MUSIC

Jon Porras possesses a rare acuity for locating the pulse of a sonic landscape and carving out its emotional core. His work has long drawn from the friction of organic forms and electronic processing, but Achlys finds him moving further into texture, erosion, and weight. This is music steeped in collapse—not as spectacle, but as slow process. These pieces do not unfold, they gather. Guitar, sub-bass, modular synthesis, and processed noise accumulate like sediment, layering into compositions that move more like weather systems than traditional songs.Framed around the language of filmmaking, Achlys invokes overlapping frames, blurred edits, and disjunctive pacing. Porras cites the textural depth of the film 'El Mar La Mar' as a key influence, particularly its use of layered sound to evoke emotional density. The album navigates a sequence of fractured sonic vignettes: crumbling environments, monumental silence, and landscapes both real and internal. Structure becomes permeable. Each piece gestures toward both presence and disappearance.Central to the record is a tension between form and formlessness. Fingerpicked guitar compositions were written, recorded, and then pushed through modular processing chains, where their original structure became blurred or buried. Often, multiple pieces were written in isolation and layered without synchronization, allowing intentional dissonance to guide the resulting textures. The approach favors drift and friction, with melodies ghosting through blurred intervals, creating tension between memory and distortion.The album begins with "Fields," where faint guitar phrases are immersed in hollow, resonant tones that feel more remembered than played. Warmth flickers at the edges, filtered and remote, like light pushing through soot. On "Holodiscus," elegiac lines drift across a soft undercurrent of dissonance, quietly resisting the pull toward collapse. The title track slips between clarity and distortion, turning harmonic fragments into a shimmering lattice of decay. Throughout the album, sustained tones stretch time into a blur, while processed guitar gestures emerge and recede like echoes from adjoining rooms. Each piece carries an emotional imprint without insisting on direction, leaving behind textures that feel both tactile and unsettled.Much of Achlys was composed during violet mountain storms. Living in a forested elevation high above sea level, Porras describes listening to trees sway under pressure, their movements generating both deep, low-end resonance and fragile, intricate patterns of creaks and rustles. This duality of scale—immense and minute—filters into the record's sonic palette. On "Sea Storm," the low end churns and pulls downward, scattering guitar fragments in its wake. "Before the Rite" swells with abrasive density and distorted harmonics—a moment of near-overwhelm held right at the edge. The sounds remain suspended, refusing to resolve.Achlys moves through a territory of shifting thresholds—where light and shadow, structure and erosion exist side by side without dissolving into opposition. Rather than aiming for clarity of conclusion, the album offers a cyclical form of emergence and erosion. It is sonically dense yet spacious, emotionally resonant but untethered from narrative. Nothing here is fixed. Everything carries the trace of having been something else. While some fragments fade and others linger, all of them shape the atmosphere.

Recorded at night by candlelight in the Temple of La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, Music for Intersecting Planes captures the immediacy of sound in space. Cellist Leila Bordreuil and organist Kali Malone join in a work of austere, ritualistic presence, where the granularity of air, the vibration of strings, feedback, and subdued sine waves intersect in sculptural form.

Minimal in means yet expansive in effect, the music slowly unfolds like beads on a thread, punctuated by silence and deep breaths. Bellows whistle within feathered string harmonics, interference patterns pulsate throughout the chapel, and the environment itself becomes part of the composition, with ringing church bells and motorcycles passing in the distance.

Performed live in single takes, the music balances patience and intensity, composure and chance. The collaboration reveals new terrain: more tonal and composed than Bordreuil’s work, more textural and raw than Malone’s.

Music for Intersecting Planes is both severe and tender, an elemental convergence of cello and organ that resonates with the timeless intrigue of acoustic phenomena

Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow is the second album from funk innovators Funkadelic, arriving in 1970 mere months after their trailblazing debut. Famously originating from a single LSD-fueled marathon session, the record saw the band honing their songcraft, while still allowing plenty of space for mind-bending exploratory jams. It marked the official introduction of legendary keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and would go on to chart at No. 92 on Billboard's Pop chart. Remastered direct to lathe from original master tapes by Dave Gardner (all analog).

