MUSIC

I first heard about this incredible record from my friend and renowned collector Ian Wright back in the mid-2000s. Ian may well have been the first to feature it on a mixtape around that time. He originally found his copy on eBay without a sound clip calling the seller to listen over the phone before taking a chance on it. A true San Diego masterpiece, now highly sought after within the Modern Soul scene. Beyond that dedicated circle, it has remained largely unknown, due to its insane rarity. Although Glen is sadly no longer with us, his legacy lives on through this stunning piece of music, which will finally get the attention it deserves on dancefloors all over the world. Special thanks to the ever-dapper James Pogson for his invaluable help with securing the licence x

Once in a while Athens of the North drops something for the heads, and this is most definitely one of those. An insane deep soul rarity — and I mean so rare most people don’t even know it exists, I certainly didn’t till labelmate Brian Sears played it to me. Sugar Bear and the Sensations came out of Houston, Texas, masterminded by Clyde Gambrel (who was kind enough to clear this for re-release). They only ever released this one 45 as Sugar Bear & The Sensations, though Clyde also put out another killer 45 under just Sugar Bear.

Blood Blood Song continues East of the Valley Blues’ streak of sublime, future-forward acoustic fantasias. For years, the Toronto-based duo, comprised of brothers Kevin and Patrick Cahill, has excelled at an earthy and pensive brand of instrumental music inspired by notions of folk music as a global, rather than regional, idiom. While the duo’s elegant and unassuming virtuosity easily distinguishes East of the Valley Blues from its contemporaries of would-be Bashos and fledgling Faheys, it is the group’s telepathic improv that provides the certain x-factor that ultimately sets it apart from its peers. Throughout Blood Blood Song, Kevin Cahill’s percussive, prepared nylon string guitar---occasionally evoking the sound of a begena—remains in constant conversation with his brother Patrick’s nimble steel string abstractions. Though the stereo separation places the brothers on opposite corners of the stereo field—Kevin mostly on the right and Patrick mostly on the left—the two guitars often create the illusion of appearing to meet in the middle, where they blend into a single, dynamic sound. Blood Blood Song is an album of uncommon intimacy and grace. Of music that doesn’t so much develop as unspool. Music that blooms. - James Toth / Wooden Wand

DINTE sub-label 333 returns with this double A-sided 45, lifting two of the choicest cuts from Devon Russell's LP of Curtis Mayfield cover versions - previously reissued for the first release on the imprint back in 2022, and long since sold out. Originally released in the early 80s on the High Music label, produced by Earl "Chinna" Smith with assistance from the great Mutaburaka. "We grew up on the sounds of Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions. Everyone in Jamaica loved them. His death was a terrible thing, but while there is life, there is hope." - Devon Russell, 1994

A collection of spellbinding, melismatic vocal improvisations taken from 78s cut between the mid 1920s to mid '30s - a period defined by the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s partition, the Greco-Turkish War and the compulsory population exchange that followed. This same period also represented a time of intense efforts, following the establishment of the Republic, to westernise the new nation's music - coupled with a ban on traditional music education in schools, and later a complete ban on broadcasting Ottoman-Turkish classical music on the radio. As such these performances seem shrouded in an even more distant past, and feel quite intimately connected with forms of Greek amanes and rebetiko - having stemmed from the same Ottoman makam system, both with a subject-matter focussed on heartbreak, yearning, and pain.

To mark 50-years since a 22 year old Michael Gregory Jackson recorded his groundbreaking first release, "CLARITY / CIRCLE / TRIANGLE / SQUARE", recorded with the mind blowing group of his contemporaries Oliver Lake, David Murray and Leo Smith. This album is like no other I know, a new world, finding a perfect balance between multiple genres. Moved-By- Sound is very excited and honored to be involved in releasing the first reissue authorized by Michael Gregory Jackson since the original release in 1976. Remastered and restored, it is a perfect album in which to lose and/or find yourself in these complicated times.

