MUSIC

Khotin by Vancouver producer Dylan Khotin-Foote is a reissue of the cassette release that sold out instantly at bandcamp in 2018! The profound ambient sound is a chill-out refinement of the unfathomable depth of the previous work, which is both immersive and sleepy, and has been beautifully incorporated into the lo-fi feel of the artwork while maintaining the vibrancy of the spiritual & naturalistic sound world. This is a masterpiece of beauty that cannot be described in words, with a profound sound world that creates a dreamy fantasy land on a windowsill in broad daylight, only to sink into the border between Hades and reality. A masterpiece of unspeakable beauty. Highly recommended for all music lovers from new age to ambient and Balearic.

In the late-1990s, after a successful career as an MTV-era music video director, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson moved with Jhonn Balance - his partner in life and in Coil - from London to the rural Weston-super-Mare, creating an environment for all things "musick, musick, musick!" with a revolving door of new members, including Thighpaulsandra. This eruption in activity saw Coil's discography nearly double, and during this fruitful period, Thighpaulsandra asked the simple question: why doesn't Coil play live? After a 16-year wait, thanks to the rapid technological advancement in the form of MacBooks, DAWs, VSTs and plugins, Coil were able bring their music to the stage as always envisioned. In live performance, they could embrace the risks and freedoms of real time sonic manipulation, as noted by Sleazy: "Reshape the show minute by minute... the direction is very spontaneous, not so much in the way of like jazz improvisation but in a kind stream of consciousness… Thighpaulsandra brought us his wisdom, and he was able to convince us we could do it." From 1999 to 2003, Coil was "like a snake shedding its skin," transforming every six months into something "completely different." Their evolution was documented in real time through the recent advent of lower-cost CD-R manufacture, on limited edition albums including 'Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil' and 'Queens of the Circulating Library.' In preparing for 2004’s "Even an Evil Fatigue" live series, Coil began work on their next period-defining masterpiece, 'Black Antlers.' 'Black Antlers' showcases late-period Coil at their purest: stripped down, tighter, and leaner. The music became more rhythmic, with a greater emphasis on beats: "the songs we did tend to be more... not rock in any sense of a word, but you know, more conventional in terms of structure, but now what we're doing is sort of within an 'electronic' genre." The sound of 'Black Antlers' is of an intoxicating energy, combining Thighpaulsandra's advanced synthesis, Balance's poetic lyricism and Christopherson's flirtations with jazz and Ableton-aided PowerBook maximalism. Rounding out the trio were renowned hurdy-gurdy player Cliff Stapleton on a "specifically commissioned" electric variant, to merge into the band’s "strange and other-worldly music"; Royal Academy of Music trained percussionist Tom Edwards (who also appeared with Thighpaulsandra in Spiritualized’s live band); and European and Near East winds specialist Mike York on pipes, bombarde, duduk and balalaika. Initially released as an "album-in-progress" in June 2004, a post on the Threshold House website noted, "Please remember that September will see Coil recording the album "Black Antlers (Proper)"." Jhonn Balance passed away that November; Christopherson would reunite with 'Love's Secret Domain' collaborator Danny Hyde to complete 'Black Antlers' by May 2006. Revitalized energy marked 'Black Antlers''s recording, paired with the group's signature wordplay and humor (the name came from a series of imagined adult film titles). At their "Evil Fatigue" tour opener in Paris, Jhonn Balance presented the revised "Teenage Lightning (10th Birthday Version)" as, "an updated version of one of our older-never 'hits.'" The song, about the energy generated by "two teenagers, or old age pensioners" rapidly pulses, with Edwards's marimbas electronically modified and arpeggiated by Christopherson. Album opener "The Gimp (Sometimes)" is hypnotic and hallucinatory, recalling Coil's 90s period, with a potentially uneasy air, filled with repetition, distorted vocals, and Thighpaulsandra's modulated drone. "Sex With Sun Ra (Part One - Saturnalia)" reveals the potentials of the 2004 lineup, as it writhes and glides through an imagined conversation with the legendary composer, building into overdrive. On the complementary piece, Christopherson & Hyde's "Sex With Sun Ra (Part Two - Sigillaricia)", the song evolves into a throbbing ouroboros of glitches and free flowing energy, with York's pipe samples reverberating almost filmically. One highlight is "The Wraiths And Strays Of Paris", an expansion of the song's first release (as "Wraiths And Strays (From Montreal)", available as a downloadable bonus track). "Of Paris" takes Thighpaulsandra synthesized warmth and Christopherson's PowerBook manipulations & stylizations from the original, adding samples taken from multi-track recordings of the full live band - including Balance's vocals from the Paris show - fully realizing Christopherson's desire of "taking the (electronic) genre to a place that people would find unexpected, and more challenging." Adding to the unexpected, and building upon their own uncompromising legacy, Coil delicately cover the traditional African American lullaby (and "friend's song") "All The Pretty Little Horses", with Balance's vocals soothing the listener in an almost hushed whisper. For Christopherson, following Jhonn's death, the relevance and power of Coil's creative output changed. He had one goal in mind: "to maintain the availability of the archive for future generations." In original form, 'Black Antlers' represented the possibilities of a new era for the group, built from the momentum of live performance, new sounds and ideas. For the final version, 'Black Antlers' reunited Coil members from over the decades, collaborating across the boundaries of fixed time. There would be no more new Coil, only the completion of unfinished projects, bringing them to a standard which Balance would "have loved and approved of." Dais Records would like to thank Thighpaulsandra and Danny Hyde for their collaboration on this reissue. The Dais reissue presents Coil's 2006 version 'Black Antlers' with 2004's "Wraiths And Strays (From Montreal)" available as a downloadable bonus track.