A lingering guitar note. A cushion of a bassline nudging along a hushed cadence unspooling impressionistic poeticism one halting line at a time; the sparse snap of a snare providing punctuation. This is how Boston’s Karate opened their third full-length, 1998’s The Bed Is In The Ocean. Perhaps this was a reaction to the aggressive punk tones that marked their previous album, or maybe they hoped to capture the somnambulant dusk on one of those pristine fall days that make living in a town whose population swells when colleges welcome back students all worthwhile. Then again, Karate never made a point of chasing the same idea twice, and “There Are Ghosts” remains in line with the band’s stylistic intrepidness and unpredictability. Even the group’s lineup appeared constantly in flux. After expanding from a trio to a quartet and employing a dual-guitar attack with 1997’s In Place of Real Insight, founding member Eamonn Vitt hung up his axe to attend medical school. Karate soldiered on as a trio, with mid-stream addition Jeff Goddard’s bass work helping establish a sidewinding path forward through the smoky jazz melodicism and sun-beaten blues brushstrokes that hung in the background of the band’s catalog. In their short time together, Karate helped bolster the national punk ecosystem, a scene in which individual artistic vision was prized but rarely achieved. Their exacting precision and emotive interplay helped recombine the DNA of the dignified grace of slowcore, the hot-and-sweaty atmospherics of the blues, and the high-wire tension of post-hardcore to deliver drawling instrumental curveballs and a furtive riptide climax with a controlled grace on “Outside Is The Drama.” Singer-guitarist Geoff Farina frequently teased out the emotional nuances of each song, his worn-in voice shading in the complexities of his enigmatic lyrics; no matter how difficult it may be to parse his snatched-from-daily-life wisdoms, on The Bed Is In The Ocean Farina sounded like a guy who knew exactly the right thing to tell whoever may be listening. And with Karate’s snaking turns through quasi-punk reveries no one else appeared capable of mustering, it’s comforting to hear it accomplished by a band that knew exactly what they were doing.

With creative and powerful song structures and excellent vocals, this Massachusetts band is definitely one that should not be overlooked. With indie rock grooves containing flavors of emo and jazz, Karate explores beautiful new territory with a passion and energy that flows like a river. From dark and energetic breakdowns like "It's 98, Stop" to passionate stop/start wailers like "New New," In Place of Real Insight shows quite a bit of maturity from their first, self-titled LP. Karate definitely runs through all sorts of emotions in a way unlike most. ~ Blake Butler Mastering specifications at d Studios.

The original is a $$$BIG$$$ ultra-rare record sought after by collectors all over the world! Indian fusion disco jazz masterpiece released in 1982 by Rupa Biswas on a local label in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, featuring traditional instruments such as sarod and tabla. A superb record that falls somewhere between Bollywood and Balearic! The funky and psychedelic sound is dynamically surged by sarod and synthesizer, and the ethnic and bewitching vocal work is excellent. The funky and psychedelic sound with dynamic surges of sarod and synthesizers and the ethnic and bewitching vocal work are excellent. It's no exaggeration to say that this is the pinnacle of frontier grooves. The fact that it was produced by Aashish Khan, a sarod player who is a master of Indian classical music, should not be overlooked. A must-have for prog and psychedelic lovers as well as DJs!

"The only boogie record you'll ever need to own."

Four pieces by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a pioneer of “holy minimalism.” The album centers around a never-before-released rendition of “Silentium,” the second movement of Pärt’s most famous concerto, Tabula Rasa, performed by Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry. The group plays “Silentium” at nearly half the speed of the best-known version, released on ECM in 1984. The piece, known for its healing properties for the dying and often used in palliative care facilities (one patient famously called it “angel music”), is breathtaking at half speed, seemingly stilling time itself.