Latency presents R&B outsider Zsela who joins forces with Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, Kelela) and film composer Taul Katz on 4 Dreams, a billowing ambient-neoclassical hallucination originally commissioned for the exhibition Seven Heavenly Senses at Hôtel de la Marine, Paris. 4 Dreams consists of four tracks that each unfold as embracive harmonies of cinematic strings, FM synths, muggy bass drones, and Zsela’s soulful vocals. Even though 4 Dreams moves in a different direction than the debut Big For You (Mexican Summer, 2024), the inspiration of soul, jazz and R&B still shines through on the album, as Zsela’s humming vocals, with its jazz-inspired key changes, keep you intrigued. For this release, alongside critically acclaimed producer Daniel Aged and composer Taul Katz, Zsela steps confidently into the field of instrumental composition. This exploration of instrumental and ambient composition can be seen as a continuation of themes previously explored in her collaborations with UK-based artist Actress on the songs 'Angel’s Pharmacy' and 'Remembrance' from the album Karma & Desire (Ninja Tune, 2020). 4 Dreams bears the same atmospheric neo-classical attributes as recent releases by Nala Sinephro, Malibu, Mary Lattimore, and even draws on the legacy of spiritual jazz legends such as Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby. The cover art is a detail of a painting by American visual artist Naudline Pierre, whose practice revolves around appropriating iconography from art history to create her own mythology and dreamlike narratives.

Shape of the Moon is the California based duo of Benjamin Burke and Bear Glass that explores existential headspaces beyond mundane frames of thought. Following streams of consciousness that contemplate the stardust that forms us to the very first human sound that reverberated through a cave, Shape of the Moon intertwines language and music into ambient dream-weaving narratives. When the land is laid bare forms a collection of recordings composed of Burke reciting his introspective poems and Glass improvising gripping modular synth and string patterns. Burke brings a wealth of experience working between an impressively vast range of written and visual mediums to Glass’s live electronics and acoustic instrumentation mirroring the spoken word. The pieces on the album consist of excerpts from live outdoor performances under the night sky in the Mojave desert as well as sessions in Glass’s off-grid solar powered studio. Burke drapes vivid vocal narration over deeply immersive textures and melodies conjured up by Glass on Buchla, bass and sitar, painting peaks and valleys that live score the storytelling. The duo tread their own path fusing poetry with undulating electroacoustic instrumentals, arriving at meditative and ASMR territories that draw inspiration from ambient and electronica. Often joined on stage by guest musicians playing anything from Rhodes, percussion, jaw harp and saxophone, the recordings edge towards blues and spiritual jazz. Benjamin Burke is a poet, writer, performer, and visual artist who spends his time lending a hand to unusual artistic expeditions around the world. Most recently, he helped to launch Dhun and Dhun School, a humanist eco-township and progressive education center on a 500 acre biopreserve in Rajasthan, India. He has written and performed countless unusual shows, experimenting widely and, through that, witnessing firsthand what makes ideas resonate for his audiences. This work evolved over time into an approach he refers to as Applied Poetics which he employs to help communities set intentions, scientists present their findings, and humanitarian organizations find their footing. Bear Glass is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, music teacher, live sound engineer, and founding member of Mobius Acoustics who build innovative sound systems and host events on the West Coast (utilizing a quadraphonic setup for live performances and immersive drone bath sessions). Glass is involved in various collaborative projects with a couple of releases under different pseudonyms as well as a solo tape featuring a track with prolific producer Carlos Niño. For most of the year, Glass lives sustainably off-grid with his family on a plot of land outside Joshua Tree, a mini utopia infamous for his well curated private campouts and artist residencies. Wide skies, magnificent climates, and being surrounded by the love of family and friends inform Bear’s musical output and artistic practice. Shape of the Moon present their debut album for Marionette’s 30th title, channeling an inquisitive yet playful state of mind that marvels at the mysteries of the universe.

Originally released in 2005, Out To Lunch by Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Orchestra (ONJO) is a bold, track-by-track homage that reimagines Eric Dolphy’s legendary 1964 album of the same name. Bringing together the early members of ONJO, this record serves as the most vivid manifestation of Otomo’s "New Jazz" concept at the time—placing a jazz orchestra, free improvisation, and electronic textures on the exact same stage.

