MUSIC

Lionmilk, the primary solo project of Los Angeles musician/composer/producer, Moki Kawaguchi, for some time now, operates in an explicitly therapeutic mode. 2021’s I Hope You Are Well was originally self-released during the onset of the pandemic as a limited run of home-dubbed cassettes, which Kawaguchi hand-delivered to loved ones’ mailboxes in a sort of guerrilla care campaign—a modest attempt to mitigate the sudden, profound alienation that prevailed during those early lockdown months. When Lionmilk and Leaving Records later collaborated on an official release for I Hope You Are Well, this once humble project’s impact grew exponentially, with countless fans (old and new alike) granted access to the warmth and beauty of Lionmilk’s inner circle. Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222, out March 17, 2023 on Leaving, presents the listener with yet another opportunity for deep cosmic healing. When discussing Lionmilk, Kawaguchi regularly foregrounds the absolute necessity of music-making as a form of self-care. First and foremost, he produces sounds and songs that provide him with some modicum of solace — “music to feel less whack to.” One gets the sense that he’d be doing exactly what he’s doing (exactly the way he’s doing it) even if he was the last man on earth. But he isn’t. And, in fact, one of Lionmilk’s primary concerns—evident across track titles, as well as the sung and spoken words that dot his releases—is community, or more specifically, what it means to exist and act in his community. Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222 ventures deeper into the paradoxes explored to great effect on I Hope You Are Well. How might we transmit our solitudes via music and to what extent? What does a shared solitude sound and feel like? And, in the context of this transaction, what novel relationships arise between the recording artist and the listener? The record begins with a radio transmission from the depths of Lionmilk’s celestial innerspace— “Hello. Is anybody out there? This is Lionmilk speaking, and you are tuned into the Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222. Standby. We are commencing broadcast” — a retro sci-fi movie motif that recurs throughout Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222’s 26 tracks. But space travel here functions more-so as a metaphor for deep soul work, for journeying inward, through the vast unknowns of one’s own consciousness. What follows is an intimate, diaristic song suite, grounded in the struggle to keep our hearts alive and open amidst an onslaught of daily indignities. Tracks like “daily i dream,” “lover’s theme,” and “hopeful i can change,” function as brief, instrumental meditations on those moments when hope suddenly, inexplicably eclipses despair. The soulful standout “treat yourself like a friend” contains perhaps the lyrical apotheosis of Lionmilk’s current iteration: “...I get up / to pee and drink water / treating myself a little bit softer / you do your best / today will be better / I’ll do my best / I’ll do my best / I promise.” Composed of loops, sketches, improvizations, and voice memos recorded directly to a single cassette tape, Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222 flutters, warbles, and lilts along seamlessly — an hour-long, lo-fi and jazzy paean to compassion, while clearly indebted to the ambient idiom, nevertheless constitutes some of the most politically engaged and energizing music yet from Lionmilk.

"i didn’t really get into Zelda until the quarantine of 2020. i was living alone at the time just me and the kitty. after 3-4 months i didn’t know when i was going to touch another human again and feeling really down. Breath Of The Wild was a much needed escape and became a sanctuary of sorts. it still is. the title “Six Arrows For Naydra” is a reference to a side-quest where Link paraglides down a snowy mountain alongside an ice dragon named Naydra while shooting these malice eyeballs off of her which eventually heals her illness. the first time i had this experience it felt like a fever dream."

Los Angeles-based Fabiano Do Nascimento is a multi-string guitarist and songwriter who melds the traditional idioms of his native Brazil (i.e., samba, choro) with the more contemporary and experimental strains of jazz, pop, and electronic music. Das Nuvens (“The Clouds”), out July 21, 2023 on Leaving Records, is a crisp, frequently blissful, and deceptively groove-oriented showcase from a consummate musician — a rich and varied collection of songs, all of which seem to prioritize, and thrive in, the soft and intentional spaces between notes. Raised in Rio and São Paulo before eventually relocating to Southern California as a teenager, Nascimento’s approach to guitar and songcraft is informed by an adolescence enmeshed in Brazil’s exceptionally fertile musical environs. His induction into this lineage was organic. With the encouragement and attention of a musical family, a young Nascimento learned to read music, play the piano, and dabbled with the flute before picking up guitar at age 10. His affinity for the guitar was immediate, decisive, and clear. The instrument further catalyzed his decades-long journey into the annals of Brazilian classical music. Das Nuvens constitutes the free-form, exploratory work of a musician who, having mastered a distinct musical language, seeks to apply his skill towards broader, more experimental modes of expression. Fittingly, track one — built around a contemplative, pointillistic refrain— is titled “Babel,” a reference to the legend of man’s attempt to build a tower to heaven, and how God thwarted this alleged act of hubris by shattering man’s shared language, sowing chaos and confusion. Though a stern parable on its face, it is a myth that enshrines our world’s dizzying array of languages (of modes of being), and the subsequent beauty of cultural exchange through art. In this regard, it is a fitting opening statement for an album that collapses and collages not only contemporary and classical Brazilian and pop idioms, but also the diverse range of indigenous music that Nascimento has encountered and studied in his travels as a touring musician. Recorded in Nascimento’s home studio with his longtime friend and collaborator, Daniel Santiago (who also designed the album’s art), Das Nuvens evokes windswept vistas (the plaintive “Thrdwrld” lands like Morricone gently flirting with trap), and the lush Latin American forests of Nascimento’s youth (“Aurora” in particular), while simultaneously foregrounding music’s ineffable and universally-felt capacity to sooth and inspire.

