MUSIC

Manchester trumpeter, band leader and Gondwana label boss Mathew Hallsall is right at the forefront of today's thriving jazz scene. He has an enviable discography that takes in a wide range of jazz styles and the spiritual eastern leaning sounds of When The World Was One make it one of his best. It's the sort of mellifluous record that swells all round you, lifting your spirits filling you with joy and hope. Helping that be the case are the heavenly harps and shimmering piano chords, koto and bansuri flute payed by his Ensemble, but centre stage is always given to Halsall's own beautiful, heart aching trumpet playing. From bold heights to vulnerable lows, this is as good as jazz gets.

For fans of: Glass Beams, Derya Yıldırım, LA LOM, and hip hop producer Oh No’s

Ouzo Bazooka enchant on Kapaim, drawing listeners through a maze of hypnotic, head-snapping grooves, cosmic string bending, and swirling guitar explorations. As trailblazers of the new Middle Eastern psychedelia movement, the band fuse traditional folk sounds with gritty soul, funk, and rock. Their latest release is a testament to their boundary-pushing spirit, offering a soundscape that is both otherworldly and deeply rooted.

Across five albums and a decade, Ouzo Bazooka have gained acclaim for their pioneering blend of Middle Eastern sounds, psych, and surf rock. The band has achieved international recognition for their music and performances, from the UK all the way to Japan, including The Great Escape, Fuji Rock, and Sziget Festivals. At one point, they played over 150 shows annually, solidifying their reputation as a powerhouse live act. Their critically acclaimed EP, Songs From 1001 Nights, was hailed as "a soaring adventure in exotic reverb and swirling lysergic synth hooks”.

Core member and multi-instrumentalist Uri Brauner Kinrot—musician, composer, and producer—has been active in the international music scene for over two decades. He has played in acclaimed and diverse groups such as Balkan Beat Box, Firewater, Shotnez, and Boom Pam, who also collaborated with Anatolian rock legend Selda Bağcan, and recorded frequently with Kutiman. Kinrot’s ear for production and arrangement has led him to work with internationally recognised artists, including Israeli-Persian musician Liraz.

Launched as a solo project, Ouzo Bazooka quickly morphed into a full-fledged group. However, Kapaim (Hebrew for “palms”) sees Kinrot refining the Ouzo Bazooka sound back into a largely solo endeavour. With more space to experiment, the mostly instrumental album is beautifully arranged and given room to breathe. The bass grooves, wonky synth motifs, head-nodding percussion, and soaring guitar solos create a hypnotic and uplifting experience.

Opening the album, “Asia” begins with an almost pensive bassline that initiates a languid groove. As drums, guitars, and synths join, the melody feels both thoughtful and nostalgic yet hopeful. The consistent bassline conveys a sense of roots and continuity as the song evolves.

The title track, “Kapaim”, urges listeners to clap along to a groove as solid as steel, fusing the legendary New Orleans instrumental funk of The Meters with snake-charming synths and cosmic Anatolian guitar licks.

An otherworldly intro gives way to a tight bass-and-funk groove reminiscent of Bob James’ heavily sampled “Nautilus” on “Seed”, before Kinrot makes a rare vocal appearance, imagining himself as a seed at the centre of the universe.

Having played a key role in the global instrumental movement, Kinrot stands among peers such as JJ Whitefield, Shawn Lee and Kutiman. The album recalls the cinematic depth of David Axelrod but with a distinctive Middle Eastern/Mediterranean touch. Fans of Glass Beams, Derya Yıldırım, LA LOM, and hip hop producer Oh No’s sample-heavy tour of Turkish, Lebanese and Greek psych, Dr. No’s Oxperiment, will find much to love.

A testament to Kinrot’s incredible talent - not least his meticulous arranging, production skills, and ear for soul, funk, and psychedelic rock, as well as his ability to blend musical traditions across cultures and eras - Kapaim carries a deep emotional resonance. It is Ouzo Bazooka’s most personal and addictive album to date, radiating joy, creativity, and a spirit of boundless freedom.