Aspen is very proud to introduce ‘Non Sonett’ by the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble.
 This ensemble is a pioneering Norwegian chamber group whose work on ECM and Hubro has redefined the boundaries between jazz, contemporary composition and folk music. 
Across seven albums, the ensemble has developed a highly distinctive language built on restraint, timbral nuance and collective interplay, placing it among the most influential European ensembles of the 21st century. Bringing together some of the finest musicians in Norway, the ensemble draws on a rare collective sensitivity, where each player contributes to a deeply integrated and texturally rich sound world. Non Sonett
 With Non Sonett, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble opens a new chapter that grows directly out of recent years of work in more solitary and cross-disciplinary contexts. In this period, Wallumrød has developed material for solo performance as well as for dance, allowing ideas to take shape in more fluid and exploratory formats. Some of this material now finds its way into the ensemble, where it is met by the possibilities offered by instrumentation, collective playing, and the distinct voices of the musicians. At the same time, older pieces—originating in entirely different settings—re-emerge here in new forms, reshaped by the ensemble context. A defining aspect of Non Sonett is the way many of the pieces function less as fully determined compositions and more as open frameworks: starting points, suggestions, or “springboards” for music. These structures invite response rather than prescribe outcome, relying on the ensemble’s inherent sensitivity and capacity to realize and transform the material in performance. The result is music that feels both precise and fluid, shaped in equal measure by composition and by the interpretative presence of the players. Central to this album is a continued deepening of Wallumrød’s long-standing interest in ambiguity and in dissolving boundaries between different musical elements and expressive worlds. By placing contrasting materials and associations side by side—sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly—the music opens up spaces where meanings remain fluid and interconnected. On Non Sonett, this approach is taken a step further, allowing these juxtapositions to play an even more active role in shaping the music’s character and flow. This approach connects closely with the ensemble’s broader artistic trajectory. Over time, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble has developed a language that is immediately recognizable—marked by reduction, clarity and a deep attention to sonic detail. While each release has its own character, the underlying aesthetic remains consistent: a focus on the inner life of sound itself. Rather than foregrounding gesture or virtuosity, the music draws the listener toward the smallest elements, where meaning emerges gradually through texture, spacing and timbre. The listening experience becomes one of concentration and proximity, where each sound carries weight, and the accumulation of detail forms a larger whole. References may be sensed—to early polyphonic music, Norwegian folk traditions, or more recent experimental practices—but these are absorbed into a singular musical language that resists categorization. As with the ensemble’s recent work, Non Sonett also continues the integration of electronics as a fundamental part of the sound world. Each musician engages with electronic elements alongside their acoustic instruments, creating a layered and dynamic sonic environment. At times, this leads into extended, exploratory passages reminiscent of analogue musique concrète; at others, electronics operate almost imperceptibly, subtly altering and extending the acoustic textures in real time.

Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources. Each composition presented stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments. Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to collective awareness. Combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing, the recordings on this album operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music. Assimilated powers of primal drum patterning and psychoactive, ceremonial melodies, invoke fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al. There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time or Time Cycles) Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology. Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music. Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself. Returning to Marionette following 2024's monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output. Brandon and Matthew met back in 2011 and the pair toured around eastern Europe with Toronto band Picastro in 2013, also performing as a duo with Brandon contributing drums to Khôra's opening sets. After a short spate composing and playing in the ensemble Bespoken together, they continued to discover shared inspiration in psych/art rock, jazz, experimental and electronic music, providing a fertile soil for friendship and collaboration resulting in their collaged, field-recorded album Tangled Roots in 2017. Mythic and talismanic, the duo's Marionette debut weaves a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.

