MUSIC

In the late 2000s a sprawling catalog of what is now genre-defining music was emanating from an unlikely place. Cleveland, Ohio has a broad reputation for many things, but in the aughts, psyche-expanding Kosmische wasn’t necessarily Cleveland’s calling card… until Emeralds. The trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire had released a profusion of limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl titles that had been passed around basement shows and then migrated to niche music communities online, creating a unique kind of murmur at the height of the DIY blog era. Three kids from the rust belt were crafting a distinctive and truly far-out strain of music on their own terms in the Midwest. They were flipping lids in wood-paneled basements and circulating around the underground with soaring sounds stylistically indebted to deep German electronic music pioneers and released with the ethos and twisted fervor of renegade Midwestern noise freaks. After several releases garnered a die-hard fandom in niche circles of internet/music culture, and then catching the attention of the late Peter Rehberg, the renowned artist and curator of the Editions Mego label, an expectation was set that the next Emeralds record was going to be a big one. And in 2010, Does it Look Like I'm Here was it.Artistically, the album is a definitive statement; this is to say it was crafted by heads for heads, a genuine article and a profoundly deep listen, but the mainstream dove in too. Pitchfork acknowledged the rarefied nature of the album’s electricity with a "Best New Music" rating. This crossover success is a result of the tracks' potency and wonderfully engineered and succinct structures. It's dialed in. Still creating their distinct yawning cosmic sound, Elliott and Hauschildt shower the stereo spectrum with shimmering arpeggios, dusty, melodically dynamic swells, rippling FM textures, and canyon-wide waveshapes. McGuire's signature guitar playing echoes emotive new age pathos and cascading astral space rock trance states. Their previous albums found many tracks hovering past the ten-minute mark, but these new songs were short, potent. "Candy Shoppe" opens the album with polished elegance; Emeralds' throbbing synthetic sound made bite-sized, an incandescent morsel wrapped in waxed paper. On "Goes By" the languid electric guitar strums and swooning synth pads peel apart into enveloping sheets of synth gargling and soaring leads. Both tracks are entire worlds kept neatly under five minutes. If previous albums like Solar Bridge and What Happened were lysergic sprawls, Does It Look Like I'm Here presents itself as a tin holding a series of psychonautic blasts. This is all to say, the album lived up to the hype.A twelve-song expedition across a dusty and shimmering dreamscape, Does It Look Like I’m Here, with its iconic cover presenting the aesthetic, was a radiant tube tv left humming, collecting space-dust in a darkened room, grandma's vase filled with oil-dinged polypropylene flowers. The album seems aware of the cultural flood/void that the internet was then and would only further create, and yet there is a beauty here, an embracing of the past, both authentically and through a kind of tripped-out kitsch, as a way to find a new ecstatic present. Hallowed pioneers – think Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Temple, Kraftwerk, Can – had felt legendarily out of reach across time and culture; a star-pocked thing of the distant misty past. Emeralds took that sound and made it contemporary, made it punk, made it American-outsider. Thus, an entire wave of American DIY ambient music was heralded into mid-if-not-mainstream attention; Emeralds, and the acts that followed their lead after, dared the experimental and noise community to embrace more melody and structure, and too invited the quasi-academic world of deep ambient to become crusty and home-spun. DIY venues would suddenly need to make space between droves of scuzzy indie acts or punishing no-input mixer debacles so the ambient zoners could astral project while Emeralds, or groups following Emeralds' lead, created soundscapes on piles of synths and pedals. Listening to it now, 13 years after its original release on Editions Mego, the album sounds however timeless, still immediate. There is a wide-pupiled and cotton-mouthed awe sewn into these radiant folds of sound; for those newly into this sort of thing, let this reissue serve as an initiation, a history lesson, and a heroic dose. For those who've come up in the scene and have worn out their mp3s of this album; they can finally get a fresh copy on vinyl. Does It Look Like I'm Here became a hallmark that would carve a path for an entire scene. Ghostly International is thrilled to reissue the album, remastered by Heba Kadry, including 7 bonus tracks exclusive to the digital album and CD. The limited edition 2xLP includes extensive liner notes by Chris Madak (Bee Mask).