Unfolding is Jessica Moss’s most meditative and plaintive solo album, and perhaps the first in the Montréal violinist/composer’s decade-spanning discography that could properly be called ambient. The ex-Silver Mt Zion member and Black Ox Orkestar co-founder draws from post-classical, drone, minimalism, industrial/metal, power electronics, Klezmer and other folkways: this is not abstract ambient music. Layers of violin melody, electroacoustic processing, intermittent voice, and percussion from The Necks drummer Tony Buck, yield deeply emotive genre-defying compositions, guided by a spirit of searching and summoning that unfolds in a prevailing atmosphere of incantation and mournful restraint. Working closely with producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart), Moss notes "Unfolding was made slowly, over the last 12 months, the second full year of genocide in Palestine, in direct response to our collective witnessing, our collective grief, as a portal to collective mourning, as a searchlight through our internal weather systems, seeking one another out in the dark." The inseparability of the personal and political has wrung ever tighter for Moss these past two years, as for so many. She’s co-organized and played several benefit shows as a core member of the Montréal chapter of Musicians For Palestine, and she released the solo album For UNRWA in spring 2024 (garnering over 800 supporters and raising thousands of dollars). Moss’s music was already moving towards heightened fragility and deep listening, becoming increasingly durational and ceremonial. Despite the plummeting financial viability of touring, her devotion to holding space, conjuring entanglement, and connecting with intimate live audiences has become her creative lodestar, especially following lockdown. With her solo praxis shaped by committing to and communing in these rooms, recent political and personal upheavals have only intensified her ritualistic, reparative musical processes. The two longform tracks on Side One of Unfolding embody this sensibility. "Washing Machine" weaves layers of string drone and filigree, gently noised by distortion pedals and amplification, with indecipherably blown-out spoken voice intermittently enveloping the mix as fragmentary palimpsests of shrouded recitation and ineffable feeling. The piece traces its origins to a phone recording of a European laundry machine, captured by Moss as she sat next to it, heartbroken on the bathroom floor, finding solace by humming a melody along to the mechanical harmonics of the washer working through its cycles. Album centerpiece "One, Now" begins as a delicate invocation, with bass pulse, chimes and bells, plucked strings, and doleful lead violin lines influenced by Jewish and Arabic modes. Ambient noise, field recordings, and wordless vocals are added to the brew, as violin melodies layer and coalesce towards a mesmerizing dronescape: a semi-improvised living composition further vitalized by Tony Buck’s paintbrush drumming throughout, and Moumneh’s "yell into the void" at the end.. Side Two is a work in four parts titled "no one / no where / no one is free / until all are free" that moves through ambient noise, elegiac post-classical strings, and distorted harmonic drones, towards a denouement of liturgical organ, ritual bell, and shimmering electronic tracers that set the stage for the album’s closing song: the devastating choral composition "until all are free", a secular hymn comprised of Jessica’s multi-tracked vocals (but which she looks forward to singing with others in concert). Unfolding is dedicated to "a free Palestine in our lifetime." Thanks for listening.