Concert at Prades-le-Lez marks the origins of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. In 1974, François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre, Jo Maka, Adolf Winkler and Guem), in the spirit of Don Cherry or Chris McGregor, playfully dismantle all borders and all styles of creative music. On this second volume, the Intercommunal builds unprecedented soundscapes around a song of revolt, a dance tune, or a burst of dissonance. The journey is unforgettable, no question about it. On repeat listening, it even becomes… lunar! “The music that we make is primarily meant to be listened to live,” warned a leaflet from the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. This is precisely why the (restored!) reissue of the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez, recorded on January 25 and 26, 1974 by François Tusques and his comrades, is such an important event. In 1971, after recording a series of albums that would leave a lasting mark on French jazz (Free Jazz, of course, with Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais, but also Le Nouveau Jazz with Barney Wilen, or the solo Piano Dazibao), François Tusques founded the Intercommunal—a grouping whose very name called for the fraternization of the various communities making up the country: Our music will help, we hope, to resolve the contradictions that exist between workers belonging to different communities, by breaking down various forms of national chauvinism, and more particularly the chauvinism of certain French people toward the cultures of Third World countries… Long live the friendship between the peoples of the whole world! Among the great records made by the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez come first, before L’Inter Communal, Vol. 4, Le Musichien, and Après la marée noire (four titles already reissued by Souffle Continu). François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre and Jo Maka on saxophones, Adolf Winkler on trombone, and Guem on percussion) performed on January 25 and 26, 1974 at the Moulin de Prades-le-Lez, a few kilometers from Montpellier. It was thus in the southern region of Occitanie that the first echoes of this musical vision of a borderless brotherhood were recorded. “We’re not among the Colonels,” the Intercommunal reassures us right away, performing a stride piano tune carried by African winds that the audience cannot resist for long. The energy is already striking and it never lets up throughout these two recordings, from start to finish: jazz, blues, traditional music, minimalism, even funk… The musicians of the Intercommunal have heard a lot of great music and now delight in reinventing it by mixing it all together. “We want the song form to take its place as a weapon in the struggle against capitalist exploitation and all those who oppress us morally and materially,” declared an Intercommunal leaflet, quoting Jean-Baptiste Clément, author of the lyrics to “Le Temps des cerises.” The struggle was therefore serious—but it did not prevent François Tusques and his group from waging it in a festive spirit: each piece on Concert at Prades-le-Lez sends out a call for love and fraternity. Fifty years later, the message remains as relevant as ever—and once again, it is François Tusques who makes it heard.

Concert at Prades-le-Lez marks the origins of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. In 1974, François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre, Jo Maka, Adolf Winkler and Guem), in the spirit of Don Cherry or Chris McGregor, playfully dismantle all borders and all styles of creative music. On this first volume, the Intercommunal takes its audience from New Orleans to Brittany and on to North Africa. The journey was bold, without a doubt—and its memory remains unforgettable. “The music that we make is primarily meant to be listened to live,” warned a leaflet from the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra. This is precisely why the (restored!) reissue of the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez, recorded on January 25 and 26, 1974 by François Tusques and his comrades, is such an important event. In 1971, after recording a series of albums that would leave a lasting mark on French jazz (Free Jazz, of course, with Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais, but also Le Nouveau Jazz with Barney Wilen, or the solo Piano Dazibao), François Tusques founded the Intercommunal—a grouping whose very name called for the fraternization of the various communities making up the country: Our music will help, we hope, to resolve the contradictions that exist between workers belonging to different communities, by breaking down various forms of national chauvinism, and more particularly the chauvinism of certain French people toward the cultures of Third World countries… Long live the friendship between the peoples of the whole world! Among the great records made by the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, the two volumes of Concert at Prades-le-Lez come first, before L’Inter Communal, Vol. 4, Le Musichien, and Après la marée noire (four titles already reissued by Souffle Continu). François Tusques and his companions (Michel Marre and Jo Maka on saxophones, Adolf Winkler on trombone, and Guem on percussion) performed on January 25 and 26, 1974 at the Moulin de Prades-le-Lez, a few kilometers from Montpellier. It was thus in the southern region of Occitanie that the first echoes of this musical vision of a borderless brotherhood were recorded. “We’re not among the Colonels,” the Intercommunal reassures us right away, performing a stride piano tune carried by African winds that the audience cannot resist for long. The energy is already striking and it never lets up throughout these two recordings, from start to finish: jazz, blues, traditional music, minimalism, even funk… The musicians of the Intercommunal have heard a lot of great music and now delight in reinventing it by mixing it all together. “We want the song form to take its place as a weapon in the struggle against capitalist exploitation and all those who oppress us morally and materially,” declared an Intercommunal leaflet, quoting Jean-Baptiste Clément, author of the lyrics to “Le Temps des cerises.” The struggle was therefore serious—but it did not prevent François Tusques and his group from waging it in a festive spirit: each piece on Concert at Prades-le-Lez sends out a call for love and fraternity. Fifty years later, the message remains as relevant as ever—and once again, it is François Tusques who makes it heard.

