MUSIC

After critically acclaimed reissues of their mid-90s material, Seefeel return with their first new music since 2011.

Everything Squared is a one-off 6-track mini-album which presents a contemporary evolution of their trademark sound. Mainly composed and performed by the core duo of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock, with bass on two tracks from Shigeru Ishihara.

Mastered by Berlin-based engineer Stefan Betke aka Pole at Scape Mastering, and housed in a sleeve designed by Ian Anderson at The Designers Republic.

This is a limited reissue analog record (color) of the last album “Happy End” released in 1973 by the legendary Happy End (Haruomi Hosono, Eiichi Otaki, Takashi Matsumoto, and Shigeru Suzuki), an essential band in the story of Japanese pop music. Recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders studio in Los Angeles, the album is a masterpiece among masterpieces that transcends generations and has gained worldwide support as a work that offers a glimpse into the musicality of each member's subsequent solo activities. Produced by Van Dyke Parks.

Barely known to the international public, the Electone pioneer and virtuoso Shigeo Sekito is the man behind four LP volumes titled “Special Sound Series” published by Nippon Columbia between 1975 and 1977. One of his masterpieces from “Vol. 2” titled “The Word II” gained great popularity after inspiring Mac DeMarco to cover it creating one of his most acclaimed tracks to date, an unforgettable tribute to Sekito’s blissful compositions. Quavo feat. Travis Scott, Eevee and others followed sampling this track to create new tunes. During the past years youtube’s music recommendation algorithm also did its part popularizing this track and the whole vol.2 LP online as well as creating an unsatisfiable demand for the highly sought-after 12” which hadn’t been reissued to date. Shigeo Sekito studied piano as a child and aspired to become a composer, studying composition at Osaka Kyouiku University. He was later attracted to a new Yamaha instrument called “the Electone”, and won the first prize at the National Electone Competition in 1967. He was one of the leading figures in the world of the Electone, while teaching younger students. He also performed and composed music on the piano under the name of Ken Akishino (秋篠健) and published some of his works on his YouTube channel before passing away in 2021. Originally released in 1975, Shigeo Sekito’s “Special Sound Series Vol. 2” is one of the best examples of his Electone works as a composer and pioneer. As a Malaysian newspaper described in a 1991 article: “His fresh, energetic, rhythmic and sometimes humorous style of playing is attracting a growing number of fans and enthusiasts to try and play Electone, and is expected to develop new possibilities in the Electone world. He is actively engaged in numerous concerts and recordings, both at home and abroad, practicing up to 14 to 15 hours a day. Sekito’s music can be described as “careful as the devil and daring as the angel itself”. His selection of tone color and miraculously sound manipulations make us find ourselves all of a sudden pulled back to our past inner experiences or thrown away into an opened future cosmic space. This is indeed a demonic work and may also result from the sweetness and purity of the angelic whisperings."

A compilation of reworks of Haruomi Hosono’s iconic solo debut, Hosono House, celebrating 50 years since its release. This compilation sees musicians from the Stones Throw roster and beyond offer up their own interpretations of Hosono’s songs.
Haruomi Hosono is the legendary artist best known for Hosono House and his tenure in the seminal band Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Hosono House still sounds as fresh as it did in 1973. Its impact stretches far beyond Japan, with an unexpected surge of interest when Harry Styles cited it as a leading inspiration for his Grammy Award-winning album Harry’s House.

"My music is a landscape for you to enter your own journey," sings Luiza Lian's crystalline voice after the ceasing of a sonic collage that blends a lament on the keyboard, church bells, hummed vocals, distorted speeches, syncopated beats, and a striking bass line. "Minha Música" (My Music) is our first encounter with 7 Estrelas| quem arrancou o céu? (7 Stars | who tore off the sky?), the fourth album of the São Paulo-based artist, and her third collaboration with french/brazilian music producer Charles Tixier.

Nearly five years after the celebrated Azul Moderno, the duo returns to the scene they materialized before a period of darkness that rewrote Brazil's history. And this new visit pushes the boundaries even further with resources that the singer-songwriter had only started exploring on the previous record. The following tracks, "Tecnicolor" (featuring the only guest appearance on the album, as Luiza is joined by singer Céu) and "Homenagem" (Homage), continue to explore this new horizon, which becomes increasingly bizarre and deceptive.

In addition to layering noises and electronic elements over her musicality, Luiza also explores the range of her vocals by digitally distorting them. The first tracks are just the initial steps in this new work: a profound reflection on how we distort our lives based on false reflections we see both digitally in our use of social media and materially in an increasingly consumerist society. The new album recreates this artificial context in an almost caricatured way, deliberately exaggerated distortions to generate the estrangement we should feel towards the values we cherish and reject based on this false reality we force ourselves to believe in.

While Azul Moderno invited us on a journey of spiritual purification, now Luiza summons us to another voyage, one that confronts the darker side of our nature in songs that resonate with politics and mysticism without distinguishing one from the other, such as "Forca" (Force), "Cobras" (Snakes), and "Viajante" (Traveler), and then leads us towards the light in existentialist yet renewing songs ("Eu Estou Aqui" (I Am Here), "Desabriga" (Shelterless), "7 Estrelas" (7 Stars), and "Deságua" (Unleash)), making the end of the album more playful and lucid, hopeful and danceable as it concludes its reflection.