Written and recorded between 1972 and 1982 in Western Oregon, Back to the Woodlands is a previously unreleased, and nearly lost, album made by Ernest Hood during the same era as his near mythical album Neighborhoods. A visionary combination of field recordings, zithers, and synthesizers, Back to the Woodlands offers an unprecedented depth of access to this singular artistic mind. Working closely with his estate to maintain his original vision, Freedom to Spend has restored and remastered this never before released, lost masterpiece by Ernest Hood from the original tapes. Ernest Hood’s Back to the Woodlands will be issued on vinyl, as well as on CD in combination with its contemporary Where the Woods Begin, with new liner notes by Michael Klausman.

A jazz-rock masterpiece by master musician Jiro Inagaki! Beyond Jazz Rock. Soul Media, led by Jiro Inagaki, has arrived at the ultimate tight and cool groove. As Inagaki himself says, "I did black funk." By combining the burst of jazz rock he had cultivated up to that point with the tenacity and elasticity of black music, his musicality took a leap to another dimension. The groove is polished, shiny, and bewitching, coupled with the masterful arrangements of virtuoso Hiromasa Suzuki. The lively and fast "Painted Paradise," the funkiness and mellowness of "Breeze," the low center of gravity and sharpness of "Kool & the Gang," "Funky Stuff," and "Painted Paradise," the melodic "Breeze," and "Funky Stuff," the melodic "Funky Stuff," are all well-known. The entire album is worth listening to, including a cover of "Funky Stuff" by Kool & the Gang. This is a definitive masterpiece that continues to be a worldwide favorite.

韓国初のロック・バンドとされる「Add4」を率いた同国のロック・ミュージックのパイオニアであり、「ロックのゴッドファーザー」と称される、ロック・ギタリスト／シンガーソングライターのShin Joong-hyunの決定版的アンソロジーをストック。「Add4」の一員として1960年代から1970年代にかけて同国のサイケデリック・ロック・シーンを盛り上げたコリアン・ロックの父、Shin Joong Hyunのキャリアを網羅した一枚。

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

To celebrate 20 years of this incredible album by Masami Akita, we are doing a limited edition gatefold vinyl pressing on baby pink colored vinyl limited to 300 copies worldwide.

Celebrating 20 years of one of the most brutally honest and experimental albums in the last 50 years. A true gem that is coming for the first time on vinyl as a double metallic gray colored LP. Newly remastered album by Masami Akita himself, this release includes 4 new tracks and new artwork revisiting the location of the famous Amlux tower 20 years in the future taken by the artist. This is limited to 300 copies Worldwide.