Yuri Suzuki, the sound artist and designer known for creating works that explore the realms of sound through exquisitely designed pieces, has become completely captivated by that silver box. Toting that infamous box and relentlessly diving deep into the swamp of Acid House, he drops a new album after nearly six years in LP format. On this record, Suzuki's finely honed squelchy old-school 303 sound, tightly mastered by the sound alchemist Rashad Becker, unfolds with precision and points toward another possible tomorrow. Each track is a sketch, carrying you through a timeless landscape of rhythm and texture and reaffirming Suzuki's unique command over sound and space.

With All Shall Go, Damos Room (the trio of Luke Miles, Nicholas Elson & Huw Oleskar (a.k.a Elijah Minnelli)) delivers a work of deliberate unravelling — a record that resists spectacle in favour of pressure, proximity and slow erosion. For Long Gone Are The Old Traditions, this release marks a natural extension of the label's commitment to sound as atmosphere and atmosphere as doctrine: music that does not decorate space but alters it. Across these pieces, dub is reduced to its elemental properties — weight, echo, absence — while sheets of corroded texture and distant, disembodied vocals drift through a landscape that feels both devotional and terminal. Rhythm appears only as rupture, a disturbance in the grain. What persists is tension — patient, unblinking, almost liturgical in its austerity. In Damos Room's hands, sound becomes residue and invocation simultaneously, a procession of shadows that gathers momentum not through volume but through inevitability. All Shall Go stands as a document of attrition and quiet extremity, aligned precisely with the label's ongoing exploration of the haunted and the unmoored.

A la fin des années 60, époque où tout le monde semble s'accommoder de la totale hégémonie anglo-saxonne sur la musique française, Christian VANDER fonde le groupe MAGMA et affirme sa volonté de produire une musique différente, d'identité essentiellement européenne. Avec "KOBAIA", premier double album de la formation, qui parait en 1970, il atteint cet objectif au-delà de toute espérance. "Cri" de révolte et de haine contre cette Terre qui étouffe l'homme et le conditionne, la musique de MAGMA synthétise les influences les plus diverses STRAVINSKY, BARTOK, COLTRANE, BACH, le jazz, le rock, le rhythm'n blues... pour produire un discours musical totalement neuf qui, s'il peut paraitre déroutant à la première écoute, ne tarde pas à révéler des splendeurs insoupçonnées. Si l'instrumentation du groupe est finalement assez classique, c'est l'utilisation qui en est faite qui confère à ce disque son caractère "révolutionnaire". Une section rythmique implacable, au jeu binaire complètement repensé, des cuivres "tsunamiens" au discours jusqu'alors inconnu, et ce chant si particulier qui utilise un langage inventé, comme pour nous dire que désormais plus rien ne sera comme avant.