Composed in 2019 and reworked over four years, the album is another release from the RISCO label in partnership with ZZK Records and will be launched during a series of shows in August at Sesc Pompeia, performances in which Luiza delves even deeper into the exploration she proposed in the live version of her previous album. 

ZZK Records Presents TORNA #1 - ‘Hermetics’

New York. London. Berlin. These places are often regarded as electronic music’s most important hubs, but anyone who’s been paying attention during the past few years knows that the genre’s most interesting contemporary rhythms are coming out of Latin America. Reggaeton, cumbia, guaracha, raptor house… that’s just a partial list, and while these sounds have been popping on Latin dancefloors for decades, they’re no longer a strictly regional concern. Ravers around the world have developed a taste for these mutant (and usually bass-heavy rhythms), and TORNA is here to give them what they crave.

A new offshoot of ZZK—a label which has been pushing the limits of Latin music since 2008—TORNA is a new release series that’s specifically focused on the dancefloor. Its name is inspired by the concept of “La Torna”, an economic institution developed by indigenous Atacama Lickan-Antay, Aymara and Diaguita peoples (in territories now occupied by Argentina, Bolivia and Chile) with the aim of working together for the common good, for the benefit of the whole community.

This new iteration of TORNA takes a similar approach, providing a platform for groundbreaking Latin artists whose view of electronic music looks beyond the usual European and North American canon. First up is Hermetics, a Buenos Aires-based Colombian producer who’s previously appeared on powerhouse labels such as R&S, Optimo Music and Multi Culti, and has also been tapped to remix the likes of Nicola Cruz and Chancha Vía Circuito.

Curated by ZZK co-founder DJ Nim, the two-track TORNA #1 puts Hermetics’ talents front and center, along with his penchant for psychedelic atmospheres and hybridized sounds. “El Cordón Dorado” (“The Golden Cord”) taps into an ancient current of ancestral knowledge, its hypnotic Andean flute and fortified dembow evoking the magic, mysticism and wisdom that’s been passed from one generation to the next over the course of several millennia. “Uruz”—which takes its name from the second rune of the Nordic alphabet—follows a harder, darker and more dramatic path, splicing together slow-motion techno and half-time drum & bass as it evokes the archetypal tale of an untamed warrior being tested by the fires of battle.

TORNA is rooted in Latin America, but it’s aimed at dancefloors around the globe, and this is just the beginning. 

Whipped up in the dust of Rene & Rene's Tejano tornado "Angelito," the Dynamic label was just one among San Antonio record and real estate mogul Abe Epstein's enterprises. Dynamic's flagship outfit, the Commands, marched "No Time For You" up to the middle of the charts in 1966 with performance chops honed jet-sharp by the demanding Air Force Base circuit. That takeoff paved a runway for 20 more soulful Dynamic singles over an impressive 30-month campaign. Epstein's open-door policy brought a diverse cross-section of Texas talent into convergence within his General McMullan Drive studio, as whites, blacks, and Latinos alike suited up for service in whichever new group the call of duty called for. Epstein’s Alamo City melting pot is ladled out here in 28 of Dynamic's most intriguing dishes by the Tonettes, Little Jr. Jesse & the Tear Drops, Don & the Doves, Willie Cooper & the Webs, Bobby Blackmon & His Soul Express, and Doc & Sal. Our deluxe 2LP edition gatefolds into Lone Star pic sleeves, full-color dancehall photography, and rich ephemera, planting a new flag for soul in soil that’s seen its share of hoisted banners.

Honey for the Ants completes an ‘alchemical trilogy’, after The Funnel and Syphon. These albums are informed by mystical and gnostic texts, celebrating the weird, unhinged and occasionally beautiful.

In this forthcoming album the tonalities have shifted from mediaeval and renaissance to modernist dissonances. New singers and instrumentalists contribute to an emotional and textural richness achieved in a collaborative process. Distant musical periods, real and fictitious, are nonchalantly interwoven to create a delirious mongrel that salutes the imagination.

Wojciech Rusin is a Polish-born audio visual artist based in London. He draws inspiration from alchemical and gnostic texts, early renaissance choral music and Eastern European mythologies. He released Syphon LP on AD 93 in 2022 and The Funnel LP on Akashic Records in April 2019. He designs and makes 3D-printed reed instruments, reworking ancient designs with contemporary 3D modelling technologies.

In 2020 he released Meat for the Guard Dogs on Cafe OTO’s Takuroku digital imprint, and the Rufus Orbis cassette for Boomkat Editions / Documenting Sound series. His music has been featured on BBC Four and he has worked for The National Theatre and The Southbank Centre.

Artist, composer and producer James William Blades’ score Pare De Sufrir will be released via AD 93 on the 4th of October.
Pare De Sufrir (translating to ‘End of Suffering’) is the official soundtrack to A.G Rojas’ film of the same title.

Spanish-born, Southern California-raised filmmaker AG Rojas is known for creating videos and working with the likes of Jamie xx, Gil Scott-Heron, Kamasi Washington, Spiritualized and Mitski. Rojas’ sensitive eye and subjectivity has brought him from the world of music videos to creating his first independent film: a 48-minute featurette following three people as they navigate the liminal space between life and the afterlife in an attempt to heal themselves and each other. Rojas’ film is a fragile, wordless meditation on grief and how it can transform and baptise the body and spirit.