The album compiles some of the most stunning renditions of Pärt’s music ever recorded. “Vater Unser (Arr. for trombone & string ensemble)” is somehow warm and austere at once. A miniature epic. Pianist Marcel Worm’s solo version of “Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka” is as beautiful as anything we’ve ever heard. “Fratres for Strings and Percussion” is one of Arvo Pärt’s most celebrated works. The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra’s version is iconic, filled with emotional playing right on the verge of overly romantic, but never tipping over.

Pärt’s approach to both music and life is as sparse as the compositions he creates. He once said, “I have nothing to say… Music says what I need to say. And it is dangerous to say anything, because if I’ve said it already in words there might be nothing left for my music.” Silentium continues Mississippi Records’ fascination with this great contemporary composer. 

Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014’s Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver’s underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018’s Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue. His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project’s fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Edmonton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft — the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material — arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin’s dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he’s never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the “release spirit” mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go-around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds — including the classic Casio SK-1 presets he’s used since the start — mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. “I think it’s my best sounding record to date.” We begin on “HV Road” or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin’s most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of “Lovely,” a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of “3 pz” offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family’s move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. “I can only imagine my grandparents repeating some of the bizarre phrases.” “Fountain, Growth” finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal’s Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project’s first-ever vocal track. Roby’s soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of “Life Mask” and seamlessly reaching “Unlimited <3.” The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of “Techno Creep,” a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of “My Same Size.” In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded “Sound Gathering Trip” to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he’s taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin’s project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free.

Inspired by the original Industrial Records release of William S. Burroughs's Nothing Here Now but the Recordings, Belgian record label Sub Rosa worked with Burroughs to release another album: Break Through In Grey Room. Originally compiled in 1986 by producer Bill Rich, the album features Burroughs's experimental recordings from 1961 to 1976, featuring field recordings by Burroughs of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, experimental collaborations with mathematician Ian Sommerville and painter/cut-up originator Brion Gysin.Break Through In Grey Room documents William S. Burroughs during his time in Europe and England, working with Ian Sommerville on recording with the 'cut-up' technique. Sommerville's technical background enabled him to contribute to the early development of sound-and-light shows in London, leading to work with gear provided by Paul McCartney in an apartment owned by Ringo Starr. Experimental in nature, the record is as much an exhibition of studio and composition technique as it is a document of underground culture at that time.For the 2023 reissue, Dais Records has collaborated with the Estate of William S. Burroughs on reissuing the album on vinyl and compact disc, fully remastered by mastering engineer Josh Bonati.

Jeff Jank, designer of the original album and “Gold Chains” edition:

The first time I heard The Further Adventures of Lord Quas, it struck me as a hip-hop equivalent of Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s We’re Only in It for the Money (1968). Zappa’s crazy, chaotic record also happened to feature the first-ever knock-off cover of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a tradition in graphic arts that continues to this day. The ‘Gold Chains’ collage is my own spin on the tradition, also taking its inspiration from Madlib’s track “Rappcats Pt. 3.”

This alternate cover for Further Adventures was designed Fall 2020. In just a year between then and now we lost three of the heroes in the collage: DOOM, Biz Markie, and Melvin Van Peebles.

Madlib's original Bad Character emerges again. Yessir Whatever is 12-tracks recorded over roughly 12 years, produced entirely by Madlib.

Caught between the Canyon and the Caribbean, Cathy Hamer's pair of extremely private LP's got lost in the Me Decade's hippy hangover. Tracked in '79 and '80 at Roanoke, Virginia's custom bluegrass powerhouse Threshold Recordings, these 11 originals breeze through all colors—folk, country, yacht, etc—of the cosmic American rainbow. Remastered LP comes housed in a tip-on

This solo debut album was self-produced and released in 1984, following the hiatus of Guernica. Including the title track on the theme of female menstruation and "Mushi no Onna (Pupa Woman)," a baroque song (Pachelbel's Canon) with lyrics written by herself, this album fully expressed her one-of-a-kind worldview and catapulted her to the status of queen of the 80's subculture. Even today, it remains a classic in the history of Japanese women's rock music.