Middle Eastern psych, funk, disco, and Japanese folk and pop, converge to create a mesmerising new sound on ‘Kokoro’, Sababa 5 and Yurika’s collaborative debut album for Batov Records, collecting four acclaimed singles and four brand new songs. Renowned for their innovative approach to merging Middle Eastern psych, funk and disco grooves, Sababa 5 found their perfect partner in Japanese singer and belly dancer Yurika Hanashima, who having graced stages dancing with Boom Pam and Ouzo Bazooka, found her own voice alongside the group, and together yielded hits "Tokyo Midnight", "Nasnusa," and "Crossroad of Love," earning accolades from tastemakers such as Gilles Peterson, Cerys Mathews, and Jeremy Sole. In ‘Kokoro’, Sababa 5 and Yurika present a collection of tracks that transcend cultural boundaries and delve into the depths of human emotion. From the nostalgic romance of “Nasnusa" to the carefree "Halilim Halilim", each song on the album tells a story of love, sisterhood, and the journey of the soul. The title track, "Kokoro", which embodies the essence of the album's musical exploration, refers to the sky, the performers’ journey together, and the moment. Psychedelic soul, with touches of the Mediterranean coast and desert. Opener “Empty Hands” explores Yurika’s theory that “when you have empty hands you get everything”, countered by the hypnotising keys of Eitan Drabkin. over an Afrobeat inspired groove, and bittersweet bassline from Amir Sadot, The playful and summery “Halilim Halilim” was inadvertently named by Dani Ever Hadani of Middle Eastern psych and surf rockers, Ouzo Bazouka, and alludes to how love enters and leaves our lives like the air blown through a flute. Ilam Smilan’s exceptional guitar playing stands out, as does the unwavering groove and rhythm of drummer Raz Man; recently heard among a coterie of feted studio musicians for Mr Bongo signing Project Gemini. On "A Flower Called Indica”, Yurika’s Japanese vocal pays tribute to the ubiquitous allure of flowers, and the powerful bonds between friends, over Sababa 5’s psychedelic groove. The second half of the record collects Sababa 5 and Yurika’s earlier and incredibly popular singles. The dance floor smashing “Tokyo Midnight” is an uptempo psychedelic funk ripper, whilst “Nasnusa”, with its walking bassline and nostalgic love story, is the biggest hit in Sababa 5’s repertoire thus far. Love in the moment is a recurring theme as the “Crossroad Of Love” (Ai no Kousaten) delivers another timeless moment of Mediterranean meets Japanese soul. The attraction of Yurika's mesmerising vocals over Sababa 5's infectious grooves is irresistible across ‘Kokoro’, and the album marks a significant milestone in both their musical journeys. As Sababa 5 continue to redefine their sound, and Yurika establishes herself as a vocalist of note, ‘Kokoro’ stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and the timeless bonds of music, love and romance.

For their third album on Bongo Joe, Madalitso Band takes a new direction.

After two records capturing the raw intensity of their live performances, the Malawian duo ventures for the first time into the possibilities of the studio — without ever compromising their signature style or energy.

Armed with their handmade babatone, a guitar, and their interwoven voices, Yobu and Yosefe craft a sound at the crossroads of banjo music, kwela, gospel, and African folk. An acoustic trance that’s both minimal and vibrant, deeply rooted in tradition yet undeniably fresh and contemporary. On Ma Gitala, they add new textures: layered vocals, playful percussion, melodic surprises, and guests from their close and family circles.

Always guided by instinct, the band reveals a more intimate and narrative side of their universe — full of memories, spontaneity, and close-knit complicity. An album that captures the joy and creativity of two artists who turned the street into a stage, and the stage into a playground.

A heartfelt benefit compilation from Leaving Records, the spiritual and visionary core of Los Angeles’s independent scene, created in direct response to the unprecedented wildfires that swept across the region in January 2025. The fires—among the most devastating in the city’s history—destroyed countless homes in Altadena, a vital hub of Black culture and creativity, along with irreplaceable landmarks like Madlib’s estate and the Theosophical Society’s archives. In the wake of this loss, Leaving Records has gathered a powerful coalition of affiliated artists to offer a sonic gesture of prayer and rebuilding. Spanning ambient, spiritual jazz, experimental, and post–new age, this 20+ track document is a resonant act of musical solidarity. A quiet testament to the will to reach beyond devastation—toward hope, toward healing, and toward each other.

Cult-beloved experimental producer Michael J. Blood, hailing from North Manchester, returns with the second collaborative album alongside the elusive act samizdat, released on his own label BLOOD. Bathed in a sense of unease, this work weaves hypnotic loops, noise-fringed textures, and low-end pulses into a shape-shifting soundscape that blurs the boundaries between post-industrial abstraction and deconstructed R&B. A masterful blend of intimacy and abstraction, it’s a record that sinks deep into the psyche—perfect for solitary, late-night listening.

A shimmering gem of guitar ambient where pastoral warmth meets oneiric drift. The latest album by Manchester-born, London-based ambient duo Celestial arrives via Ecstatic, one of the UK’s most vital labels in the current experimental landscape. Evoking the vast, open landscapes of the American Midwest, the album blends wide-sky scale with the hushed intimacy of listening to grass grow. Threads of Americana gently intertwine with mist-like soundscapes, crafting a dreamstate of drowsiness, nostalgia, solitude, and quiet celebration. A masterwork of ambient guitar work that captures both distance and tenderness in equal measure.