The almost silent film is a testament to Rojas’ trust in Blades’ composition to express the director’s voice and emotions. Rojas reached out to Blades after coming across his score for Keeping Time (dir. Darol Olu Kae). An intimate and unusual process unfolded. Rojas explained to Blades the personal narrative of the film, the two sharing unfurling conversations on the nature of loss and the human spirit. But Blades did not watch the film and instead worked on instinct to build out a concept of how the score would unfold, shaping its operatic, textural and granular tone. Blades went on to record the score in full, with orchestra and choir, without going back to Rojas for feedback, aware that he was taking a complete risk. “It was definitely something I felt had a gravitational pull,” says Blades of the decision. The score’s pull is reflective of the process of grief itself, how its moods and memories oscillate up and down into the past and lost futures, Blades hitting all those spaces with diverse and stretching notes.

The piano holds the memories of Blades and Rojas’ grandmothers, who both had out-of-tune pianos sitting in an empty room. The Silogo-De-Oro choir sing throughout, reminiscent of the broken phonetics of grief, the build up and release of tension and the inability to articulate complete sound or words. The harmony stabilises and then becomes distant, taking the griever away from the lushness of life and into the realms of loss, death and dream-like realities, as mirrored in Rojas’ layered vignettes. As the score closes, the harmonies become richer and fuller, marking a return to life. Understanding the power of sound to both respond to and drive narrative, Blades’ score weaves together field recordings, half-remembered conversations, choral movements, string arrangements and electronic fragments into a nuanced and evocative whole.
________________________

James William Blades is a British composer and producer based in New York, whose work dissolves the boundaries between scores, sound design and music. Rooted in a meticulous sensitivity to melody and structure, he creates sonic landscapes that have the potential to refract meaning and tell new stories in the process.

It is through his multidisciplinary experience working with visual artists, directors, musicians and fashion designers that Blades has developed the unique musical aesthetic he is now bringing to the world of cinema. Blades began by collaborating with fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner, artist Theaster Gates, and film-maker Kahlil Joseph. Exploring the expressive possibilities of composition, his atmospheric sound collages for Joseph’s 2017 film Fly Paper and short film Process for the British music artist Sampha, subsequently led Blades to work with Beyoncé on Black is King for Disney in 2020, and more recently Renaissance, Beyonce’s self-directed documentary concert film.

Learning from visual artists, themselves reframing the relationship between music, sound and image, Blades has created a singular sonic language he describes in terms of landscape painting. “I like conveying a non-linear sense of sonics, playing around with combinations, depths, tempos, and making it feel like you’re in a moment surrounded. It’s visceral,” he explains. In each case, his approach involves periods of contextual and multi- instrumental research, working closely with directors to understand how best to support the specific emotions, moods and textures of the project at hand. “Thinking about the painting of a score is something that I'm trying to translate over a longer scale.”
This capacity to work on a variety of long-form projects is evident, whether in the scores he has had exhibited in a gallery context (Venice Biennale, Serpentine Gallery, 180 The Strand, Palais De Tokyo), or in the debut solo productions he is readying for release.

Other composer credits include Tendaberry, Hayley Elizabeth Anderson’s critically lauded debut feature film which premiered at Sundance 2024, the Showtime documentary NYC Point Gods produced by Coodie and Chike and Kevin Durant and Kiin a three part companion film directed by Fenn O’Meally and written by Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance.
A storyteller in the broadest sense of the word, Blades’ extensive inter-disciplinary experience marks him out as an artist in his own right, bringing an exciting and fresh approach to feature film composition. 

An album of hypnagogic nocturnes that relentlessly searches for a sense of calm in the great unknown, 'Is Peace Wild?' is German producer, drummer and visual artist Ludwig Wandinger's upcoming release on light-years. He dreamt it up while unpacking the breakdown of a long relationship, working in hotel rooms during the downtime between a series of chaotic live shows. To help empty his mind, Wandinger developed a suite of soulful reflections that prioritize harmony over rhythm and clarity over trivial complexity - music that confronts the eternal duality of romance and tragedy. Almost beatless and consistently sublime, 'Is Peace Wild?' is punctuated by hypnotic lyrical contributions from multi-disciplinary artist, poet and activist Yves B. Golden and producer and vocalist Evita Manji, both of whom bless the album with indispensable friendship and familiarity. "It's almost as if they were telling me a good night story," says Wandinger.

With a series of albums and EPs under his belt already, Wandinger is a tireless solo artist and a prolific collaborator. He's released material for Orange Milk, Gin&Platonic, Creamcake, 3XL, and he worked alongside artists such as Evita Manji, Sara Persico, Grischa Lichtenberger and Brodinski. 'Is Peace Wild?' though emerges as Wandinger’s most personal work to date. The title track opens the album, and Golden's voice breathes softly over Wandinger's warm, lulling arpeggios. "Balloons and birds delight in the flow of air between rooms," she murmurs, floating her surreal phrases in a tranquil pool of pitch-skewed pads and chiming, music box synths. But this airiness doesn't last long: on the noisy, sombre 'Vien', Wandinger interrupts his elegiac, organ-like synths with metallic crashes and distorted, rasping bass, weaving twinkling, pensive notes into the spaces in-between. The oscillation between darkness and light is remarkably even-handed, capturing the aching sense of longing - or "Sehnsucht" - that's at the core of German Romanticism. And it's even more evident on 'Xhausted Form', one of the album's heaviest tracks. Unfolding initially with affecting, sacred chords, the serenity is challenged by eerie, dissonant crunches and unsettling feedback shrieks, yet the spark of romance, in all of its intricacy, never diminishes.