Atlantis (1969) is a bold and highly atmospheric jazz album by Sun Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra that moves away from traditional swing into a more experimental sound. The centerpiece is the 20-minute title track contained in side B, built around Sun Ra’s heavily amplified Hohner Clavinet. Around this, the Arkestra layers percussion, horns, and collective improvisation to create a dense, hypnotic texture. The music is intense but not chaotic; it unfolds gradually, focusing on mood, repetition, and sonic colours. The shorter pieces on the album are slightly more rooted in free jazz traditions, but still maintain the spacious, exploratory feel. Atlantis stands as a key example of Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist vision, presenting jazz as cosmic storytelling and pushing the genre toward electronic experimentation and abstract sound design long before these approaches became common. This vinyl reissue is the first since 1973 and it features the track “Yucatan II” as bonus track on side A.

Reissue, originally released in 1963. Ellis Regina one of the greatest Brazilian interpreters of all time. Originally released in 1963 when she was not even 20 years old, this was her fourth album and second for Columbia Records. Still a few steps before she became a star, here Ellis Regina's fresh and extremely ductile voice shines on top of sophisticated jazz arrangements by Astor Silva and a mixed repertoire based on charming romantic songs and vibrant sambas, all composed by Brazilian authors, among them a couple of highlights such as Baden Powell's "Se Você. Quiser" and "O Ben do Amor" the title track composed by guitarist Rildo Hora. This is an early and fine statement in Regina's fast way to the peak of Brazilian music history.

Recorded in the early 70's in her home on a reel to reel recording device, the songs on "Colour Green" are intimate portraits of life's sad and fragile beauty.

Pratt & Moody return with a new 7” single on Timmion Records, pairing “Hard Way To Live” with “You Bring Me Joy” – two deep diving soul cuts that reaffirm their place among the true pioneers of the modern sweet & beat soul revival. Written and recorded together with Timmion’s trusted house band Cold Diamond & Mink, the single continues a lineage that has consistently blurred the line between contemporary songwriting and timeless soul aesthetics.The A-side, “Hard Way To Live,” finds Pratt & Moody firmly in their beat ballad lane. Built on a warm, funky foundation, the song balances emotional weight with melodic lift, as its chorus opens into crossover soul-pop territory. Lyrically, it wrestles with life-earned scars and the quiet difficulty of letting go of pain that they cause – the feeling of keeping on running even after you’ve spent the last of what you had.”On the flip, “You Bring Me Joy” unfolds like a slow-burning David Lynch scene, its dramatic crawl evoking soundtrack soul before bursting into a Stax-era Staple Singers inspired chorus. Tremolosoaked guitar lines nod to classic dark surf music, while Emilia Sisco’s gospel-tinged background vocals nod to Mavis Staples, elevating the track into full emotional bloom. Together, these two songs offer a vivid preview of Pratt & Moody’s upcoming album – a deeper plunge into soulful storytelling, their tried and tested lowrider soul chops, and modern clarity, soon to follow on Timmion Records.

Written between tours with Tristeza, One Day I’ll Be On Time finds The Album Leaf exploring a spacious blend of ambient music and post-rock. Delicate guitar figures, piano motifs, soft synths, field recordings and steady percussion drift through the album, gradually building from hushed passages into more driving rhythms. Across its instrumental pieces, the record reflects on time and change, balancing fragile details with wide-open atmosphere. This 25th anniversary edition presents the album in remastered form, replicating the original release with new liner notes by Adam Gnade and previously unpublished photographs revisiting an early chapter in The Album Leaf’s catalogue.