The inimitable GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: STATE’S END encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s storied discography. Recorded and mixed by Jace Lasek, the veteran award-winning indie producer (and co-founder of The Besnard Lakes) who works with Godspeed for the first time on this recording.

Thee Marloes, by way of Surabaya, Indonesia are Natassya Sianturi on vocals, Sinatrya Dharaka on guitar, and Tommy Satwick on drums. Their unique sound mixes elements of their local culture and music with influences of Soul, Jazz, and Pop.

Lady Wray makes her highly anticipated return with Cover Girl, her third album on Big Crown Records. The album opener “My Best Step” says it all, “my next step is my best step”, and indeed she is taking her artistry to a new high and making the best music of her life. The celebratory Cover Girl takes listeners on a free-spirited joyride glittered with ‘60s and '70s-inspired soul and disco, ‘90s hip-hop and R&B, and perhaps the most defining element, gospel. Following the healing journey that was 2022’s Piece of Me, Nicole has performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and toured the world. After this period of growth, Lady Wray is now ready to let her hair down and embrace all of what life has to offer. Reunited with producer Leon Michels (Norah Jones / Clairo / El Michels Affair) for the record, the outcome is effortless and undeniable, a reflection of their longtime collaboration that extends over a decade.

“I've gravitated more towards love and self-care with this album. Piece of Me was realizing that I was going to be a mother, and all those feelings were on my heart,” Lady Wray says. “Now I'm able to sit back and be a real boss. I got my career, my motherhood, and my marriage by the horns. I've grown into this more self-aware and beautiful flower for Cover Girl.” With an almighty voice, soul-stirring lyrics, and a magnetic personality, the singer-songwriter reflects her appreciation for her family, her faith, and her renewed love for herself—all of which drive her new record.

Lead single “You’re Gonna Win” is a report to the dance floor, feel good banger. Cole lets loose while naming and claiming her power “I do not care who came before me, after me there will be none” as she likens her company to winning the lottery. The Fabulous Rainbow Singers choir joins on the chorus taking the whole affair to church and putting it next to the finest gospel-disco records ever pressed. “Be a Witness” is a funky, mid-tempo powerhouse that would make Prince proud. Nicole finds the perfect groove over punchy drum machines and infectious synthesizers, singing about a love destined to happen, and spreading the good vibes to everyone in earshot. Cover Girl’s title track is one of the album’s most vulnerable moments. Lady Wray delivers a show-stopping performance over the stripped down track as she details her journey to finding herself again: “I lost myself trying to please someone else / I want to be me again.” The title stems from a childhood nickname she earned for her consistently manicured style. Lady Wray explains. “As I grew up and got into the music business, I lost that happy part of me. I see that happiness in my daughter, who’s just beautiful, talented, and smart. ‘Cover Girl’ is me going back to that little girl. It’s about getting back to loving yourself and healing.” Similarly on “Where Could I Be,” she reclaims the happiness and sense of identity that she lost focus of through life’s struggles. Nicole gushes about her love and respect for her marriage on “Best For Us” & “Hard Times”, both acknowledging the imperfection and referencing the strength and resilience of true love. She sings to her daughter on “Higher,” teaching her how to love and be loved, encouraging her to be confident and persistent.