Meanwhile, the album's illusory qualities are fully dilated on 'Fire'. Manji's hypnotic freestyle was recorded in a single take as they were lying in bed on the verge of falling asleep, and provides a quiescent counterpoint to Wandinger's muted trance vibrations. "The world is on fire drowning in its own fluids," they slur into the abyss, vocalizing playfully while Wandinger freezes the sentiment in vanishing 4/4 thuds and dissociated processes. This makes the baroque 'Overlife' and the noisy 'Eternal Image' all the more dynamic. On the latter, Wandinger creates a noisy, apocalyptic atmosphere for Golden's sardonic words, cooling his euphoric synths with hissing white noise and burnished cybernetic textures. "They are afraid of loud noises," Golden mouthes. "Bodies like mine are made for turbulence."

Open-ended and tangled with emotional paradoxes, 'Is Peace Wild?' can be interpreted in many different ways. Wandinger's own serenity is personal, but laying himself bare, he provides listeners with a cracked mirror to consider their unique patchwork of conundrums. 

Dutch electronic no-wave outfit Baby Berserk is making a thrilling return to Bongo Joe Records this Fall with their highly anticipated album, "Slightly Hysterical Girls With Pearls." Following the release of two compelling 7'' singles—"What I Mean/Sleepless" and "Toxic Kisses/Wartime"—and a real world tour, the band is back with a full-length record that pushes the boundaries of their eclectic sound.

Known for their seamless blend of music and fashion, Baby Berserk captures the essence of contemporary nightlife, balancing the raw energy of a live band with the infectious pulse of club music. Their latest work offers a refreshing and invigorating boost for the mind, body, and soul.

"Slightly Hysterical Girls With Pearls" isn’t just an album; it’s a statement. It’s about embracing who you are, kicking out the negativity, and finding power in the primal urge to live life on your own terms. With a sound that mixes slow, groovy beats with sharp, slithering synths and a relentless rhythm, Baby Berserk invites you to lose yourself in the music and emerge stronger, more vibrant, and unapologetically yourself.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Isaiah Collier connects with the divine ancestors on a transcendent Direct-To-Disc session, Parallel Universe Chicago-based innovator and educator Isaiah Collier is opening up new dimensions in the jazzwise continuum. A saxophonist by trade whose multi-instrumental talents and compositional prowess have stretched the limits of the form, Parallel Universe represents a new chapter in Collier’s musical journey. Having already performed with a diverse range of musicians such as Chance The Rapper, Waddada Leo Smith, Chicago jazz royalty Angel Bat Dawid and his own band The Chosen Few, Collier’s latest work as a bandleader explores the shared musical heritage of the African diaspora with a sense of grace and assurance that belies his years. Embracing the risk and vulnerability that comes with the live process, Collier and his band tapped into the frequencies of improvisation that fired up so many of the most timeless jazz recordings. “Recording direct-to-disc gave me a really fortunate opportunity to experience what our musical predecessors almost a hundred years ago were dealing with,” he explains. Name-checking Sun Ra, Ras G, J Dilla, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Gil Scott-Heron, Whitney Huston, Aaliyah and Frankie Knuckles, the opening of track of Parallel Universe imagines a genreless musical lineage that resonates with the polyphony of stories his band bring to the table, from Chicago and beyond. Featuring gospel soul singer Jimetta Rose, AACM and former Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpet player Corey Wilkes, blues-rooted guitarist Michael Damani, regular collaborators Julian Davis Reid, James Russell Sims and Micah Collier, the 8-track album bristles with a sense of love and understanding between players at the top of their game. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s 13-minute centrepiece, ‘Village Song’, in which Collier evokes the spiritual, psychological and emotional home of the African diaspora in song. “I want to speak to everybody of the African diaspora, truly in its entirety,” he explains, “from all the way of being back in the motherland, to the new lands we’ve come to.” Rooted in the percussion of Sonny Daze and the kalimba of Radius, ‘Village Song’ is a joyous and affirmative celebration of that unity. Picking up the flute, Collier explains, was also a part of that narrative: “The saxophone was not made in Africa so the concept of going back into the village we have to go back to our village instruments and dialect.” With vocals sung in Yoruba - inspired by a gift from legendary saxophonist Kenny Garrett - ‘Village Song’ soars between rhythms and references, from Afro-Cuban syncopation to the deep triplet swing of mid-‘60s Coltrane. Laying the foundations for the album as a whole, the result is truly exhilarating, “Give me that feeling that makes me feel like I’m alive,” Collier enthuses. “People can tell when you’re taking chances. I know that’s what everybody is looking for.”