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.

Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytum comosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”

But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.
The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.

“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.

Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.

Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’s new renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

-Andy Beta 

Big Crown Records is proud to present the sophomore full-length from Les Imprimés, Fading Forward. Spearheaded by self-taught multi-instrumentalist and producer Morten Martens, the album explores mortality, escapism, and a myriad of experiences associated with love.

Martens made a tremendous impression with his highly acclaimed 2023 debut Rêverie and has since cultivated a diehard fanbase whose demographics are as wide-ranging as the influences that shape his music. He mixes tones from ’60s and ’70s soul with arrangement nods to doo-wop records, takes drum energy from hip-hop, and covers the whole thing with vocal stylings drawn from ’90s and 2000s alternative. But it is Martens’ lyrics, emotion, and delivery that truly bring everything together and help him stand out from his peers. There’s an infectiousness and pop sensibility in the writing, executed with the utmost class and taste, giving Les Imprimés the rare quality of immediate attraction that only deepens with repeat listens.

Hailing from Kristiansand, Norway, Martens plays nearly every instrument on Fading Forward, produces and arranges the album, and of course sings. “It’s soul music, but I don’t exactly have the soul voice,” Morten explains humbly. “But I do it my own way, in a way that’s mine.”

Album opener “You & I” is Morten’s homage to his partner, who sticks it out “through the chaos and the blunders” with him. Punchy drums and cascading pianos make this one a proper two-stepper and an anthem for those lucky enough to find someone who understands them and helps them through the parts of life where they need it most. “Again & Again” slows the pace and deals with the heavier side of love and life, as Martens professes his resilience through the mishaps, heartbreak, and letdowns of love affairs gone wrong. “Untainted Love” brings the sweet side of new love center stage with a tune that plays on the title of the Gloria Jones classic. “Get Lost” leans into the metaphysical with an invitation to leave reality behind and spend time with Les Imprimés, where there’s room to dream. “Only Love” is built over a gritty drum break, with a chorus that is simple yet profound, and an arrangement that gives it the energy of a mantra. The album turns to the dancefloor on “With You,” an uptempo, uplifting tune about a fleeting encounter that leaves you pining for more. Martens longs for her, but joyfully—as if simply remembering that such a connection is possible is exactly what he needed. Martens is joined by guest vocalist Ama Li on “Miss the Days,” a slow-burning ballad that reckons back to simpler times when love felt easier. Fading Forward closes on a wholly somber note with “Paradise,” a tune that wishes freedom and peace to a friend who passed away.

In the small town of Kristiansand, Norway, there is a huge talent who spent much of his life laying low and playing in the background. Signing to New York’s Big Crown Records inspired Morten Martens to begin sharing his own music. The response to his debut Rêverie pushed him out of the studio and onto the stage, serving as inspiration to push his artistry to new heights—heights that are fully realized on Fading Forward.