Lady Wray was born to sing, sharing her soul and her life with us through her music. She has amassed a diehard worldwide fanbase with her relatable messages and incomparable voice. Whether singing of her struggles or strengths, there’s a comfort that comes from the way she makes us know we are not alone in any of it. Nicole Wray is inspiring and uplifting. Having been through a lot, she’s taken all of it and made herself a better person and a better artist.

“You need to rule your own world. Don't let anybody get in your way. You rock with your dreams until the wheels fall off,” Lady Wray says. “That's what I've been doing with my career since 1998. I know who I am and what I bring to the table. It's been a heck of a journey, and I feel so happy to be making the best music of my life.”

Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA’s patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time—with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formerly of 79.5. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album—as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better—or fuller—coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season—a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.

Big Crown Records is proud to present the remastered vinyl reissue of the cult classic “Sounding Out The City” by El Michels Affair. Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels’ first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60’s garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80’s 1/4″ reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10×10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it’s release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labeled as “cinematic soul”. However, in 2005 it found it’s way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC’s. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair’s second record, “Enter the 37th Chamber” which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.

The acclaimed and highly sought-after LP by Hailu Mergia and the Walias, Tche Belew, an album of instrumentals released in 1977, is perhaps the most seminal recording released in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. The story of the Walias band is a critical chapter in Ethiopian popular music, taking place during a period of music industry flux and political complexity in the country. Hailu Mergia, a keyboardist and arranger diligently working the nightclub scene in Addis Ababa, formed the Walias in the early 1970’s with a core group of musicians assembled from prior working bands. They played Mergia’s funk- and soul-informed tunes, while cutting 45rpm singles with various vocalists. While the Walias performed at top hotels and played the presidential palace twice, their relationship with the Derg regime was complex, evidenced by the removal of one song from the record by government censors. Decades later, Hailu Mergia was surprised to see the album fetching more than $4,000 at online auctions (it helped that the most popular of all Ethiopian tunes “Musicawi Silt” appeared on the record). Now everyone has the chance to listen again―or for the first time―to this timeless pillar of Ethiopian popular music.

In "Carrie and Lowell," Sufjan Stevens is a child again or, more specifically, the child character in the family of man drama that often but not always centers on the story of love given, or love forsaken, but isn't that the same thing to the poet? That the love Stevens sings about having left or given or been born to--thank you, Carrie--is a perceptible wound not only on the singer's throat, but his sleeve: he wears love's incomprehensibility, and the deep incomprehensibility of being a son, like a backing vocal on "Carrie and Lowell," which is also filled with colors, hearts, trees, conclusions, and beginnings, all adding up to the kind of intimacy that caught my eye the morning I sat in the diner waiting for the sun to get stronger as I saw intimacy pass by while going about it's business, like something sung and felt by Sufjan Stevens on his new beautiful solitary and rich record filled with faith and disbelief and the resurrection of trust and dreams. - HILTON ALS

Forthcoming 7" from Tokyo's TAMTAM.. Including a favorite of Kuro's, "花を一輪 - Hana Wo Ichirin" which was featured on Dublab Japan's -resilience- A Charity Compilation in Aid of the 2025 LA Wildfires. Also available at Dublab.jp digitally. Flip for the Magic Hour DUB version.

The long-awaited LP reissue of the insane masterpiece "My Hometown is Far Away Like a Story," which was produced by poet Taeko Tomioka and the young Ryuichi Sakamoto, and made a name for itself in music history! The cover by Nobuyoshi Araki, also known as Araki, is a must-have!