Diane Birch emerges as a formidable American singer-songwriter and pianist, boasting a repertoire of critically lauded releases spanning a rich decade-long career. With an eclectic array of musical influences stemming from a globe-trotting childhood - ranging from her humble beginnings as a preacher’s daughter in Zimbabwe and South Africa to her transformative years as a gothic teen immersed in the vibrant cultural underbelly of Portland, Oregon. Her discovery while living in London via Myspace led to a record deal in New York, where she then spent the next few years. Diane's journey is as diverse as her sound. Her profound experiences have culminated in a unique musical blend, characterized by her stint performing soulful covers and original pieces in the swanky lounges of the Beverly Hills elite. Receiving widespread attention with her debut album “Bible Belt” and her follow-up projects “Speak A Little Louder” and “Nous”, these works not only cemented her position in the international music scene but also earned her accolades and respect from esteemed peers including Prince, Daryl Hall, Mark Ronson, Dave Stewart, Questlove, Elvis Costello, Bryan Ferry and Stevie Wonder. Returning with her latest work, “Flying On Abraham”, Diane presents a meticulously crafted collection of original compositions. This album is a heartfelt homage to her vast and varied musical roots, weaving together the rich tapestry of 70s AM radio, soul, jazz, classic rock, 80s/90s pop and R&B. Despite the eclectic mix, Diane's sound remains distinctly her own - her voice a blend of raw emotion and refined grace, echoing the legacy of iconic artists like Carole King, Carly Simon and Rickie Lee Jones, yet standing out with an authenticity and individuality that is unmistakably Diane Birch. Produced by renowned English musician Paul Stacey, known for his work with Noel Gallagher and the Black Crowes, “Flying On Abraham” was recorded in the UK, backed by an impressive lineup of musicians. This album is not just a collection of songs but a narrative of her artistic journey, offering a window into the soul of a woman who has traversed continents and musical genres to create something truly extraordinary. With “Flying On Abraham”, Diane Birch reaffirms her status as a musical virtuoso, continuing to enchant audiences worldwide with her evocative lyrics. It represents Diane's enduring vision of “making American music with an English sensibility.”

Originally released quietly in 2012 exclusively in France, Iggy Pop’s cult-favorite cover album Après now receives a long-awaited vinyl reissue. From the chansons of Serge Gainsbourg and Edith Piaf to the timeless classics of Frank Sinatra and The Beatles, and even a daring take on Yoko Ono, the selection is as bold as it is eclectic. Stripped of his punk icon persona, Iggy unveils the depth of his crooner voice, etching a portrait of musical and personal maturity—a hidden facet of his artistry that shines in full here.

Vladislav Delay, primarily known as a highly regarded electronic music innovator, steps ahead with his acoustic jazz quintet, releasing "vd5" on We Jazz Records, 8th May. Echoing the forward-looking vd musical vision always ahead of the curve, the new album does not fit into any specific category, forging a path of its own across the 10 tracks. Recorded at Candybomber Studio in Berlin, the album brings vd together with Maria Bertel, Lucio Capece, Derek Shirley and Max Loderbauer. This is shape-shifting, elastic music that exists left of any given timeline. Based in Hailuoto in Northern Finland, Vladislav Delay has never fit into any preset mould as an artist. His prolific, at times mythical output has elevated him to a veritable legend status in all music cycles appreciating a unique artistic voice. Be it his forward-reaching recent releases as Vladislav Delay on his own Rajaton imprint, his Ripatti alias, or playing metallic percussion with the Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vladislav Delay always has A SOUND. And that sound is ever-evolving, as his new jazz album shows. What "jazz" is this? There are certainly liquid elements there in the mix, not unlike the ones heard on previous vd productions. Then again, this is acoustic quintet music by and large, but not any specific kind we have ever heard before. Isn't that the whole point of "jazz"? Whatever came before is a springboard, not a limitation.

Japanese vibraphonist and marimba player Masayoshi Fujita returns with Migratory, his masterful new solo album, where his sonic explorations into the unknown continue.

In 2020, after 13 years of living in Berlin, Fujita returned to his native Japan with his wife and their three children, fulfilling his life-long dream of living and composing music in the midst of nature. The family found their new home in the mountain hills along the coast of Kami-cho, Hyōgo, three hours west of Kyoto.

Once settled in, Fujita spent his time turning an old kindergarten into his own music studio, Kebi Bird Studio, which became the birthplace of Migratory. On his new album, the composer and producer masterfully reimagines and mesmerises with his trademark sounds of vibraphone, and resumes his experimentation with the marimba and synthesisers that he first incorporated on his 2021 album, Bird Ambience, which followed the release of his acclaimed vibraphone triptych: Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018).