Every copy purchased through our Bandcamp will include a limited edition print of the artwork signed by the photographer Jose Moreno Rahn of one of the new artwork included in the 20th anniversary edition of the vinyl record.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Brainstory’s sophomore full-length album Sounds Good. Based in L.A. but hailing from the Inland Empire's own Rialto, California, two-thirds of Brainstory, Kevin and Tony Martin are brothers by blood, while Eric Hagstrom is a brother through their music and long term friendship. Since they started the band they have constantly faced situations that forced them to rise to the occasion. They got signed to Big Crown Records, they stepped up their game. COVID happened, they learned to record themselves. They started touring a ton sharing the stage with the likes of Lady Wray and they got their live show super tight. All of this time spent grinding and growing has certainly paid off. The path to take their art to the next level is clearer than ever, and once again, they are here for it. If there is one thing that is abundantly clear on Sounds Good, it’s that Brainstory has leveled up. Part of this evolution is undoubtedly attributed to having access to and working constantly in their own studio in Long Beach. Another major factor is that their brotherhood has expanded. "I've been playing music with my brother all my life and now with Eric for a long time," Tony tells us. "Leon, though, is like another brother I've just met." Leon Michels, Big Crown's co-owner, produced this record and applied his unmistakable golden touch in crucial ways. The other member of the extended Brainstory brotherhood whose contributions were essential to the album, is studio engineer legend Jens Jungkurth who controls the tones and textures of the music. "That's what you're hearing, our connection, the fun moments, the little details," Kevin describes. "This record isn't half what it is without them—and it made us want to match that effort," and match that effort they did. Album opener "Nobody But You" is an uplifting, dance floor burner, that shows off a new side of Brainstory's range. Drummer Eric Hagstrom’s crushing back beat lays the foundation for an inspirational feel good banger that manages to take the uncomfortable truth that “nobody will save you but you” and turn it into pure blissful motivation. "Peach Optimo" is a laid back half time tune that blends the bounce of Down South Hip-Hop with California G funk and Jazz. They once again show off their B said ballad talents with "Gift Of Life" but this time taking the genre to a new place with lyrics about existentialism and a track that is drop dead gorgeous, haunting, and profound all at once. "NyNy" is an homage to Kev and Tony's recently deceased grandfather while "Too Yung" is a show stopping, deeply personal, stripped down number about being introduced to alcohol at a young age. They put another hit on the boards with "Hanging On," a Latin / Psychedelic Soul inspired banger featuring Claire Cottrill on background vocals while "XFaded” addresses the all too common vicious cycle of smoking and drinking too much over a trippy shuffle. "It's been four years since our last full length record, and with everything that's happened since, it's like we've been catching up to ourselves." That's one way to describe change: catching up to oneself. Each member of Brainstory has gone through shifts, both personally and musically, and all of that threads through Sounds Good. It's easy to say that the music industry can be short on lasting, genuine relationships. However, for Brainstory, from day one it's been about standing by each other, for each other. Their friendship started the group, and now, this expanded brotherhood is supporting them to push it further. The stars have aligned for them to take a big and well deserved step with this new album and it couldn't have happened to a better group of guys. Ups and downs of course, but they are acutely aware of how good the big picture has been for them and you can hear it in their music—music that just Sounds Good.

Many still see Louis Cole foremost as a drummer. nothing, Cole's fifth album and his third on Brainfeeder – released on 9th August 2024 – is bound to change that impression. Collaborating with the Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley, he rejected the well-trodden path to orchestral renditions of his greatest hits and instead opted to compose a suite of brand new music for this project – bigger, bolder, and more expansive than ever. Yes, there are nods to his GRAMMY-nominated 2022 album Quality Over Opinion, but 15 of the 17 tracks included here are brand new. This is jazz. This is classical music. It's got that funk. You'll hear synths and loops. You'll hear a band and live drumming. There's a world class orchestra playing. Some pieces are ultra concise, whereas the sprawling ‘Doesn’t Matter’ surpasses the ten minute mark. To Cole, jazz has always been the one place where you can really let go of all expectations – on nothing, he is putting the music where his mouth is.

The Metropole Orkest proved to be the ideal partner for this endeavor. Over the course of its 80 year history, it has worked with legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Pat Metheny, and Herbie Hancock – exactly the kind of border-crossing mentality Cole was looking for. Add into the equation the conductor, arranger, curator and composer Jules Buckley and this really is a triple threat of epic proportions. Buckley is a unique and rare breed of artist – a GRAMMY winner who has redefined the rulebook of orchestral music and the role of a conductor.

Together, the ensemble embarked on a multi-date sold-out tour through Europe with the 50-piece orchestra, Cole's band, as well as guest stars like his long-time creative partner Genevieve Artadi. With the exception of a few vocal re-recordings and instrumental overdubs, everything you'll hear on nothing was culled from these ecstatic live dates.

This is remarkable because, almost until the very end, nothing was not actually an album. It was a collaboration, a series of concerts, a cross-over between two worlds. Cole had been eagerly waiting for an opportunity like this for years. His father had been a big classical music fan and as a kid, he'd absorbed a lot of that. Once he got the call to work on a project involving an orchestra, he instantly “went hard” with the writing. The finished recording encompasses 17 tracks and stretches across more than an hour of music – and still, a few more tracks had to be left on the cutting room floor.

