "Believer," a song she's been trying to get right for years, now finally recorded in the right place with the right people. Nearly every instrument on Tether returns in full force; towering percussion, jagged guitar lines, and howling singers encircle Annahstasia at the mic as she enters a fantasy of rock stardom. "I love how in making a record, you get to make a film and pick which direction to take it. Now I have this version that I blast in my headphones, play air guitar, and pretend I'm performing it for 100,000 people." The sheer power of Tether is the result of patience, and it's not hard to picture such a dream realized in good time. 

 

Welsh musician Aisha Vaughan presents The Gate. It is upon us to renew the deep-cut, heavy-weighted melancholy of Celtic New Age for 2024. New Age music from the Celtic/British Isles crossed over into the mainstream in the late 80s - notably with Enya (and her band Clannad), the perhaps now lesser-known instrumental Celtic harp music of Patrick Ball, and the slew of now mostly forgotten various artist compilations that saturated the New Age CD and cassette music market in the early 90s.

The Gate earnestly gives reverence to the landscape that she calls home (as cinematically portrayed consistently in Vaughan’s self-shot videos via her social media). Now living in converted barn in mid-Wales, Vaughan writes and records her music to red kites and eagles hunting in the mountains outside her windows. The notably welcomed layers of ASMR sound design and computer music production supplement the main instrument here - her voice - woven within campfire crackle, wind chime, cricket, bird, harp, flute, synthesizer pad & sfx, and new moon wolf howl to channel celestial guides conjured from her remote homeland.

Using composition as catharsis stemming from a traumatic upbringing where music was banned in her childhood household, and the inherent occult history that surrounds the art form, Vaughan does not shy away from precisely stewarding this particular - often still-overlooked - musical tradition through her generation’s ambient lens.
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Originally released in small quantities on the esteemed Smallfish imprint back in 2007. An outline and blueprint of the cv313 sound; lush analog submersion enveloping one's mind into an altered hypnotic state. This release features the original in an entirely new dimensional surround mix utilizing heavier analog tape processing/saturation and remastered to a state of sonic perfection. Also featured is a newly remastered version of the subtraktive "re-imagined" edition and an unfathomable depth found in the unreleased version (reprise) culled from a live performance @ AIR (Toyko, Japan) This one rest somewhere in the upper regions of air beyond the clouds, reminding of those early Chain Reaction works of Vladislav Delay or the horizontal analog based dream-time experiments of Steve Roach.

This release also features three new never-before-heard epic analog incarnations from the ever-evolving variant guise in various forms of sonic conversion. An exciting new development is the inclusion of a long forgotten recording (from the archives) captured from the first ever live performance of the Intrusion project (along w/brock van wey) @ the Little White Earbuds Showcase (Chicago / March 2009). Captured from a blissful moment over a decade ago and it truly hasn't aged a single solitary second. This project encapsulates the culmination of nearly 12 years of recordings and manifest into an epic hypnotic state for the ages, an opus of sorts and in one word - timeless.

Pulled from the Smallfish archive (published: 2007):

So, am I pleased, thrilled and proud to be able to announce this next Smallfish 3″ CD release? You bet I am! Coming out of Detroit and shortly to be releasing an EP on the hotly tipped Echospace label run by Rod Modell and Steve Hitchell, aka Soultek, comes this anonymous piece of music from cv313 that is simply stunning. For lovers of Dub Techno this is an absolute must-have as it’s, once again, coming in a limited edition of 100 copies only – no represses! Subtraktive is a 15 minute track featuring the sort of aquatic depth and beauty that we’ve come to associate with the likes of Echospace, Basic Channel, Deepchord and the Meanwhile label and allow me to tell you that this piece just flies by. A deep, hypnotic and subtly building intro with an insistent high-end percussive sound leads you along, drawing you in to what inevitably grows into an-ultra refined 4/4 track with a steady, wonderfully atmospheric groove that’s drenched in reverb, metallic chord licks and tape delays. Just check the samples to see exactly what I mean… and if you’re a fan of this sound (and I’m pretty sure you all know that we here at Smallfish are *big* devotees of the purity of Detroit / Berlin Techno) you should consider this an essential release. Great to be able to put something out on CD as most of this gear comes on vinyl, so for those who feel they’ve missed out on some great sounds, here’s a perfect opportunity to enjoy some authentically deep Dub Techno pleasure. Many thanks to cv313 for allowing us to release this complete and utter gem. DO NOT MISS! Due to demand for this item we are having to restrict it to one copy per customer. -Smallfish, London, UK

As the highly respected fellas at Boomkat so eloquently stated:

"The original is a classic of the Echospace catalogue, merging beatless misty dawn atmospheres with an aura of heavy influences....like a Rhythm & Sound tape stretched out on a Jamaican beach until the edges begin to fray and curl unpredictably."