Irish experimental pop artist Elaine Howley, known for her work with psychedelic rock group The Altered Hours and ambient trio Crevice, returns with a new 7-inch single for the revered Modern Love imprint. A delicate interplay of dreamy synth layers and minimalist rhythmic patterns forms the backdrop, as her inward-facing, intimate vocals gently rise to the surface. Cloaked in hazy reverb and subtle lo-fi textures, the track drifts between emotional resonance and sonic experimentation—tracing the blurred edges of post-ambient and contemporary experimental pop. A quiet gem of the current scene, mastered by none other than Rashad Becker.

Tokyo-based artist Will Long, widely known for his ambient works under Celer and the Meditations best-seller Long Trax, returns with the third installment of the Acid Trax EP series. Featuring a remix cut from the 2024 album Acid Trax, this release also includes a new co-produced track with iconic deep house figure DJ Sprinkles a.k.a. Terre Thaemlitz. The A-side delivers a sharp and emotionally nuanced production built on the relentless interplay of 909s and 303s, while the B-side shines with Sprinkles’ signature spatial sensitivity and mellow atmospheres. This is intelligent, immersive dance music that subtly reimagines the acid house format from within—a quiet document of aesthetic clarity, perfectly suited for the after-hours floor. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker.

Tokyo-based artist Will Long—well known for his acclaimed ambient works under the name Celer and his best-selling Long Trax series on Meditations—returns with a remix cut EP from his 2024 album Acid Trax, featuring none other than DJ Sprinkles a.k.a. Terre Thaemlitz, the iconic figure of artistic deep house explorations. Side A delivers a hypnotic, minimalist acid track running over 11 minutes, evoking the spirit of Phuture and early Plastikman, with razor-sharp 909 rhythms and acid-laced 303 lines. On the flip, DJ Sprinkles brings their unmistakable touch to the remix, sculpting a deeply immersive experience with intelligent arrangement and emotional depth—deep house at its most refined. A sublime slice of after-hours introspection and floor-ready elegance.

A long-awaited new album by none other than Rashad Becker — the living legend behind the scenes of contemporary experimental and electronic music. Known for his groundbreaking work at the iconic Dubplates & Mastering, closely tied to Basic Channel, Becker now returns with a new full-length released on his own label and studio, clunk. Alongside figures like Matt Colton, Stephan Mathieu, Amir Shoat, Helmut Erler, and Josh Bonati, Becker has certified countless landmark releases across the avant-garde spectrum. He has also released on Berlin’s cult label PAN, further cementing his legacy. On The Incident, swirling electronics and improvisational structuralism intertwine to form a surreal, otherworldly sonic landscape. A masterclass in sonic manipulation — Becker delivers yet another razor-sharp rupture in perception. A surrealist electroacoustic opus from a true artisan of the invisible.

Japanese artists Yumiko Morioka and Takashi Kokubo unite for Gaiaphilia, a journey through ambient soundscapes that seamlessly blends Morioka’s graceful piano compositions with Kokubo’s immersive field recordings and atmospheric synthesisers. This collaboration brings together two of Japan’s most influential pioneers in ambient and new age music, each with decades of groundbreaking work. Morioka, celebrated for her 1987 album Resonance—reissued to critical acclaim by Métron Records—infuses her introspective playing with Kokubo’s vivid environmental textures, creating a dialogue between nature and melody. After releasing Resonance, Morioka stepped away from music, moving to America to raise her family. For years, her work was quietly cherished by fans, only gaining wider recognition with its reissue in 2020. A devastating wildfire destroyed her California home seven years ago, prompting her return to Tokyo where she became a chocolatier before rediscovering her passion for the piano in recent years, playing live and recording new works. Takashi Kokubo’s legendary discography spans over 30 years, and has found wider acclaim in recent years via YouTube algorithms and bootleg uploads, wracking up tens of millions of plays. Yet he is probably best known for his sound design work, specifically the Japanese earthquake alert sound as well as credit card payment jingles - his creations are pervasive in Japanese society. “From our love and concern for our planet, we both offer a unique sensibility and spirit of inquiry which we express through our music.” Rooted in shared philosophical interests, Gaiaphilia reflects a profound reverence for nature’s resilience and harmony. Themes of Gaia, Mother Earth’s renewal, and the interconnectedness of life are central, with inspirations drawn from cosmology, sacred geometry, and Japan’s mystical Katakamuna tradition. The album invites listeners into a meditative space where sound mirrors the delicate balance of the natural world. A master of sound design, Kokubo enhances this vision with his distinctive field recordings, captured using a self-made binaural microphone shaped like a crash test dummy’s head. From the jungles of Borneo to the gentle rhythm of ocean waves, Kokubo’s globe-spanning recordings transform into immersive soundscapes that perfectly complement Morioka’s introspective piano compositions. “The title, Gaiaphilia, is a newly created word to encompass our love and respect for nature and life, this feeling is the theme we hoped to express.” Released on Métron Records on 12/03/25 and with artwork from Ventral Is Golden, Gaiaphilia marks a remarkable new chapter for Morioka and Kokubo. Recorded at Kokubo’s log house studio named Studio Ion in Yamanashi, their collaboration offers listeners a deeply emotional and transcendent experience, rooted in the timeless beauty of Japan’s natural landscapes.