Cole was looking for something very specific. The challenge was to create music that had a deep emotional impact, while also being really simple and straight-forward. Already at the earliest stages of his orchestral ambitions, he had tried and failed to achieve this ideal. It would remain an obsession for years. Even when nothing was still a live project, it didn't seem like he would be able to pull it off. And then, at the very last minute, Louis decided to give it one more go. One night, he sat down at the keyboard and instantly realised: “This is it!” He struck on the ideas and themes which would become the pivotal title track of the album.

Just as with many of the orchestral pieces, there was a clear vision of the feeling and the sound he was looking for. For “Ludovici Cole Est Frigus”, he based everything on a 30-40 chord progression at a pace of “one chord at a time”. Then, he went back in with the pencil tool and Logic, finding and weaving together little melodies. It was a slow, assiduous process. But working with an outside arranger was never an option: “It was the only way I was ever going to be happy with the results. This is my pure vision. It doesn't get blended in or mixed with anyone else's.”

Having already written and arranged the suite, Cole is also very proud of the mixing, an epic task in its own right. For a full nine months, he selected the best takes, tweaked the sonic balance and adjusted frequencies until the orchestral parts really shone. “I was sad when the mixing was over,” he laughs, “Sometimes, when I'm mixing my own solo stuff, I'll feel like a song needs a little magical dust. But mixing an entire orchestra and your own rhythm section, there's so much human energy! You don't have to add any magic. It was there the whole time.”

Aprender a Ser: Extended is a mini-LP by Mexico City band Mint Field. It was recorded at the same sessions as Mint Field's latest album Aprender A Ser which Pitchfork called “... a dream world without much explanation, but like the body settling into a chilled pool, the acclimation is worth it.” . The core duo of Estrella del Sol and Sebastian Neyra decided to split the work into an album and an EP as they felt it was too dense for a double album and wanted these songs to co-exist in another space and have its own time to shine. As with Aprender A Ser, the EP incorporates influences from shoegaze, trip-hop, dream pop and electronic music. On the final track, "El mar me veía", the band invited longtime friend and cello player Mabe Fratti to play with them. Mabe also showed up on Estrella’s solo album titled Figura de Cristal in 2023.

The 4th full-length studio album by Robert Alfons aka TR/ST (fka Trust), 'Performance', sinks even further into the nasty synth-pop psychodrama that the project has pioneered and, finally, perfected across over a decade of evolution. Recorded in Los Angeles, the songs seethe with dread, lust, reckoning, and abandon, backlit by the light pollution of a thousand dead end city streets. Alfons co-produced the collection with versatile composer and producer Nightfeelings, achieving a thick, smoky balance of eerie synths, fog machine low end, and bruised, crooning voice. The title alludes to a friend’s offhand remark about Alfons' intrinsically performative nature. The opener, "Soon," swells to life with hymnal electronics before kicking through the dance floor with a huge new wave hook, spiked with caustic kiss-off lyrics ("Asleep I still say it aloud / Scared stiff it’s all around / We never did call it off, now our organs dried / Scared stiff to stone, you liar"). The music moves between beauty and bitterness, anthem and anguish, the sound of melancholia gone massive. On track after track, Alfons wields pop dynamics and brooding production wizardry like a weapon, spiraling through a roll call of singles – "All At Once," "The Shore," "Dark Day," "Boys of LA." Throughout, there’s a sense of emotional turmoil elevated to strange heights, stained by guilt and ghosts and the memory of those wronged and those still unforgiven. As a world unto itself, Performance is persuasive, immersive, and intoxicating, at the threshold of stirring and disturbing. Alfons’ voice is the anchor in the storm, singing a collage of impressions and confessions with a smeared, stream of consciousness logic. He’s both observer and instigator, performer and playwright, liberated by the stage and the night: "Now we see the rotten mind / It’s eye to eye and mysteries/ Sail your boat for shore / I sit by the window waiting for it."