This is an analog reissue of the only album left behind in 1981 by Colored Music, the unit of Kazuko Hashimoto and Atsuo Fujimoto, also known as support members of YMO.
This special clear sky blue edition also features the addition of “Giant Bird,” which was recorded at the time of the album's creation but not released until the 2018 CD reissue.
The new wave sound is still vivid, with a crossover of earthy rock rhythms and minimalist sounds.
 

In dark and difficult times, the music of Barney Lister and Kojo Degraft-Johnson lifts us up. As MRCY, across the eight tracks of VOLUME 2, they deliver on their premise of emotive music that surprises as much as it comforts, referencing timeless sounds as much as a sense of the cutting edge. If their debut release, 2024’s VOLUME 1, which blended Kojo’s ecstatic vocals and Barney’s masterful analogue production, showcased MRCY’s lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry, VOLUME 2 builds from there to a collection that is more sophisticated, thematic, and definitely more modern, exploring love, self-discovery, and healing. “We’re trying to extinguish fear with optimism and worry with love,” Barney says, on confronting the many crises of modern life in their new release. “VOLUME 2 breaks the mould to present a bigger picture of who we are – something with angst, surprises and more guts.” Opening numbers “Angels” and “Wanna Know (Ontario)” draw on a classic MRCY feel with their infectious grooves, soaring group harmonies and warm uplifting horns, harnessing Kojo’s flawless falsetto in an emotive introspection that yearns for a better future or for the affection of another. Yet, as the record progresses, MRCY launches into unexpected sounds and new themes. On “Man”, Kojo sings about the challenges of modern masculinity and questions the ways that men can change for the better over an energetic afrobeat polyrhythms and a jazz-inflected flute solo. “Being a man in this world is complicated and it can feel like a battle to stay open and kind," Kojo explains. “That’s why the track has that driving battle groove and the lines ‘Move out the dark and lead with light/Fight for the love a thousand times’ because we need to come together to make ourselves change for the better." Standout number “Flicker” sees Kojo sing about the temptation to give yourself emotionally to people who don’t deserve it over a Ghanaian highlife riff and a dancefloor-filling bassline. First meeting in 2021 after Barney discovered a clip of Kojo singing on Instagram and was taken by his soaring, Stevie Wonder-referencing vocals, the pair linked up at Barney’s Brixton studio and discovered an immediate connection. “It’s the most natural music I’ve ever made,” Kojo says. “Being with Barney in the studio, the ideas just come pouring out and we always lead with our initial feelings, since that produces the most authentic and heartfelt music.” The duo’s innate confidence in each other stems from their impressive musical pedigree. Barney grew up in Huddersfield and was introduced to the Yorkshire town’s soundsystem culture from an early age before going on to produce and collaborate with everyone from vocalist Obongjayar to popstar Rina Sawayama, Mercury Prize-nominees Joy Crookes, Olivia Dean and Celeste and Glaswegian soul singer Joesef. Kojo, meanwhile, draws on his South London Church-going background to deliver a mighty vocal power that references gospel emotion, choral harmony and the catalogue of soul greats like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin. Earning his stripes on London’s jam circuit, he has since provided vocals for Cleo Sol, Little Simz, Jungle and Liam Gallagher. Following the release of VOLUME 1 on tastemaking label Dead Oceans, MRCY earned a nomination for Rising Star at the Rolling Stone Awards and were named one of DIY’s Class of 2025 and Rolling Stone’s Ones to Watch. The duo also embarked on a UK and EU tour with US soul group Black Pumas and sold out their headline show at London’s Jazz Café, honing an assertive stage presence that channels tight-knit classic soul ensembles in the process. “The whole of 2024 felt like a dream, from getting signed to touring and playing our first shows to thousands of people,” says Barney. “It was a process that brought the two of us closer together, since we’ve been through so much now. Seeing the music take on a life of its own has also driven us to make even more of a statement with VOLUME 2.” The duo have certainly made huge strides since their debut release last year, and with live dates planned for later in 2025, as well as writing set to commence on their debut album, it seems there is no slowing down MRCY – a group making vital music that speaks to the complexities of being alive today. “The main feeling of the project is that the world is fucked but let’s dance through it,” Barney says. “We can’t wait for people to hear it and to feel energised by the message.” It’s a sound and a signal that has never felt more necessary.