Tosca, the Viennese masters of deluxe soundscapes and sensual rhythms, are back with their most magical and mesmerising album yet. Multi-instrumentalists Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber have been friends since their Vienna schooldays. Richard later became half of the globally acclaimed DJ-producer duo Kruder and Dorfmeister, while Rupert worked in piano composition and sound-art installation. No Hassle is Tosca’s fifth studio album, and their most beautiful musical statement so far. A luxurious tapestry of analogue and digital sounds, submerged samples and live instruments, it evolves and expands into an hour-long ambient symphony. The title reflects not only the duo’s laidback approach to making music but their whole philosophy of life. No Hassle is all about contemplation and concentration. While recent Tosca releases like J.A.C. (2005) and the remix collection Souvenirs (2006) were a move towards classic song structures and club-friendly grooves, their latest is a much more introspective journey into inner space. It was conceived as a single seamless sea of sound, deeply layered with liquid rhythms and tidal melodies. Warm and enveloping, each leisurely track flows gently into the next, a musical ocean moving in slow motion. This is an album to plunge deeply into and get lost inside. Tosca, the Viennese masters of deluxe soundscapes and sensual rhythms, are back with their most magical and mesmerising album yet. Multi-instrumentalists Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber have been friends since their Vienna schooldays. Richard later became half of the globally acclaimed DJ-producer duo Kruder and Dorfmeister, while Rupert worked in piano composition and sound-art installation. No Hassle is Tosca’s fifth studio album, and their most beautiful musical statement so far. A luxurious tapestry of analogue and digital sounds, submerged samples and live instruments, it evolves and expands into an hour-long ambient symphony. The title reflects not only the duo’s laidback approach to making music but their whole philosophy of life. No Hassle is all about contemplation and concentration. While recent Tosca releases like J.A.C. (2005) and the remix collection Souvenirs (2006) were a move towards classic song structures and club-friendly grooves, their latest is a much more introspective journey into inner space. It was conceived as a single seamless sea of sound, deeply layered with liquid rhythms and tidal melodies. Warm and enveloping, each leisurely track flows gently into the next, a musical ocean moving in slow motion. This is an album to plunge deeply into and get lost inside. Tosca, the Viennese masters of deluxe soundscapes and sensual rhythms, are back with their most magical and mesmerising album yet. Multi-instrumentalists Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber have been friends since their Vienna schooldays. Richard later became half of the globally acclaimed DJ-producer duo Kruder and Dorfmeister, while Rupert worked in piano composition and sound-art installation. No Hassle is Tosca’s fifth studio album, and their most beautiful musical statement so far. A luxurious tapestry of analogue and digital sounds, submerged samples and live instruments, it evolves and expands into an hour-long ambient symphony. The title reflects not only the duo’s laidback approach to making music but their whole philosophy of life. No Hassle is all about contemplation and concentration. While recent Tosca releases like J.A.C. (2005) and the remix collection Souvenirs (2006) were a move towards classic song structures and club-friendly grooves, their latest is a much more introspective journey into inner space. It was conceived as a single seamless sea of sound, deeply layered with liquid rhythms and tidal melodies. Warm and enveloping, each leisurely track flows gently into the next, a musical ocean moving in slow motion. This is an album to plunge deeply into and get lost inside.

MESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians. Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices. Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.” Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.” The album was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with addditional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez. The music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic - MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular... It’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti & Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.

Svaneborg Kardyb are Nikolaj Svaneborg - Wurlitzer, Juno, piano and Jonas Kardyb - drums, percussion a multi award winning duo from Denmark, where they won two "grammys" at the Danish Music Awards Jazz 2019: New artist of the year and Composer of the year. 
Drawing on Danish folk music and Scandinavian jazz influences, including Nils Frahm, Esbjörn Svennson and Jan Johansson's landmark recording Jazz På Svenska, their music is an exquisite and joyful melding of beautiful melodies, delicate minimalism, catchy grooves, subtle electronica vibes, Nordic atmospheres and organic interplay, all underwritten by the sheer joy of playing together. "We started in the earliest of mornings over the blackest of coffee, sometimes even without talking, just music. Immediately we felt a connection between our personal style of playing and the compositions emerged like out of nowhere. The vibe from these early sessions is still the backbone of our little band". Svaneborg Kardyb hail from Aalborg, in Jutland, in the north of Denmark where they first met in 2013 and discussed the possibility of creating a duo over late night talks. Six years went by as they both explored other projects before they eventually realised the idea of making music together. Like their new label mates, Vega Trails, Svaneborg Kardyb are a duo, a format that gives them a lot of space to occupy - or leave blank. "We enjoy the simplicity and focus it gives to the interplay. We come from very different musical backgrounds; Nikolaj from Scandinavian jazz, and Jonas from Roots, blues and folk, so the music is a sum of our personal contributions and doesn't thrive to be anything else than that. It's quite unique for us to have this shared musical tongue and friendship". Their music is intentionally simple at first glance, but evolves and unfolds through listening over time, with plenty of room for exploration, reflection and improvisation. Their aim is to create music that is as honest and intimate as possible "with melodies and rhythms so strong that we are left as only the messengers". And their fast-developing music chemistry allowed them to give little thought to what their musical influences were. Giving their music a captivating charm. "We explored whatever sounds and musical structures our duality gave birth to and through long jam-sessions we found small seeds of ideas that turned into tunes. Danish traditional songs, community singing and hymns are a big inspiration too. Both the tonal language, the lyrical melodies and the way generations can gather around the music, is something that is close to our hearts". Over Tage (over roofs) is their third album, following Knob (2019) and Haven (2020) and marks their debut for Gondwana Records a label noted for working with artists such as Mammal Hands, Portico Quartet and GoGo Penguin whose music, like that of Svaneborg Kardyb delights in exploring the fertile spaces between genres. For the duo it is their most serious and thoughtful record to date. "It may be our strongest and most honest record so far. Doubts and uncertainty were kind of the foundation for the sounds of the album but there is also hope and lots of uplifting moments and we're very pleased with how it came out." And it is that mixture of elevation and thoughtfulness, honesty and intimacy that makes the music of Svaneborg Kardyb so special and Over Tage such a joy to listen to. The world awaits.