The poet Tomioka Taeko's insane masterpiece "Monogatarinoyouni Furusatohatoi" (originally released on CD by Victor in 1977 and P-Vine in 2005) is finally coming to light on a limited edition analog LP! It's too avant-garde and fantastical to be called psychedelic. A masterpiece of insanity that will drive the vestibular canals of all who listen to it crazy!
The music was produced by a young Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the cover was photographed by Nobuyoshi Araki, also known as Araki.

“Kachouzu” is a limited-edition lathe-cut release by Merzbow, also known as Masami Akita. It presents the pinnacle of harsh noise, with Merzbow’s signature metallic and extreme sound unfolding throughout. Unlike standard pressed records, the lathe-cut format delivers a uniquely raw sonic texture that further amplifies the intensity and impact of the work.

In the words of Emma Warren:

Alabaster DePlume is not doing things properly, and this makes him very happy.

DePlume is a Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator. He’s a resident at the legendary London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre, a recording artist for the off-grid, Scottish Hebridean island label Lost Map, and now the latest arrival into Chicago-based International Anthem’s growing family of progressive musical explorationists. Whilst much of his music contains vocals – often whispered imperatives – this is a collection of instrumentals, drenched in feeling and recorded over four albums and eight earth years in cities across the UK.

The music of "To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1" contains naturally elegant orchestration wrapped around something visceral and primordial. Swirled inside the 11 pieces are shades of Japanese Min’yo folk, Celtic folk, the Ethio-jazz of saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya and hints of the pan-human ‘ancient music’ that sat underneath Arthur Russell’s melodies on First Thought, Best Thought. The music is filled with space, inspired, he says, by computer games and Japanese animation, particularly Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack for Studio Ghibli’s Castle In The Sky.

The record combines new compositions alongside bygone instrumentals and understated lullabies that feel like they’ve been picked from between the cracks of civilisation. These songs were collected from albums "Copernicus," "The Jester," and "Peach" – under-the-radar records that preceded his critically acclaimed 2019 release The Corner of a Sphere. The new tunes feature Dan ‘Danalogue’ Leavers of The Comet Is Coming and Sarathy Korwar alongside a host of London’s finest musicians.

To Cy & Lee… has a suitably individual genesis. DePlume was working for Ordinary Lifestyles, a charity in North Manchester which supports people with disabilities to live in their own homes and to live fulfilling lives. Specifically, he was working with the titular Cy and Lee. His job was to get the guys socialising and he did this by making up songs with them. They’d make up melodies together, humming tunes in the house when they needed something calm, or when they were haring round the city in a battered car. DePlume would record these impromptu sessions in his phone, then go to the studio and use the material as starting points for songs.

He also ran music sessions for Cy, Lee and their friends. “People would focus on a central point, tuning in to one another. There are things we can’t put into words, which can be expressed with sound and music. These guys have fewer words than us, some of them have none. When we put some feelings into a music expression – that’s liberation.”

It’s a method he uses in live shows wherever possible, placing himself and the musicians in the round. The aim is to maximise the creative benefits that a community of players and listeners can bring to the music. It’s a collectivist and humanist approach to making music that sits underneath everything he does. This is music made for a reason, and those reasons include – to paraphrase some of the catchphrases he uses both on stage and in conversation – mixing people up, asking everyone to be as much themselves as they possibly can and the hardcore encouragement expressed in his most popular line, shouted back at him by audiences wherever he goes: “You’re doing very well!”

Practically, he purposefully brings together players of different skill levels and different backgrounds so they have to interact differently, placing them in unusual situations in which to record. “I wanted to destroy the idea of correct so we were playing it different ways for fun. We had a very magical time playing the tunes”. This is activism expressed through gorgeous music that breaks down barriers by encouraging that most powerful emotion: connectedness.

One source of these gorgeous instrumentals is "Peach," an album that later bestowed a name upon legendary monthly sessions he’d run once he’d moved to London. The music was recorded in the middle of the room at Antwerp Mansion, around a big dinner cooked for 60 people.