Most of this recording was made during a single early evening in Southern California, outdoors, with the San Bernardino Mountains in view. Sam Wilkes played bass guitar, Craig Weinrib played trap drums, and Dylan Day played electric guitar. Eight months after that dusk recording session, the trio reconvened to capture a few more pieces. Wilkes wanted to hear Dylan play a Jobim melody (How Insensitive), Dylan wanted to hear Craig play a funeral march (When I Can Read My Titles Clear), and Craig wanted to play nice and gentle. The resulting record, a document of an initial and seemingly fated musical encounter, conveys the ease and the intensity of the trio’s chemistry. Their shared sonic affinities, while essential to the record’s sound, feel secondary to the integrity, confidence, and mutual regard that suffuse each note and every beat. Atop standards, folk songs, and hymns, Wilkes, Weinrib, and Day unfurl a series of cascading improvisations. Joyful and precise music. Sam Wilkes is from Westport, Connecticut and lives in Los Angeles, California. Craig Weinrib is from New York and lives in New York. Dylan Day is from Fletcher, Vermont and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Experience the high strangeness of plant music—plants that “sing.” For years musician Nico Georis has used biofeedback instruments to
connect a variety of flora to analog synthesizers, letting their biodata
create music that is strange and existentially gorgeous.

Nico’s work in plant music happened during a six year span, and was
set in motion by a simple desire to find a fresh supply of long-form
ambient music for relaxing to at home. After a chance encounter with
an obscure technology dating back to the 70’s allowing plant
electricity to be converted to MIDI data, Nico began experimenting with using his house plants to generate endlessly evolving ambient music. “I was looking for music that I couldn’t find, and I realized the plants & I could make it.”

Here was an opportunity for another type of ambient music, one not
born of the human brain, to emerge. A music that moves beyond
human thought forms all together, and leans deeply into the green.
Culled from hundreds of plant songs recorded between 2016 - 2022
both at home and in the wild Plant Music Vol. 1 and 2 represent the
“greatest hits” of Nico’s plant music years.

Plant music Vol. 3 marks the newest installation, showcasing music
generated from psilocybin mushrooms, known by many as “Golden
Teachers”.

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"This music is created via an artistic translation of electrical biodata into musical data. Two mushrooms and the mycelium connecting them are hooked-up to sensors, and their fluctuating electrical conductivity is translated into an equivalent flow of music notes (MIDI). These notes are then filtered into musical scales and routed into synthesizers that generate tones.

These recordings have been arranged into a variety of solos, duets and trios. They reflect what we feel are the most fascinating and beautiful examples of psilocybin mushroom music, straight from the tub."

◄░░░░░░►

Nico Georis is a keyboard player, producer & songwriter from
California. He produces music from his studio at Granny's Dancehall in a ghost town amidst the wilderness. His music, a unique amalgamation of global influences, presents an imposing total aesthetic that is all his own. 
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Plant music recordings of a creosote bush near Death Valley, CA.

"Wafting audio incense from the desert wastes of the Eastern Sierra. Music for reading, dreaming and dissociating."
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Shirley Shirley Shirley is Nico Georis' latest release, an otherworldly document of his experiments in plant music. For several years Nico has been using midi technology to connect a variety of flora to analog synthesizers, letting their biodata create music that is unlike anything I have ever heard. The results are strange and breathtaking. Ultimately it's the closest thing I've found to an organic expression of John Cage's notion of indeterminacy. But unlike Cage's music, Shirley is existentially gorgeous. It stands in the same category as music by Laraaji, Roedelius or Steve Roach. It is available as a download or on limited double vinyl.