An epoch is defined as an extended period of time typically characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events, and Scott Hansen, leader of the band Tycho, has named their new album Epoch with that in mind. The last installment in a trilogy, Epoch is the culmination of more than a decade’s work that has seen the band evolving and maturing through two sublime releases Dive (2011) and Awake (2014), and developing from featuring Hansen as a delicate solo performer into the iconic frontman of a powerful multi-layered live band performing on the world’s largest stages. “Dive was where the whole thing crystallized,” said Hansen. “I found that crossover space between what I was doing before, which was more IDM electronic stuff, and the rock music that reflected more of what I was listening to and not necessarily what I was making. Awake was a prototype of pushing it as far into the rock realm as I was comfortable with. Epoch is basically coming full circle. All the lessons of Dive and Awake were applied and then expanded upon. Epoch leverages the sonic aesthetic of Dive’s down-tempo vintage-style synthesizers and beautiful melodies while drawing on the kinetic energy of Awake’s progressive composition and organic instrumentation. “I felt like I explored a lot of open-ended unbridled, optimistic spaces with the other records. I don't know if it's a reflection of my life, but it seemed like that’s what just came out at the time.” For the new record, the themes felt a bit darker as he explored new musical territory. “My threshold for darkness is much lower. Things that seem dark to me seem happy and light to other people. I think it’s the darker sounds themselves. The timbres are a bit more aggressive.” Hansen initially attempted a more traditional recording process at Panoramic Studios in Stinson Beach, CA, but ultimately opted to do the majority of the recording in his home studio in Berkeley following a temporary relocation from his home in San Francisco. “I’ve been in the same San Francisco house the last 11 years. I made the last two records in the exact same room. I figured it was time for a change. There were a few other factors as well. I wanted to get some more space, be relaxed, and not be living in the middle of a crazy city. I wanted to have a more relaxed environment where noise or people didn’t bother me. Mostly just for the isolation.” Once complete, it was important to Hansen to release Epoch as a surprise album. “I've never been fond of handing in an album then waiting 4 months for it to be released,” he said. “I wanted to be more connected to the people consuming the music. There is a kind of visceral fulfillment you get from sharing something that you've just created with other people. That's a very satisfying feeling as an artist. “All art is in some way shaped by the current state of the world around the person creating it so there's a element of zeitgeist built into any album. We just finished mastering the album so it will be a month old when people hear it. I'm hoping people get a sense that this music is directly connected to the time they are experiencing it in.” Epoch was arranged alongside Zac Brown, a long time collaborator and partner in the Tycho project. Brown contributed bass and guitar parts to the songwriting process, while Rory O'Connor played drums. O’Connor was brought in during the Dive tour cycle. Hansen has known Brown since their Sacramento upbringing. “At the end of Dive is when we started to work together on a couple songs. I thought there should be more guitar. Zac played on a couple songs like on ‘Ascension.’ He played some bass and guitar on ‘Hours.’ I brought him on to play parts in the shows. We did Awake together. We took the same approach with this record.” Hansen sees Epoch as a multi-dimensional artistic vision at the confluence of his graphic design work via ISO50 and music with Tycho. The graphic presentation of the album artwork is as important as the music itself. The keystone is the central image of Epoch and the colour scheme red and black. This is a stark contrast to the almost rainbow palette of Awake.

Brothers Dana and Alden McWayne, along with a troupe of multi-instrumental artists, come together to create jazzy melodies with indie sounds inspired by their unconventional upbringing in Eugene, Oregon. Following the success of their debut full-length album and it’s lead track “Dragonfly” (which tracked 300,000 TikTok creations, and over 10 million streams) the band recruited fan of the band Jared Solomon (Sza, Remi Wolf, Teezo Touchdown) to produce their sophomore LP, Coyote, You’re My Star. Melding vintage sounds with the aesthetic and experience of existing in Gen Z and the digital age, the new LP has already been met with rousing approval with airtime on the Zane Lowe show on Apple as well as playlist covers like Spotify's State of Jazz. The band is also set to tour North America and Europe across festivals and headline shows.

Brothers Dana and Alden McWayne, along with a troupe of multi-instrumental artists, come together to create jazzy melodies with indie sounds inspired by their unconventional upbringing in Eugene, Oregon. Dana (saxophone) is an organic farm inspector while Alden (drums) is a recent grad of Berklee College of Music.Their debut full-length album, Quiet Music for Young People, is a lush album that melds vintage sounds with the aesthetic and experience of existing in Gen Z and the digital age. Quiet Music For Young People also reminisces of the brother's childhood, summer days spent working at an apple orchard and jamming at jazz clubs on rainy Oregon nights.The experimental smooth jazz-infused album closer "Dragonfly" has been gaining traction on streaming due to trends across Instagram and TikTok. The band has recently toured across the US supporting Benny Sings and will be making their headline debut at NYC's Baby's All Right this winter.