“The dinner made the air vibrate in the way it did. We did it a certain way, for fun, getting people to shout out instructions – ‘make it like a hangover!’ ‘Make it like a barrel rolling down the ice!’ And we did it that way. You’ve got people eating and drinking around you and they might shout out anything. You can let go and respond.”

The two new pieces were recorded at London’s now-famous Total Refreshment Centre with Danalogue (on piano) Sarathy Korwar (drums), Chestnutt (of Snapped Ankles, on synth), Donna Thompson (voice) and James Howard (guitar). They had a day to record, and DePlume was in post-gig exhaustion. His saxophone was as battered as he was and was failing to play certain notes. “When something is broken or absent or missing, you go around it and that’s what makes it good,” he says. “Then it belongs to that moment. I want to make things that belong to the moment.”

DePlume’s politics might be more evident in vocal songs from his live repertoire when he’s reshaping advertising slogans into a call to arms or encouraging activism on “I Was Gonna Fight Fascism,” but his commitment to the cause is as palpable through the instrumentals of Cy & Lee... This is music designed to respond to what Russian revolutionary poet Mayakovsky described as a “social command.”

“I like the idea that we’re not just doing frivolous decoration. We’re doing work for society. I like to listen for what needs to be said.”

“Years ago I played a bit of sax in other people’s gigs. I realised I was waiting for someone to give me permission to do my own thing. I noticed that no-one will ever give you permission to do your awesome shit, because they don’t know what it is. It’s impossible for them to give you permission. Who gave me permission to talk to you like this? I gave myself fucking permission.”

Alabaster DePlume is not doing things properly. Hallelujah.

Released in 1998 as Massive Attack’s third studio album, this work is regarded as their masterpiece. Unlike the soulful and jazzy atmosphere of their previous albums Blue Lines and Protection, it deepened the trip-hop sound while strongly incorporating influences from post-punk and industrial, resulting in a cold and heavy sonic landscape. Issued by Virgin Records as a 180-gram double LP edition.

Released in 1986 as the Beastie Boys’ debut album, produced by Rick Rubin, it fused hard rock guitar riffs with hip-hop beats. It became a landmark record as the first hip-hop album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200. This edition is a 180-gram heavyweight vinyl remastered reissue.

Beastie Boys reissues raining down on your turntables these days! Ill Communication, coming at you from 1994, with all beats produced, lines rapped and instruments played by the Beastie Boys, spawned one of their most famous songs, Sabotage. But these guys gave us so much more: shortly after the release of this album, they coined the word mullet. This is your chance to acquire a piece of pop culture history!

Utter presents Marshall Jefferson's previously unreleased meditation opus 'Yellow Meditation For The Dance Generation' alongside two remixes from French production maestro Joakim.

Marshall Jefferson: Chicago House music pioneer, creator of the anthemic ‘Move Your Body’, an original collaborator of Adonis, Ce Ce Rogers and Roy Davis Jr., production mastermind of countless dancefloor classics such as Phuture’s ‘Acid Tracks’, Sterling Void’s ’It’s All Right’, Hercules’ ‘7 Ways’… and the soothing voice behind a 36 minute healing meditation guide. Yes, really.

But let’s rewind, slightly.

In 2017, Marshall was approached and encouraged by Ian ‘Snowy’ Snowball to write his autobiography and the pair set about putting Marshall’s account of the history of House music together. The book, ‘Marshall Jefferson: Diary of a DJ’ was published in 2019.

Following the book’s release, Ian and Marshall's collaboration continued and during the pandemic an outlandish idea arose to create a piece of music combining Ian's interest in meditation (he runs Club Chi specialising in Shibashi Qigong - a form of Tai Chi Qigong - which is a gentle form of movement therapy/exercise) and Marshall's willingness to experiment musically to see what might be possible.