On Fujita’s ever-evolving list of collaborators, Migratory introduces vocals from Moor Mother on ‘Our Mother’s Lights’ and Hatis Noit on ‘Higurashi’, as well as shō and saxophone to its soundscapes.

Whilst at a music residency in Stockholm in 2021, Fujita met Swedish shō player Mattias Hållsten. Although it was a brief encounter, the two musicians stayed in touch. During a visit to Japan, Hållsten stopped by the studio and played on three of the tracks, including the alluring album closer ‘Yodaka’, exceeding Fujita’s own expectations.

Another collaborator, American poet Moor Mother asked Fujita to contribute vibraphone to her upcoming album, and in return lent her powerful voice to the Migratory’s centrepiece, Our Mother’s Lights — “it carries a kind of African and Asian vibe, a perfect match for the energy of the piece,” he adds.

As with Bird Ambience, Fujita continues to be inspired by our feathered friends. The album’s title, Migratory, originates from an image that came to him of migratory birds, travelling somewhere between Africa, Southeast Asia and Japan, imagining them hearing the music from the land underneath, and how their point of view of the world from above blurs the boundaries of music and land.

Expanding on this, Fujita says: “these ideas and images were inspired by my experiences of living abroad and returning to my homeland, as well as by the artists featured on this album who also somehow travelled or lived in other countries across the boundaries, and being influenced by the music of other lands but at the same time somehow led to their roots."

Masayoshi’s parents too made a life abroad in Thailand for over 15 years. After returning to Japan, Fujita’s mother passed away in the beginning of 2023. So he invited his father to come for a visit, to spend time with him and his grandchildren. A lifelong musician in his own right, the two of them soon found themselves holed up in Kebi Bird Studio. Fujita senior had brought his saxophone, which he played on top of the then unfinished recordings, resulting in three breathtaking pieces. The slow jazz-tinged ‘Blue Rock Thrush’ stands out, with the saxophone and marimba blending harmoniously reaching new artistic heights.

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for Fujita, and on Migratory it takes centre stage. You can hear it on the album’s peaceful and considered field recordings, but most importantly, Masayoshi highlights – “nature is there as the image to be evoked by the listener from the music.” On the record’s sleeve notes, written by renowned novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer, we learn about the Japan that he hears as he sits down and listens to the music. It educates and encapsulates us, in the same way Fujita’s imaginary birds vividly depict the essence of musical migration. 

In the final month of 2024, Meitei arrived in Beppu, a city long steeped in vapor, myth, and mineral memory. Invited to create onsen ambient music commemorating Beppu’s 100th anniversary, he immersed himself in the city’s geothermal psychogeography, where sound rises from the ground and time clings to mist.

Known for his Lost Japan (Shitsu-nihon) works, which channel forgotten eras into flickering auditory relics, Meitei took residence in the warehouse of Yamada Bessou, a century-old inn perched by the bay. Over two weeks, he listened intently to steam, to stone, to the atmosphere itself. The resulting work, Sen’nyū, traces the inner spirit of onsen culture. Like water finding its path, the music emerged with quiet inevitability, shaped by Meitei’s synesthetic sensibility and deep attunement to place.

Equipped with a microphone, he wandered Beppu’s sacred sites: Takegawara Onsen, Bouzu Jigoku, Hebin-yu, and the private baths of Yamada Bessou. There, he captured the breath of the springs, bubbling mud, hissing vents, wind against bamboo, and the murmurs of daily visitors. These field recordings became the sonic bedrock of Sen’nyū, an act of deep listening that attempts to render even the rising mist and shifting heat into sound.

Unfolding as a single, continuous piece, Sen’nyū drifts like fog through sulfur and stone. It traverses the veiled madness of Bouzu Jigoku, the spectral resonance of Yamada Bessou’s inner bath, and the hushed voices of Takegawara Onsen. It is a gesture of quiet reverence, for water’s patience, the land’s memory, and the hands that have bathed here for generations.

Where Meitei’s earlier works conveyed his personal impression of a fading Japan, Sen’nyū is grounded in tactile presence, music not imagined but encountered. Here, his practice moves closer to the spirit of kankyō ongaku, environmental music born from place, shaped by it, and inseparable from it.