Captivating, ethereal and majestic, Mammal Hands unleash their third album, Shadow Work: drawing on spiritual jazz, north Indian, folk and classical music to create something inimitably their own. Recorded at 80 Hertz Studios in Manchester, it is the result of 18 months of intensive touring and mammoth writing sessions. The energy from their exhilarating live performances has fed into the writing process and yet there is a quiet reflective side to this album, giving it an expanded emotional range that draws the listener deep into Mammal Hand’s sound world.

Ooosh this is heavy: the lesser known but brilliant - mostly unreleased - work of King Tubby apprentice engineer-turned-prolific mixer “Prince” Philip Smart, for Bunny Lee, Yabby You, and Augustus Pablo, is spotlighted on a stack of half century old diamonds cut with signature, discrete, deft dynamic and 3D psychoacoustic nuance - check for the spangled peculiarities in ‘Official Sound’, the ruff but sweet crackle of ‘You Were Mine’, depth charge of ‘Man Free (Dub)’, cosmic Rasta skank of ‘Zion City Dub Wise’ and eerily bloozy strutter ‘Riding Rhythm’, and you’ll know the legendary steez

DKR put it best: “This compilation is dedicated to the memory of the late great “Prince” Philip Smart - the first apprentice of King Tubby and the first engineer at Tubby’s studio besides Tubby himself. Alongside Tubby, Philip was integral to the innovation that took place at Tubby’s studio in the mid 1970s, where the mixing of new roots reggae revolutionized the sound of Jamaican music and created styles and techniques that are still being echoed today, nearly 50 years later. 

Though rarely credited on records in comparison to Tubby, Philip also mixed a lot of the paramount music produced by those close associates of Tubby’s studio such as Bunny Lee, Yabby You, and Augustus Pablo. Philip was closely tied to Pablo due to their childhood friendship and was a partner in his stylistically significant early production works. In the early years of Tubby’s studio, both men were making and cutting custom dubs there for their sound systems before starting to produce their own tunes from scratch, and Philip becoming the second chair engineer.

Several of the songs on this compilation are a selection of the aforementioned work. All of the songs here are sourced from Philip’s personal tape archive, and basically all of these mixes and versions have been scarcely if ever heard, and never released before. This double album comprises a rare and genuine glimpse into the dubplate workings of the inner circle of Tubby’s studio in the mid 1970s, where the prime players and emerging giants of reggae music production and sound system versioned, remixed and voiced rhythms for custom and exclusive cuts. Some of the cuts heard here were formerly exclusive power plays on King Tubby’s own legendary sound system, and unlike some previous issues of such material, these are genuine mixes done at the time. Some other tracks clearly exude the youthful enthusiasm of the participants. In both cases we find this collection of tracks to be truly compelling, so please enjoy this glimpse into such rare air. Rest in power Prince Philip Smart.”

Raw, deep and spiritual Gnawa music from Morocco to carry you through the night...

Recorded in a single late night session in a house in Casablanca, using a Tascam field recorder and 2 microphones, Dead of Night is the incredible new solo album from Maalem Houssam Guinia, the son of Maalem Mahmoud Guinia, and one of Morocco's most exciting young Gnawa masters.

The album was recorded live on the night of 3rd January 2022 in a relaxed session that lasted into the early hours of the next morning, and it captures Houssam at his most natural, singing and playing the Gnawa songs that have been with him since his birth, completely solo and free without percussion or backing vocals. Houssam described the album as containing the songs he knows best as these were the pieces his father would play and sing late into the night in their home when he was an infant.

What you'll hear on Dead of Night is raw, deep Gnawa music in its purest form played by a young Maalem who has been immersed in the culture his whole life and is a master of his craft. The whole performance has been beautifully and sympathetically captured by bassist and producer Karl-Erik Enkelman.

Latency present Danish artists Cæcilie Trier (CTM), Jakob Littauer and Mads Kristian Frøslev with their first collaborative album as TLF Trio. Chamber music for cello, piano and guitar; moving between written composition, improvisation and de-construction; channeling free jazz and minimalism and playing with the stiltedness of Central-European Classical of the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque. Named after the 1991 hardcore rave classic by Liquid, this acoustic almost beat-less album contains music that is more sculptural than narrative and that fluidly shapeshifts from being an object in the room to being the room itself – just as Louise Lawler’s distorted image from the Stedelijk Museum that adorns its cover..

Gus McIntyre is an artist with notable presence in the ska and reggae scenes, often producing music that resonates with classic Jamaican music. With his a-side track 'Silly Ska' he puts out a ska instrumental track, characterized by upbeat rhythms and lively melodies. The b-side contains the Peckings All Stars, a group of musicians and producers linked to the UK-based Peckings label - known for its authentic Jamaican music, especially reggae, rocksteady, and ska, and for releasing high-quality reissues of classic tracks alongside new music inspired by the golden era of Jamaican sound. The collective works closely with the label to produce music that blends traditional reggae with modern production, helping to preserve and revitalize classic Jamaican music. The song pays hommage to Fela Kuti and a silly twist to a ska song on the flip-side.