The result is ‘Yellow Meditation For The Dance Generation’, where Marshall vocalises Ian’s lyrics in his instantly recognisable voice. The keen-eared out there may also recognise aspects of the music itself as a stripped back, lengthened and far mellower version of Marshall’s 1985 obscurity ‘Vibe’:

“I would take tapes to the Music Box and Ron Hardy would play my music. ‘Vibe’ was one of those tracks. I recorded ‘Vibe’ in 1985, but it became one of my tracks that I just forgot about until some guy on Facebook sent me a recording of it that was taken from a club. The only person who I ever gave a recording of ‘Vibe’ to was Ron Hardy. The other people I know who had copies of the track were Gene Hunt and Emanuel Pippin (DJ Spookie).

"The original version of ‘Vibe’ was made using a Roland 707, Roland JX-8P keyboard and a Roland 727 drum machine. I was still working at the Post Office at the time, and this was pre-‘Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem)’. ‘Vibe’ has the building blocks for ‘Move Your Body’ because it was using the instruments on the track that I discovered what I could do with the bass sound, to make a track like ‘Move Your Body’.”

Still, Ian’s initial intention for ‘Yellow Meditation’ was function and it was designed to be a ‘Sequential Relaxation Exercise’ focusing on the Solar Plexus. Bearing this in mind, Marshall took a bare-bones and hypnotic approach to this particular re-recording of ‘Vibe’ so that the voice takes centre stage and listeners (hopefully) find themselves on a meditative journey. In fact, this long-form track was always intended as a private tool purely for meditation at Club Chi rather than released to the public - after all, Marshall had also created and released a more drum heavy, ’traditional’ club-focused 'Vibe Three' instrumental version for that very purpose - but a chance airing of the full 36 minute version changed its path.

Much like those 1985 ‘Vibe’ cassettes, Marshall had sent the track to a few close contacts, one of whom was Kieran at Phonica Records who aired it over the shop’s basement soundsystem. Its unorthodox nature caught the ear of colleague Alex (of Utter ) and the seeds of a physical release were planted.

Eventually, with the full-version carefully whittled down to a vinyl friendly length of 24 minutes, full track parts in hand and a b-side to fill, Alex sought out one of his favourite producers to take up the remix reigns: Joakim. The Tigersushi co-founder and Crowdspacer boss has a long history of boundary-pushing remixes that straddle both dancefloor functionality and experimentation. This time the original material resulted in Joakim coming up with a number of ideas and he finally delivered two versions - one club focused (‘Vertical’), the other more introspective and meditative (‘Horizontal’), both of which appear on the final 12”.

The limited edition 12” also includes a download code giving buyers access to all of the vinyl tracks plus an 18 minute extended version of Joakim’s ‘Horizontal’ remix, its instrumental counterpart (for those who can live without Marshall's voice) and full 12 minute acapella (for those who can't!)

Bedroom pop duo Babeheaven return after a short hiatus with a vulnerable "post rave" sound that's like Air split with Frank Ocean.

'Slower Than Sound' is billed as music that you might listen to on the bus back home after a night out and we can see it. Nancy Andersen's voice is just as lulling as it was on Babeheaven's debut album 'Home For Now' and Jamie Travis's instrumentation is warmer and more restrained this time around, a throb of exotica-ish Mellotrons, fingerpicked arpeggios and clunky drum machine loops. It's a creative rebirth for the duo, who sound as if they've checked in again after a few years of heartbreak and burnout. And when they allow themselves to really strip things down, like on the introspective 'Loud Thoughts', a track that features a star turn from Samba Jean-Baptiste, things get really interesting.

Two tracks of dub-infused electronica, edited from recordings of my live modular jam sessions (which you can watch on my YouTube channel).

You can buy the 7" here on Bandcamp, but please support your local record store where possible :) You can find a list of shops selling the record here: linktr.ee/yassokiiba

If you buy from a store and would also like the WAV files, just message me here and I'll send you a free download code.