- Psychic Arts
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blueblue is the latest full-length from multi-instrumentalist and all-around vibe wizard, Sam Gendel. The record, out October 14 via Leaving Records, is a concise, tightly wound song suite whose 14 tracks each correspond to a pattern within sashiko, a traditional style of Japanese embroidery. This conceit remains playfully ambiguous — to what extent, if at all, is Kagome (籠目, woven bamboo) meant to evoke the pattern of the same name, for example? But there is an intuitive sense, throughout blueblue, that Gendel has, in this instance, narrowed his focus. To say that blueblue feels richly textural might be a little on-the-nose, thematically, but alas…it does. There is an intimacy, a humility, and a strength at play here that typifies the work of a master craftsman. Only an artist could make it sound so effortless. A Los Angeleno by way of Central CA, Gendel is by now an institution. Across a dizzying slate of solo releases and collaborations, he has amassed a reputation for not only virtuosic musicianship (primarily as a saxophonist, though the songs that would become blueblue were all initially composed on guitar), but also for his mercurial and prolific output — a corpus of work, which, while obviously indebted to jazz and hip hop (and the farther flung, experimental corners of both) is, in a word, unpindownable. In this regard, Leaving Records, with its cri-de-cœur of “All Genre,” is a natural home for Gendel. The bulk of blueblue was recorded in isolation in a makeshift studio built in a cabin floating atop a tributary of Oregon’s Columbia River. Having sketched out a set of guitar melodies, Gendel recorded the album in five-or-so weeks, during which time he became well-acquainted with the river’s tidal rise and fall. This organic rhythm, which daily lifted the house to meet the horizon, later setting it down gently upon the riverbed, permeates the record. There are pops and groans and artifacts, and, in Tate-jima (縦縞, vertical stripes)—one of blueblue’s more plaintive tracks—even the faint lapping of water. Equally essential to the feel of blueblue is Craig Weinrib’s kit work. Gendel and Weinrib collaborated long-distance during Gendel’s time in Oregon, with Gendel sending Weinrib half-finished songs, and giving him carte-blanche to record percussion. The end result is a relaxed, confident exchange between two clearly simpatico musicians, particularly evident in Weinrib’s gorgeously attentive brush technique. blueblue is a conceptually sound, mesmerizing, evocative, and sonically idiosyncratic LP. In keeping with its name, blueblue functions as Gendel’s color study, conveying, through repetition and deviation, his devotion to a certain mood — unnamable, but certainly noirish, nostalgic, quasi-psychedelic, and existing in some permanent twilight. Real ones know, and for those who don’t yet, blueblue is an accessible and intoxicating entry-point into Gendel's ever-expanding catalog.

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

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

Using composition as catharsis stemming from a traumatic upbringing where music was banned in her childhood household, and the inherent occult history that surrounds the art form, Vaughan does not shy away from precisely stewarding this particular - often still-overlooked - musical tradition through her generation’s ambient lens.
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In an era of rampant, man-made climate chaos, “solastalgia” (the longing and distress experienced by individuals as a response to environmental change/degradation) has emerged as a useful, semi-viral concept — a catch-all term for the pervasive sense that the world as we know it is far from well, and only growing less so. But, for many of us, a problem, a trap, an ineffable hollowness, exists at the very crux of this concept/premise: how can we mourn (or even sense the loss of) that which we have never known? Especially for lifelong urbanites estranged from nature, who nevertheless grasp the severity and complexity of the problem—how might they remember? How might they mourn? Perhaps indirectly—that is to say, in an exploratory and non-dogmatic fashion—Green-House, a project birthed by Olive Ardizoni and now officially a duo project featuring long-time collaborator and confidant, Michael Flanagan, seeks to address this gap in understanding. Six Songs for Invisible Gardens, the debut Green-House EP whose 2020 release coincided with the depths of Covid-19 “lockdown,” responded to the rampant heartsickness of human and plant life, especially in non-rural areas. The packaging of the cassette release famously included wildflower seeds for the listener to scatter. This gesture (at once simple and daring, especially when one considers the logistical element) exists as testament to the sincerity and seriousness of Ardizoni’s convictions. Music for Living Spaces, the first full-length Green-House LP, followed in 2021— a refinement of the formula that enshrined Six Songs as a cult, eco-ambient hit. Out October 13, 2023 on Leaving Records, they have returned with the LP A Host For All Kinds of Life, a third entry in a series of releases whose titles have incidentally all revolved around the “for” construction: an unofficial canon of offerings, or maybe rather instructions as to how the music contained therein might, could, and should operate in/on the listener’s life and “living space(s).” Decidedly the most expansive Green-House release — one need only consider the LP’s title and the kaleidoscopic, fractal cover art designed by Flanagan—A Host For All Kinds of Life troubles the very notion of “ambient music,” a category with whom Green-House has always existed in some degree of tension. What if a song’s seeming softness constitutes its biting edge? What if easeful, contemplative pleasure can radically alter our mindset? Our very role as worldly subjects? Drawing on the works of Lynn Margulis and our burgeoning understanding of the evolutionary role of biological mutualism (associations between species in which both species benefit), A Host For All Kinds of Life is a deeply entrenched and politically grounded song suite. And there are indeed discrete songs here, with defined structure, momentum, and sway; see the gilded, sixties-evoking melodic arabesque of the record’s ninth and penultimate track, “Everything is Okay” (which incidentally ends with the release’s only human voice—a tender message left for Ardizoni by their mother). In conversation, Ardizoni speaks often of the centrality of joy—that Green-House’s very existence can be traced to a conscious decision they made to not only choose joy as an act of rebellion, but to find that joy in whatever plant life they could access in their immediate environment. In this sense, all of Green-House’s releases (and A Host for All Kinds of Life especially) embody a radicality that may elude the casual or first-time listener. To choose, model, and express joy in an ailing world requires courage, a courage that must be jealously guarded and constantly replenished. A Host For all Kinds of Life encourages the listener to slow down, take stock, tune in to the more-than-human world around them, and gather their courage and joy in light of the uncertainty to come.