Habitat (what we might now properly refer to as Habitat I) arrived, fully-formed, in 2021—the product of a conscientious, exploratory, and decidedly Covid-era collaboration between two Berlin-based experimental musicians: the composer N. (Niklas) Kramer, and percussionist, J. (Joda) Foerster. Inspired by the Italian architect, Ettore Sottsass, Habitat’s simple, albeit beguiling conceit (following in the footsteps of canonical ambient releases like Music for Airports and Plantasia) was that each track ought to represent a room in an imagined building. Taken quite literally, tracks like “Curved Hallway” guided the listener through a kind of psychogeographic labyrinth, at once welcoming and slightly uncanny. Habitat II operates on a similar premise. But if Habitat I charted the perplexing intricacies of an imagined, self-contained structure, Habitat II expands the conceptual realm. Think now, not only of rooms in a hypothetical home, but of the winding hallways and grounds of a mid-century structure—perhaps slightly past its prime, but not at all an inappropriate venue for a late-night soiree. How might these features be imagined, mapped, and rendered enticing for a listener? We begin, appropriately, with “Seating (Welcome),” which, in its fluttering, aetherial suite of static, winds, and percussive depths, gently hypnotizes in the vein of Terry Riley, beckoning our entry. The clarity here, the directional flow of air, recalls the dignity and gestural simplicity of the Bauhaus school. Of significant note is the Wasserspiel (track seven)—”water fixture” (loosely translated), like the sculpture by Lily Clark, which graces the record’s cover. In an album grounded by analogies, Wasserspiel constitutes an especially mimetic highlight: a cascading, shimmering, font of radiance that does not (to its strength) rely upon a sample or found-sound reference to running water. Instead we are left with the distinct impression of the glimmer of flowing liquid, and of the attendant, refractory evening sunlight. Indeed, fountains (the most common and domesticated form of Wasserspiele)—their simultaneous kitsch and abundance—may very well epitomize the kind of cultivated, sixties home-shopping catalog aesthetic that undergirds the Habitat series. These habitats, wherever they are, however they appear to you (and there is indeed ample room for interpretation)—we can all certainly agree that they are vaguely utopian and achingly nostalgic. Of their compositional process, Kramer and Foerster reference their mutual interest in improvisation, and, furthermore, a kind of “first thought best thought” approach to recording and indexing ideas. Relying primarily on a sampler with a 15 second limit, their process emphasizes the organic layering of asynchronous (though, crucially, harmonious — perhaps even “hospitable”) loops. Suffice it to say, many rooms have been lost to the aether, casualties of a mercurial recording process. Those rooms that remain in Habitat II have been cultivated, furnished, and decorated. And they eagerly await your entry.

Los Angeles-based vocalist, composer, and producer Sharada Shashidhar has a deep awareness of the cosmos. There's a distinct tug-of-war in her music, an understanding that scanning the heavens to answer existential queries isn't quite enough; there are internal depths to plumb as well. Shashidhar's first album, 2020's Rahu, found her voice billowing out of smoky, post-beat-scene soundscapes, meditating on the collective unconscious and the energy exchange between all living things. Her newest work, Soft Echoes, is a bold step forward, echewing her work's hip-hop tilt for expansive compositions that blend jazz and Indian classical influences into a swirling, spiritual whole. Though she has an extensive resume as a collaborator in LA's previous experimental jazz scene, notching work with the likes of Carlos Niño, Zeroh, and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Soft Echoes marks Shashidhar's first outing as a bandleader. Gathering an ensemble that includes Anna Butters on bass, Julius Rodriguez on keys, Devin Daniels on saxophone, and Timothy Angulo on drums, Shashidhar sought to create a band that ostensibly functioned as an extension of herself. Her primary goals in writing these songs were to “let [her] body do what it wanted to do,” to trust her intuition, and “play without judgment.” Through that process, making Soft Echoes became a practice of presence and exploration, a chance to unlearn rigid structures and rediscover the joy of creating for oneself. Recording took place over three brief, distinct sessions at Altamira Sound in Alhambra, California. Though the full band wasn't ever present at the same time, Soft Echoes sounds like the work of a group in complete, mind-meld focus. Splashy drums nudge up against skronkingsaxophone on “Canyon Song,” while mushrooming synth tones stack up behind rippling Rhodes piano on “Luckiest.” Shashidhar's elegant voice is the anchor for each of these tracks, sometimes gracefully stretching between instruments like a lithe dancer's limbs, other times scattering through psychedelic delay. She describes the album as having “two poles, ” illustrated by the whimsical, buoyant opener “Soft Echoes” and the darker, more anxiety-ridden closer, “New Echoes.” The songs in between may come from different emotional spaces, but “it's all really reflective,” she explains. album can play like a loop, with Shashidhar entering a portal “into the endlessness” during “New Echoes,” only to be transported back to the beginning, full of gratitude and pondering “how strange it is to be alive.” On Soft Echoes , Shashidhar leads us on a journey through her mind, traversing its peaks and canyons in search of greater connection. “I want to take people places,” she says, pausing thoughtfully. “I can’t always guarantee that they’re good places, [but] hopefully you’ll feel something.”