A selection of unreleased works from the prolific and Eastbourne based artist B.L. Underwood. As often, it started with discovering a CD, leading me to the depths of the Internet Archive. I still remember the excitement of going through B.L. Underwood's recordings for the first time and realising how unique his approach to electronic music was, every track had something powerful yet moving within it, as he could play around with genres and tempos yet carrying a very distinctive touch. After a short detective work to get in touch with the artist, and quite some time curating the content of this compilation (the hardest part by far), System Of Objects is proudly presenting the remastered version of 6 of his tracks that showcast B.L. Underwood talent and uniqueness.

Longer and slower-releasing than his other albums, Pomegranates often parallels the cinematic epic on which it’s based (Նռան գույնը), with ideas pursued over long timelines and across dark landscapes, assembling elements and moods from the aesthetic and folkloric landscapes of Armenia. Jaar’s identity is perceived within this, folding in his heritage as Palestinian and Chilean as he attempts to build a musical architecture outwards that frames as much of the mess and sprawl of life as possible; using a language that investigates the movement and fluctuation of his own artistic career and character similarly to the film’s tracing of the coming of age of the young poet, Sayat-Nova.

At times, Pomegranates feels profoundly intimate, as though looking through the archive of a friend’s music and discovering the accent and common currency that lives within each of these tracks. Much of Jaar’s most elegant and touching melodic work is nestled here, its power residing in its simplicity and willingness to speak to the heart and not the mind of the listener.

In the text document included in the first freely distributed version of the album in 2015, Jaar writes that the album was conceived during a moment of change, and that the pomegranate became an icon that heralded that passage of time. The physical publication of Pomegranates closes one door whilst opening another, keeping promises and marking a significant point in the career of an artist who restlessly reinvents himself, with a document that illustrates a common language of lyricism, freedom, and emotional resonance linking his many paths and projects.

Métron Records presents Mycorrhizal Music, a new solo offering from composer and multi-instrumentalist Ess Whiteley and their first full-length release since their duo Liila’s album “Soundness of Mind” (Not Not Fun, 2021). Currently a PhD candidate in Composition at the University of California-San Diego, Whiteley’s practice spans recordings, installations, performances, and scores, a body of work as diverse as the fungal webs that inspire it.

Across seven tracks, Whiteley explores interconnected sound worlds shaped by mycelium networks, rhizomatic structures, and other unseen systems that sustain life. Rooted in experimental electronics, minimalism, ambient and IDM, the record imagines sound as ephemeral connective tissue capable of reshaping how a listener might experience time, memory, and futurity.

At the core of Whiteley’s work is an excavation of what lies beneath perception, the felt but unspoken currents of emotionality and subtle experiences that dwell in the unconscious. Mycorrhizal Music channels these hidden threads into a speculative ecosystem of kinship and exchange, where joy, play, and spirituality interlace like branching hyphae beneath the soil.

Mycorrhizal Music has been conceived as kinetic ambient music, designed to move with the listener while walking, riding trains, driving, cooking, where everyday rhythms align with shifting sonic textures, reminding them of hidden, interconnected, mycelial webs of spiritual vitality beneath the surfaces of daily activity.

Guided by a vision of speculative ecology and interspecies resonance, it thrives in contrasts: tracks like Rhizomatic Harpists and Whispered Messages in Tapestried Fields of Fluid Motion pulse with fluid momentum, while Kaleidoscopic Patterns of Emptiness Dancing drifts into fragile stillness.

Hun Hun are 2 young brothers from Bruxelles who are doing a very special music in an ethno-shamanic-tribal vibe pretty cinematographic. With this first opus, an album of 10 tracks, they bring us on a journey into deep, dark and mysterious atmospheres with natural backgrounds from the forest, beautiful vocals, singular percussions, and rhythms that would easily fit for intro sets at Boccacio in 1988. This album could have been easily released on Crammed Disc in the 80’s, but it has a modern touch from today that makes it a proper gem for Macadam Mambo.