Originally compiled & released in 2015 by Leaving Records & Laraaji, we proudly present (again), with humble gratitude, three re-issues of seminal works by new age musician, composer, and laughter meditation workshop leader Laraaji - recorded between 1978 and 1983. Although some excerpts of the material have been featured on various compilations, this was the first time in over 30 years that one can experience the uninterrupted duration of these cosmic etudes in their complete form. The added length creates an immersive environment of fresh, exploratory, experimental and healing sounds in which to dwell– these are the proper, entire experiences as intended by their creator.

1978’s Lotus Collage was recorded live in a Park Slope, Brooklyn living room during Laraaji’s busker years. The sounds consist of freestyle electric open tuned zither/harp, Ecstatic Rhythmic hammer percussion, and free flow open hand ethereal moods. This recording crucially predates Laraaji’s now mythological “discovery” by Brian Eno, and is significant as one of Laraaji’s first electric zither recordings. This early recording captures a youthful Laraaji at the outset of his musical journey, still ripe for discovery, exploration, and transcendence. 1981’s Unicorns in Paradise was performed on electric keyboard Casiotone MT-70, and once again features Laraaji’s iconic zither in a flowing atmospheric improvisation. Laraaji describes its sonic environs as “an ideal habitat in another dimension of timelessness.” Many years later, this description holds true as its vibrant sounds inspire sensual reflections of the excited imagination. The final re-issue consists of two parts. Its first side, “Trance Celestial,” is a glowing, amorphous survey of muted and malleable electric sounds. Its uncharacteristically dark atmospheres nevertheless still paint a surreal atmosphere for self-reflection. Much beauty and inner-wisdom can be found in the depths of its inward trajectory. In contrast, the title track is a guided meditation full of light and optimism. Its spoken word segments and patient arrangements illustrate a constructive framework for enjoying the whole of Laraaji’s extensive catalog.

Originally, these releases were hand-made and dubbed to cassette by Laraaji himself. Of the process, he says “I felt like I was distributing artwork. As a matter of fact, for some of the cassettes I actually did some extra handwork on the label, doing a screen print or magic marker to add some color. So there was a sense of how to be an industry homemade artist direct-to-consumer feeling in the early years. People would ask for cassette tapes of an issue that I had not mass produced. So, now and then I’ll run into somebody who has a cassette tape… I’ll look at it and say, ‘Oh Wow, hand-made label, J-card and HEART.'”

Available on both cassette and digital, these re-issues offer Laraaji’s early music in both its original form and a form that did not exist at the time of its recording. Regarding this parallel, Laraaji reflects, “Having the music move in dimensions I didn’t predict… It feels like an extended blessing.” 

This is a lovely and surprising treat indeed. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow and much more) partners with vocalist Atsuko Kamura (Mizutama Shobodan aka Polka Dot Fire Brigade and Frank Chickens) to present 37 compositions, expanding the usual sub-10-second acoustic life of classic haiku into a varied suite of compositions which place the gem-like poems, spoken and sung in both English and Japanese by Hodgkinson and Kamura, into gorgeous musical frames composed by Hodgkinson. "Haiku In The Wide World" lovingly embraces texts spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, revered examples of a long-established Japanese literary form, bringing these brief poems into the realms of musical art, setting them in an extended network of sonic inter-relationships. The instrumental textures, paradoxically sparse yet rich, crystalline yet warm, are provided by Hodgkinson’s own clarinet and other sound sources, as well as beautifully played and crisply recorded french horn, viola, violin, cello and acoustic guitar. The voices and instrumental sounds fuse with the poetic images, each throwing light and casting shadows on each, revealing hidden significances and building resonances across the arc of the release. The Japanese and English voicings of the haiku also provide further layers of significance, resonance and communication. The English translations, by poet Harry Gilonis, sparked Hodgkinson to initiate this project, a dancing, shifting terrain of life moving through the seasons and the comings and goings of the moon and sun. This project is a unique world, distinctly different from what either Hodgkinson and Kamura have previously accomplished. "Haiku In The Wide World" is a co-release, with ReR launching a UK CD version; EM Records provides both CD and 2LP versions. The tracks and sequence are the same for both labels, but the cover art is different — perhaps you should buy each version; "Haiku In The Wide World" is certainly worthy.