As part of the project, Meitei conceived a two-day public sound installation inside Takegawara Onsen, culminating in a live performance. Bathers soaked in mineral-rich waters while submerged in sound, an embodied ritual of place, body, and listening.

Sen’nyū marks Meitei’s first full-length work centered entirely on onsen and opens a new chapter of his Lost Japan project under the expanded title 失日本百景 (One Hundred Lost Views of Japan), a series exploring extant sites of longing still quietly breathing within contemporary life. The album will be accompanied by Meitei’s first photo book, a visual document of his time in Beppu. A new layer is added to the world he has, until now, built only through sound.

Sen’nyū continues Meitei’s devotion to Japan as subject, while opening new terrain: both ritual and remembrance, an immersion into the mineral soul of Beppu.

“It rained more days than it didn’t. The beds of silt turned up notched pieces of quartzite and flint. Water came up through the floorboards in the sixteen-sided candle room. The house was empty except for what the flood brought in. Miles on the river of salt and silver in first light.”

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The final document from the New England collective Old Saw is available as a 2xLP via Lobby Art Editions, with photography by Dylan Hausthor. Many of the known personnel from the last records circle back here on The Wringing Cloth to close out the ride with their signature fog and low burning momentum.

Like the sharpshooting carnival contestant who knows that the winning practice isn’t to aim for the red star itself, but rather to shoot out a perimeter around the star and thus remove it, Old Saw have historically dealt with forms by tracing their boundaries rather than going for the target outright. If the first three records hinted at but never touched song-shaped forms, The Wringing Cloth makes at least glancing contact while retaining the layered haze and drawl that threads their sound together.

Contrary to the often-used ambient tag, Old Saw shows up here in a markedly active and sculpted form — manipulating, unwinding, and pivoting with a strange and warped precision. What has always been uncanny about this music is that it arrives in a state at once familiar and obscured, like a memory weighed down with sensory information but no identifying details to place it. The Wringing Cloth walks off further into that geographical dream without time or language until it’s just a speck of light.

- JS

Throughout the illustrious several-decade recording career of Horace Andy, with its innumerable highs, his unmistakable falsetto has lit up just three albums of indisputable greatness - "Skylarking", for Coxsone Dodd at Studio One; "In the light", for Everton Dasilva's Hungry Town label, in queens, new york; and - with the biggest original impact, by far the most contemporary of the trio - "Dance Hall Style", for Bullwackies in the bronx. Recorded at the tail end of the seventies, dance hall style reworks songs like "Money Money", first recorded by Bunny Lee and Derek Harriott's "Lonely woman" - alongside a version of Lloyd Robinson's "Cuss cuss" - and births bona fide classics like "Spying glass" (later covered by Massive Attack). The musicians include Wackies regulars, men like Owen Stewart and Oral Cooke from Itopia, Ras Menilik and Jah T.; also Horace's multi-instrumentalist spar Myrie dread from the hungry town sessions. At the desk, Lloyd Barnes, Junior Delahaye and Douglas Levy coax unequalled vocal performances from Horace Andy, in correct showcase fashion, all worthwhile extended mixes. Iconic album, essential purchase.

Another blinder from Basic Channel's Wackies re-issue programme finally gets a re-press. Between stints in Jamaica for legends like Glen Brown and Junjo Lawes, Wayne Jarrett travelled from his Connecticut base to record this album during the same weeks as the sessions for everyone's favourite - Horace Andy's Dance Hall Style. These are two of the great vocal reggae LPs of all time - no questions asked. With Clive Hunt in full effect, Showcase Volume One follows the six-track dub-showcase format and Wayne never sounded more like Horace with his yearning throaty gargle! Blues afficionados might even want to discuss the influence of the late, lamented Bobby 'Blue' Bland on reggae vocals, but that's by the by. Including four unmissable Studio One versions - Azul's deadly Rockfort Rock, Sleepy's Every Tongue Shall Tell (with outrageous Isley fuzz), yet another Heptones cut via Leroy Sibbles, and a killer Drum Song.