Anthology: over 50 tracks taken from Knxwledge's 2009-2013 Bandcamp releases, curated and released by Leaving Records. This was originally a double cassette release – cassettes now sold out.

Across eight tracks that mesh jazz-laced, emotive, and spacious composition with fourth-world and adult-contemporary tonality, Toronto saxophonist Joseph Shabason sketches an auditory map of the transcendence, unity, conditioning, and eventual renunciation of his upbringing in an Islamic and Jewish dual-faith household. The resulting album The Fellowship bears the name of the insular Islamic community Shabason’s traditionally Jewish parents belonged to from a time before he was even born; a mental and spiritual push-pull which continued shaping, even controlling, his outlook well into his adulthood. As a listening experience The Fellowship follows a chronological arc that spans three generations covering his parents’ early lives, his own spiritual and physical adolescence, and his subsequent struggle to eschew the problematic habituations of such a conflicted past.

“Life With My Grandparents” commences The Fellowship in overcast hues. A cassette recording of a child’s voice pops in and out of a murmuring brass tone as both elements drift like memories receding forever into the past. “My parents grew up in really difficult households. Both of my father’s parents had just survived the Holocaust only six years before he was born.” Shabason explains, cutting right to the root of what might have led his parents to diverge from their inherited spiritual conventions. "My grandparents were deeply traumatized from having lost so many friends and family members, and even if the war hadn’t happened I don’t think they would have been particularly emotionally available.” Exchanging the gloom for tension, the anxiously experimental “Escape From North York” jolts the cadence forwards and backwards by way of skittering jazz percussion as a nauseated synth melody balloons into full-on terror, all while the melodic elements are ambushed from below by a flash flood of air-rending texture. The title (a play on John Carpenter’s Escape From New York) refers to the area of Toronto where Shabason’s parents were raised, and rebelliously fled in their twenties against their own parents’ wishes. The title track of The Fellowship swings toward relief and reflection, and buoys the mood up to something childlike. It is suffused with saxophone, upright bass, chorus-drenched guitar, and digitized pan flute; the kinds of 90’s jazz timbres that mark a time in Shabason’s adolescence when the dilemmas of his family’s faith were still obscured by comfort, community, and a dash of the forgivable naivete of early youth. At the same time, the piece shows Shabason at his most melodically athletic, darting around chord changes with fervor for the subject at hand.

From here the perspective moves from third to first person as Shabason unpacks his teenage years across a three song suite, the titles of which mark the exact years they are meant to sonically illustrate. Where the previous track floated ever upward on innocence and clarity, “0-13” dispenses with both by its final third at which point things have unraveled into aleatoric unease representing “the first chink in the armour,” as Joseph admits, “and the first time I really started to question everything I’d been taught.” By “13-15” the pendulum is fully back on the side of apprehension as galloping percussion, an unrelenting synthetic marimba, an off-key wood flute, and jittering electric guitar tell a story of doubt and anger, dressed in fourth-world atonality. “By that time,” says Shabason, referring to the age denoted in the track name, “I was smoking weed and really getting into my head. According to my religion, smoking weed was gonna land me in hell, and all my friends who drank were also on the path to hell. The whole thing seemed totally absurd. The idea of a God that was that petty and vengeful made no sense. Those thoughts just swirled and created this background dissonance that existed all throughout my early teens. Middle school was fucked.”

“15-19” is the sadness that follows outrage, when the dust settles and the pieces need putting back together, yet they simply won’t fit in light of a new found perspective. As such, this final movement is bathed in tragic, futile optimism. Under a bed of half-tempo RnB, muted trumpets glow like dying embers catching the wind. Shabason elucidates, “at that point, I’d discovered punk and hardcore and decided to be straight edge. It provided me with a community and a great cover for why I didn’t drink or do drugs. It felt like this really cool disguise. It kept me from questioning why I was doing it in the first place, but underlying it all was sadness. Why were my gay friends going to hell? Why did women have to be modest and not men? Why did God want to punish me for so many things? Was I going to hell because I had sex with my girlfriend? None of it made sense, but I was so completely brainwashed that I never thought to seriously question it. Instead, I just slipped up more and more, did drugs, fooled around, and tried to put the divine ramifications of my actions out of my head.”

“Comparative World Religions” is a caffeinated gamelan named for the college course that caused Joseph-- and so many other young people engrossed in inherited repressive ideologies-- to see the irreconcilable nature of his beliefs from the outside in. Like the class itself, it stands apart from the backdrop of The Fellowship by replacing the seesaw of religious ecstasy and uncertainty with the type of transcendence that can only be arrived at through factual illumination. Using mournful brass and glassy keys, the aptly titled “So Long” represents the slow walking away that Shabason had to do mentally and emotionally, even long after the illusion had been cracked open. “It took me at least another twelve to fifteen years to fully deprogram myself from all the guilt and shame that was bred into me by religion, but I think that I’m finally free from it,” says Shabason of his present-day outlook. “This song is a final goodbye to that life… an exhale and deep inhale before I start a new chapter.” On The Fellowship, as on prior albums that bear his name, Joseph Shabason does what only the best instrumental music makers can: tell a story with emotional clarity that conveys even the subtlest of feelings, all without singing a single word. As wordless as ever-- with as complex a theme as ever-- this album may be his most emotionally articulate yet. Most importantly, those lost in the woods of repression and self-doubt that organized religion can be at its worst now have The Fellowship to help guide them into a softer light.