Bastard Science EP is a modular synthesizer-based work by Richard Scott, who is also known as a member of the band Twinkle³ and teaches at the Catalyst Institute, a creative arts and technology school in Berlin.

Richard began his musical journey in the early 1980s and released his first modular synthesizer piece in 1992. Since then, he has continued to release works both as a solo artist and in collaborative projects, while also contributing to the design and development of modular systems.

His work spans not only solo electronic projects but also improvisational sessions with acoustic instruments. He regularly performs concerts across Europe. In this EP, Richard explores new rhythmic possibilities, reflecting his belief that “Although music has expanded enormously over the past hundred years in terms of timbre, melody, and harmony—through contemporary music, jazz, and experimental electronic music—I feel rhythm is still relatively underdeveloped.”

An insert included with the record features an interview with Richard, in which he shares his thoughts on engaging with experimental music and the experience of generating sound through the modular interface.

The incessant brain bogglers zig-zag back to Diagonal with the nerve-gnawing acid pointillism of Right Frankfurt after a series of purple-themed 12”s with iDEAL and Hypermedium and the zinging Do These sessions with F.C.O.U. and Presto!?

Equivalent to an intravenous dose of acidic synthesis, Right Frankfurt nods to one of techno’s most efficient power centres with a PCP-on-Modafinil-strength reduction and concentration of early industrial techno tropes shorn of their skull-cracking beats and left to babble in an utterly alien coda.

It does so for 25 unrelenting minutes, which, if you asked my mum, all sounds the same. But, if you’ve ever appreciated the lissom fluidity of a strong acid or synth lead in the dance, you will notice and no doubt relish the piece’s tumultuous, microtonal variation, see-sawing up/down and around the frequency scale in highly visual knots that are perhaps best experienced in synch with the strobes of their live show.

We recently witnessed EVOL scare the bejesus into Berghain with this stuff, to the extent that there’s now a small cargo cult like gathering on the wastelands next door to the club who can do nowt but worship a discarded acid smiley keyring and speak in 303 tongues whilst cowering at the sight of Easyjets overhead.

God save the ravers.

“This is the time that we, who have benefited from the Last Poets should be able to say, ‘it’s the Last Poets. It’s them we should be honouring, because we did not honour them for so many years…”

KRS One wasn’t just addressing the hip hop fraternity when he uttered those words by way of introducing the video for Invocation – a poem written thirty years ago, around the time of the Last Poets’ last significant comeback. He was speaking to everyone who’s been affected by the word, sound and power issuing from the most revolutionary poetry ever witnessed, and that the Last Poets had introduced to the world outside of Harlem at the dawn of the seventies.

In 2018 the two remaining Last Poets, Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan, embarked on another memorable return with an album – Understand What Black Is – that earned favourable comparison with their seminal works of the past, whilst showcasing their undimmed passion and lyrical brilliance in an entirely new setting – that of reggae music. Tracks like Rain Of Terror (“America is a terrorist”) and How Many Bullets demonstrated that they’d lost none of their fire or anger, and their essential raison d’etre remained the same.

“The Last Poets’ mission was to pull the people out of the rubble o f their lives,” wrote their biographer Kim Green. “They knew, deep down that poetry could save the people – that if black people could see and hear themselves and their struggles through the spoken word, they would be moved to change.”

Several years later and the follow-up is now with us. The project started when Tony Allen, the Nigerian master drummer whose unique polyrhythms had driven much of Fela Kuti’s best work, dropped by Prince Fatty’s Brighton studio and laid down a selection of drum patterns to die for. That was back in 2019, but then the pandemic struck. Once it had passed, the label booked a studio in Brooklyn, where the two Poets voiced four tracks apiece and breathed fresh energy, fire and outrage into some of the most enduring landmarks of their career. Abiodun, who was one of the original Last Poets who’d gathered in East Harlem’s Mount Morris Park to celebrate Malcolm X’s birthday in May 1968, chose four poems that first appeared on the group’s 1970 debut album, called simply The Last Poets. He’d written When The Revolution Comes aged twenty, whilst living in Jamaica, Queens. “We were getting ready for a revolution,” he told Green. “There wasn’t any question about whether there was going to be one or not. The truth was many of us still saw ourselves as “niggers” and slaves. This was a mindset that had to change if there was ever to be Black Power.”

He and writer Amiri Baraka were deep in conversation one day when Baraka became distracted by a pretty girl walking by. “You’re a gash man,” Abiodun told him. The poem inspired by that incident, Gash Man, is revisited on the new album, and exposes the heartless nature of sexual acts shorn of intimacy or affection. “Instead of the vagina being the entrance to heaven,” he says, “it too often becomes a gash, an injury, a wound…”

Two Little Boys meanwhile, was inspired after seeing two young boys aged around 11 or 12 “stuffing chicken and cornbread down their tasteless mouths, trying to revive shrinking lungs and a wasted mind.” They’d walked into Sylvia’s soul food restaurant in Harlem, ordered big meals, then bolted them down and run out the door. No one chased after them, knowing that they probably hadn’t eaten in days. Fifty years later and children are still going hungry in major cities across America and elsewhere. Abiodun’s poem hasn’t lost any relevance at all, and neither has New York, New York, The Big Apple. “Although this was written in 1968, New York hasn’t changed a bit,” he admits, except “today, people just mistake her sickness for fashion.”