Brazilian singer, poet, guitarist Joao Gilberto made his 1959 debut with the now legendary LP, ‘Chega de Saudade’, a new sound and acknowledge as the first bossa nova album, a genre that swept the world in popularity and taken up by such artists as Stan Getz, Charly Byrd, Astrud Gilberto, Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, and countless others. Presented here is essentially a themed compilation of some of his best songs, including tracks from his acclaimed debut LP, ‘Chega de Saudade’.

Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road is a duet in ambience by Pan American (Mark K. Nelson) and Kramer. This experimental record is 11 brief sojourns into the dream state, produced by Kramer (of Shimmy-Disc) and co-written with Mark K. Nelson (of Labradford, Anjou).This record is a brotherly and collaborative follow-up to Kramer's 2022 ambient excursions, "Music For Films Edited By Moths".On the making of this collaborative project, Mark K. Nelson said "It was an honor to work with Kramer. That we came out of it with a great friendship and a record that's unique to each of our histories and music that we're proud to share is a privilege and a joy."As Kramer has described, the result of this record is a work that begs listeners, both animal and human, to allow these beautiful landscapes to sing and speak and weep for themselves.Simply put by Kramer, "Please. Forget about words. Just LISTEN."

Even in this age of near-total Internet accessibility, Charlie Megira is a modern mystery. A casual search turns up little aside from a few cryptic articles. His brief career unfolded during a changing of the guard in the music industry, opening on the death of the compact disc and ending just prior to Spotify’s IPO. For an artist like Megira, living far away from a major music outpost, there was more chaos than structure for his recordings to exist and find an audience. This collection is the first attempt at putting the pieces together, compiling a life’s work of an artist whose spark almost shined unto the world.
His was a music both familiar and entirely alien at once. It touches on corners of darkness, an isolation both lonely and sweet, all wrapped in a cold glow that draws the listener into each note, each melancholy melody triggering unrecorded experiences. His various projects put out music which began as a junction point between Link Wray’s surf guitar and the theatrical psychobilly of The Cramps, took a turn towards goth-inflected post-punk, and towards the end of his career would sojourn back into his earlier musical fascination with late 1950s and early 1960s rock ‘n’ roll.

The Israeli guitarist recorded seven albums worth of material in 15 years during his all-too-brief 44 trips around the sun.Tomorrow’s Gone collects 24 of these tracks for a double album journey across his career, accompanied by a lavish booklet that documents his tragic existence. Armed with only an Eko guitar, a black tuxedo, and his signature wrap-around shades, Charlie Megira was a mold-breaking artist who disintegrated while we were all staring at our phones.

A real people music masterpiece, D.R. Hooker’s 1972 debut meets at the be-in of drug-addled hippy psychedelia and evangelical Christianity. Conjuring visions of an L.S.D.-damaged Frank Sinatra or Lou Reed playing the role of a divorced suburban dad, The Truth is a religious midlife crisis disguised as a private press LP. Forge your own chains, indeed.

昨年の初のフルレングス『Bewilderment』が大変秀逸な内容だった、Carole King、William Onyeaborなど、幅広いソングライターの影響を受けているというジャズ・ヴォーカリスト、ピアニストのPale Jayによる最新アルバム『Low End Love Songs』が当店お馴染み〈Colemine〉傘下の〈Karma Chief Records〉からアナログ・リリース。前作から早一年、たった4週間で作り上げたという、カタルシスと喜びに満ちたアルバム！ラテンからの豊穣な影響が浸透し、ソウル・ミュージックのルーツに新しいリズムとテクスチャーのレイヤーを追加したような、複雑で豊かな構成のインディ・ソウル作品に仕上げられています。