Umar is originally from Akron, Ohio, but had arrived in Harlem in early 1969 after seeing Abiodun and the other Last Poets at a Black Arts Festival in Cleveland. That’s where he first witnessed what Amiri Baraka once called “the rhythmic animation of word, poem, image as word-music” – a creative force that redefined the concept of performance poetry and stripped it bare until it became a howl of rage, hurt and anger, saved from destruction by mockery and love for humanity. When Umar’s father, who was a musician, was jailed for armed robbery he took to the streets from an early age where he shined shoes and raised whatever money he could to help feed his eight brothers and sisters. By the time he saw the Last Poets he’d joined the Black United Front and was ready to join the struggle.

Once in Harlem, Abiodun asked him what he’d learnt in the few weeks since he’d got there. “Niggers are scared of revolution,” Umar replied. “Write it down” urged Abiodun. That poem still gives off searing heat more than fifty years later. In Umar’s own words, “it became a prayer, a call to arms, a spiritual pond to bathe and cleanse in because niggers are not just vile and disgusting and shiftless. Niggers are human beings lost in someone else’s system of values and morals.”

And there you have it. It's not just race or religion that hold us back, but an economic system that keeps millions in poverty and living in fear – a system born from political choice and that’s now become so entrenched, so bloated on its own success that it’s put mankind in mortal danger. It was many black people’s acceptance of the status quo that inspired Just Because, which like Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution, was included on that seminal first album. Along with their revolutionary rhetoric, it was the Last Poets’ use of the “n word” that proved so shocking, but it would be wrong to suggest that they reclaimed it, since it never belonged to black people in the first place. There’s never any hiding place when it comes to the Last Poets. They use words like weapons, and that force all who listen to decide who they are and where they stand.

Umar’s two remaining tracks find him revisiting poems first unleashed on the Poets’ second album This Is Madness! Abiodun had left for North Carolina by then where he became more deeply enmeshed in revolutionary activities and spent almost four years in jail for armed robbery after attempting to seize funds related to the Klu Klux Klan. Meanwhile, the 21 year old Umar was squatting in Brooklyn and had developed close ties with the Dar-ul Islam Movement. A longing for purity and time-honoured spiritual values underpins Related to What, whilst This Is Madness is a call for freedom “by any means necessary,” and that paints a feverish landscape peopled by prominent black leaders but that quickly descends into chaos. “All my dreams have been turned into psychedelic nightmares,” he wails, over a groove now powered by Tony Allen’s ferocious drumming.

Those sessions lasted just two days, and we can only imagine the atmosphere in that room as the hip hop godfathers exchanged the conga drums of Harlem for the explosive sounds of authentic Afrobeat. Once they’d finished, the recordings and momentum returned to Prince Fatty’s studio, since relocated from Brighton to SE London. This was stage three of the project, and who better to fill out the rhythm tracks than two key musicians from Seun Anikulapo Kuti’s band Egypt 80? Enter guitarist Akinola Adio Oyebola and bassist Kunle Justice, who upon hearing Allen’s trademark grooves exclaimed, “oh, the Father… we are home!”

Such joy and enthusiasm resulted in the perfect fusion of Nigerian Afrobeat and revolutionary poetry, but the vision for the album wasn’t yet complete. He wanted to create a new kind of soundscape – one that reunited the Poets with the progressive jazz movement they’d once shared with musicians like Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders. It was at that point they recruited exciting jazz talents based in the UK like Joe Armon Jones from Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective, also widely acclaimed producer/remixer and keyboard player Kaidi Tatham, who’s been likened to Herbie Hancock, and British jazz legend Courtney Pine, whose genius on the saxophone and influence on the UK’s now vibrant jazz scene is beyond question.

The instrumental tracks on Africanism are in many ways as revelatory and exciting as the Last Poets’ own. It’s important to remember that the kaleidoscope of styles and influences we’re presented with here aren’t the result of sampling but were played “live” by musicians responding to sounds made by other musicians. That’s where the magic comes from, aided by Prince Fatty’s peerless mixing which allows us to hear everything with such clarity. Music fans today have grown accustomed to listening to all kinds of different genres. Their tastes have never been so broad or all-encompassing, and so the music on this new Last Poets’ album is as groundbreaking as their lyrics, and perfectly suited to the era that we’re now living in.