Big Crown Records is proud to present Forever & Ever, the debut album from Thee Heart Tones.Hailing from Hawthorne, California, Thee Heart Tones are both carrying on a tradition and pushing the boundaries with their music. Lead singer Jazmine Alvarado is just 19 years old and the oldest member of the group, Jorge Rodriguez is 21, but one listen to their record and it becomes blatantly apparent they are a talent well beyond their years.Thee Heart Tones are Jazmine on vocals, Ricky Cerezo on keys and organ, Jorge on drums, Jeffrey Romero on bass, Peter Chagolla on lead guitar, and Walter Morales on rhythm guitar. As the story goes, "one day I got a DM from Ricky Cerezo asking if I wanted to write a song for his new (then unnamed) band," Jazmine says. "I knew his drummer and the other boys from middle school, so they were familiar faces. They sent me an mp3 of an instrumental they'd written and told me they wanted lyrics, so I wrote some and sent it to them." That song ended up being "Don't Take Me as a Fool," a downbeat, minor key ballad on which Jazmine's sultry, pitch-perfect vocals soar, and which is now destined for their debut album. Ricky went home to play "Don't Take Me As a Fool", recorded as a voice note on his phone, to his dad. "I was hesitant. Dad knew this music better than anyone; he grew up with it. But he grabbed my phone and held it to his ear. His approval meant a lot to me. But he had the same reaction Jorge and I did when we first heard Jazmine sing. 'This is going to be a hit,' he told me. 'You guys have something really special here'." It was that same recording that caught the ears of Leon Michels and Danny Akalepse of Big Crown Records, who both heard the potential in the group immediately. After they signed to the label, Leon flew out to Los Angeles to record their debut album with Tommy Brenneck at Tommy's Diamond West studio. They knocked out 14 songs in five days, capturing the charm of teenage soul and mixing it with their seasoned production prowess and the result is a modern classic Soul album.Album opener and title track "Forever & Ever" is an infectious two-stepper that instantly lifts your mood while heavy duty B side ballads like "Should I Call You Tonight", "Cry My Tears Away", and "It's Time" hold court with the genre's classics. They pick up the pace and fill the dancefloor with "Need Something More" as Jazmine matter of factly sets the record straight on a Northern Soul styled track. They cover the Álvaro Carrillo penned classic "Sabor A Mi" to great effect, doing it justice and putting their version right up there with the best of them. Another standout is their version of The Vanguards classic "Somebody Please" which they change the tone of and take to a different level. The punching drums of "No Longer Mine" juxtapose Jazmine's honeyed vocals and wind up with the gritty energy of a mid 90s hip hop sample.Forever & Ever is both a testament to their unmistakable musical chemistry and talent. Their intentions as a band are testament to their collective character. Choosing to cover "Sabor A Mi" "allows us to let our audience know we go back to our roots," Jazmine says. "Growing up in LA, you get influenced by the city, the artwork, the music," Ricky says. "Dad didn't own a lowrider car, but other members of our family did. Impalas. El Caminos. We were influenced by the culture, particularly the Chicano culture. And oldies and soul music played a big part." The style. The culture. The nod to the past. "That's what we're going for. We want to connect young Chicanos with their heritage. And we want to unite people — old and young."

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, the mysterious steel pan outfit hailing from Hamburg, Germany have amassed a cult following around the globe. With a slew of classic 7”s and three critically acclaimed full length albums, they set a high bar for themselves, one they clearly intend on pushing even higher with this new offering. On their fourth album BRSB, Bacao are back with more of the same, but more of the same with them is inherently different. Covering songs that span genres and range from mega hits to underground album cuts, they make them their own with their unique approach to the traditional steel pans of Trinidad and Tobago. While part of the allure of a new Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band album is finding out what covers they do it is equally intriguing to see what original tunes they cooked upland this record is foul of stand out originals. The album opener, “In The Crosshairs” is a rough and tough mid tempo head nodder while both “Grilled” & “Treasure Quest” pick up the tempo with heavy African Funk influences on both. Bacao goes deep with “Hazy Memories”, a bass heavy slow burner that walks a line between hypnotic and hype. All these originals stand as testament that the term “cover band” is a shoe that could never fit Bacao. However, in the tradition of steel pan music, they do a heavy amount of covers. This time around there is a big West Coast Hip Hop influence with covers of Game & 50 Cent’s “How We Do”, Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin But A G Thang”, and Tupac’s “Got My Mind Made Up” all of which take on new energy and lend themselves to the BRSB steel treatment. Bacao puts another certified dancefloor filler on their resume with their cover of Claudja Barry’s uber Disco classic “Love For The Sake Of Love” which they flip into a dubbed out affair aptly changing even the title to “Love For The Sake Of Dub”. Pulling from the contemporary smash hit section of Hop Hop they cover Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and “Love$ick” by Mura Masa & A$AP Rocky. Then they go very unexpected with “Stranger Things Theme” where they take the synth heavy theme song to the hit show and give it a more hypnotizing tone than the original.By the time BRSB is through, Bacao has taken the listener on a journey spanning a myriad of energies, tempos, and moods while keeping it all under one umbrella. For all that, these songs are alive, and they will be taken out of the context of this album and sewn into the fabric of DJ sets around the globe for many years to come. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band continues building their legacy and pushing the boundaries of steel pan music forward with another rock solid musical offering. Enjoy.

By turns devotional, empowering and nurturing, Jon Hopkins’ forthcoming RITUAL is a 41-minute electronic symphony built from cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming and transcendent melodic interplay. Tense, immersive and ultimately triumphant, it is a culmination of themes explored throughout his 22-year career, and acts as the kinetic counterpart to 2021’s Music For Psychedelic Therapy.

A single piece unfolding over eight chapters, RITUAL is personified by depth and contrast. Taking ceremony, spiritual liberation and the hero's journey as inspiration, it taps into an ancient and primal energy.

Featuring long-term collaborators Vylana, 7RAYS, Ishq, Clark, Emma Smith, Daisy Vatalaro and Cherif Hashizume, RITUAL came together within the second half of 2023, but initial seeds were sown in 2022, when Hopkins was commissioned to compose for the stroboscopic Dreamachine experience in London. A project that felt ceremonial from the outset, this shorter piece was the embryo of RITUAL, with Hopkins gaining inspiration from the feeling of intention that is inherent in the Dreamachine space.

RITUAL is both emotionally and sonically heavy, whilst retaining a warm, live feel, where the juxtaposition between softness and intensity forms the core of the whole. So take time, prepare and immerse in RITUAL for 41 minutes of uninterrupted listening: sonic divination of the most potent form.

Minecraft - Volume Alpha is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."

Drifts and Surfaces is a three-piece set, with each work originating from commissions, and unified by shared themes: the flux between ephemeral movement and everyday stasis, the paradox of extraordinary and mundane beauty, and the ambition and idleness, that defines living in the 21st century. Saxl continues to utilize chamber-music ensemble alongside analog synth and digital experimentation, deeply tuning into textural emotion and the vivid details of small actions. While her 2021 breakthrough LP, The Blue of Distance, processed recordings from the Adirondacks and Lake Superior, Saxl’s source material here comes primarily from live percussion and other instrumentation. The project started in 2018 in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood at the practice space that Saxl’s band shares with the percussion trio Tigue. Later that year, they performed a residency together and captured the piece before the pandemic set in. In 2021, she began a new commission with Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion.Drifts shares its title with Kate Zambreno’s 2020 novel, where the protagonist becomes entranced by the work of Chantal Ackerman, which presents the typically female invisible forms of domestic labor as equally valuable to activities more commonly seen as productive. Saxl posits Drifts in the spirit of that feminist thesis: “It feels like there’s a little lineage here of women exploring this idea and celebrating small action that I hope I am continuing the work of.”The final piece, “Surfaces,” was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum in conjunction with the Alex Katz retrospective in 2022. The group — comprised of Henry Solomon on baritone saxophone, Robby Bowen on glass marimba, and Saxl — leans into light, ruminative tones inspired by the pioneering painter’s present-minded approach. Katz's work deals with the optical perception of “quick things passing,” like the liminality of dusk when an object's outlines start to become unclear. “The ways in which our perception of things change not because they change but because we change,” explains Saxl. “I wanted to have these really minor changes feel dramatic, to mirror the imagined movement in his paintings.”Stepping back to view “Surfaces” within the set, Saxl finds the stream that runs throughout, the concept of the self as part of something greater. “Katz’s depiction of multiple generations of New York City artists inspired me to think about how there is no individual ‘me’ as an artist without both the artists who came before me and the community of artists I’ve grown alongside. The delineation between us blurs, and I feel as though I am carried on an interwoven surface formed by the community around me. At the same time, I know that eventually, I have to turn inwards and swim out alone.”

For nearly three decades, WHY? have thrived in subverting expectations. Across seven unpredictable and adventurous studio albums, the band led by Cincinnati songwriter Yoni Wolf has stretched the fringes of psychedelic pop, hip-hop, and electronic music. No matter the genre experiments and thematic departures, their discography is remarkably consistent, anchored by Wolf's disarming lyrical transparency. His writing is provocative, self-lacerating, and always considered, coming from a place of blunt emotional openness. The Well I Fell Into, the eighth full-length from WHY?, is Wolf at his most cohesive and poignant. An autopsy of heartbreak, the album charts the ups and downs of a devastating breakup while trading bitterness for healing. Self-released on Waterlines, Wolf's new label that follows in the footsteps of Anticon, the trailblazing artist-run collective he co-founded, its 14 tracks stand as the band's prettiest and most immediate work yet.

My first EP, June McDoom, was hugely inspired by the minimal sound of the 60s and 70s folk era. I wanted to reimagine a couple of those songs more stripped down as a follow up to that first EP. Judee Sill's songwriting and arrangements have impacted me deeply, and so I hoped to honor the music she made by recording a version of her song, “Emerald River Dance” – one of my favorite songs for many years and a song I still sing at most of my shows. The first time I heard “Black is the Color” was Tia Blake's version that she recorded in 1971, and then Nina Simone's performance inspired me to try and record a rendition of my own. While writing "On My Way" and "The City," I always imagined versions of those songs stripped down with three-part harmonies, which I was finally able to do here with dear friends, Cécile McLorin Salvant and Kate Davis, who have both been big inspirations to me throughout the years. One of my close friends, Sam Weissberg – who I met while studying in jazz school when I first moved to New York City – worked with me and arranged the harp and strings for each song. I produced the songs and tracked the remaining instruments and vocals with Evan Wright at our new studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that we share with our friend, Nick Hakim (who also provided backing vocals on “On My Way”).

“ A ‘Pear’ of albums on one vinyl LP... a combo of heavy psychedelia, drum and bass grooves, bouncy boogie, catchy tunes and sprinkles of tastee horns, keys and strings thrown in... kinda like a thumb over the genre-hose nozzle, something for everyone and nothing for someone... guaranteed! “ “‘Grow A Pear’ has been in the works for 5 years. What started as my contributions for the ‘new’ Butthole Surfers’ album that was not to be... turned into a solo album I recorded with contributions from some of my favorite flavor players to create an album that most represents where I came from and bridges to where I’m at right now. My wishes for the future, is that everyone in the world will finally ‘Grow A Pear’ “ -JD Pinkus, 2024 (Butthole Surfers / Melvins / Honky / Helios Creed...) The 1st pressing is limited to 555 hand-numbered LP's on 150gm black vinyl, available exclusively through the Shimmy-Shop. Also available on 150gram Clear Vinyl. The free digital download card that accompanies each vinyl purchase also includes special "digital-only" bonus material. 'Grow A Pear' features a veritable cornucopia of American Indie music radicals! - Åsa Söderqvist and Lina Ericcson of Shitkid, Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers, Sam Coomes of Quasi and Jon Spencer’s Hit Makers, Mike Savino of Tall Tall Trees, Walter Daniels of Bigfoot Chester, Mike Alfred of Shed Alford, Jed Willis of Khandroma, Michael Brueggen of Honky and Syrup, Billy Sheeran of Billy Sheeran.... ...and it seems like only yesterday that Shimmy-Disc released JD Pinkus' 'Fungus Shui', his second solo “space grass” banjo album. The album was written, recorded, and mixed by Pinkus himself at Plastic Cannon Studio in Asheville, North Carolina and was mastered by Kramer.