“Senzatempo” became a lockdown record. In 2019, a year after our last concert as a trio with Christian Fennesz, the release of his “Agora” and our first publication for Touch – “Elusive Balance” – we met in Milan. We talked about ongoing projects, the evolution of our musical language and, as is often the case when we are all three together, the more frenetic and superficial aspects of contemporary society, the difficulty of letting ideas and projects mature and how music could still play a constructive role in that context. We left each other with the intention of talking at a distance about a new project, to be developed calmly, without any hurry. In the months that followed, after e-mails in which we continued to discuss the project, we decided to work on the perception of time and to focus our attention on those periods of life in which time tends to dilate, to lose its boundaries, dedicating ourselves to the project without the fear of resting on indefinite moments of stasis – trying to take the time of creation as an ally, making the most significant ideas 'sprout', distilling emotions and crystallising them slowly. Catapulted into the first wave of the pandemic, we began to work at a distance, We exchanged different types of sound materials, sometimes raw sometimes more structured and with Christian we tried to give musical form to a surreal calm, at the same time as magmatic, uncertain emotional states. In this phase of collective confusion and almost total isolation, the first drafts of 'Senzatempo' and 'Movements I' were born. In both tracks, we tried to structure chordal waves and melodies inlaid with counterpoints with broad architectures and sinuous movements, in a sort of 'rubato', with the idea of creating an orchestral breath to the entire album. ‘Senzatempo’ is characterised by a dream melody with a dense and continuous dialogue between a sharp guitar and percussive sounds floating on an abstract and flexible pulse. ‘Movements I’, later transformed into a two-part suite, is airy and meditative; an initial acoustic shock leads to a melody resting on relaxed chords and enveloping sounds studded with noise, glitches and fragments of field recordings. After this initial work, we wanted to organise a studio session, but pandemic restrictions forced us to postpone and leave the music to mature further. The following summer, thanks to a residency project for young artists centred on the Senzatempo project and conducted by Christian and ourselves in central Italy, the opportunity arose for the first time to play the material produced thus far, and to experiment and focus on new musical ideas. In November 2021, after a concert we did in Turin, we finally devoted ourselves to the drafting of the album in a studio session lasting some days. The final versions of the first two tracks were created, with the addition of a second part to ‘Movements I’, and ‘Floating Times’ and ‘Motionless Image of Eternity’ came into being. In ‘Floating Time’, clouds of micro-sounds envelop an iridescent, sinuous melody in a sonic space delimited by sculpted percussive sounds. Lost memories seem to resurface. The end of the track takes up the beginning in a kind of ‘rondo’. ‘Motionless’ is counterpointed by telluric percussive sounds in a complex and detailed atmosphere. It seems as if nothing is moving in this sea of sound on which the guitar floats, when in fact everything is in motion in a simmer of textures and melodies that embroider counter-songs to the main refrain. The music of 'Senzatempo' moves in balance between composition and improvisation. It is a symphonic work for an imaginary orchestra in which melodies, counterpoints, dynamics and sonorities define a structural breadth reminiscent of classical music.

Our sub-label 333 returns again with... 333. Originally released on his seminal Ujama label in 1988, Prince Jazzbo's 333 (aka Mango Tree) features the foundation deejay riding an absolutely killer update on the famous MPLA riddim. One of the best 45s to come out of this late 80s digital era, no doubt.

333 returns to follow a reissue of the sub-label's eponymous 45 by Prince Jazzbo, with another crucial shot from his Ujama catalogue - a much-needed reproduction of the original Replay 45, complete with vocal & version. Fully licensed from the late great foundation deejay's family. A must.

Hania Rani announces "On Giacometti" a tender meditation on the life and art of Alberto Giacometti and family. "On Giacometti" is a collection of beautiful recordings inspired by the renowned artist and family and features some of Rani’s most profoundly delicate compositions to date. Invited by film director Susanna Fanzun, to score her forthcoming documentary on the legendary artist Alberto Giacometti, Hania Rani took herself to the Swiss mountains to compose in blissful isolation. As Rani explains eloquently below the compositions are based on improvised melodies, simple harmonies and structures and inspired by the silence of the mountains as Rani returns to her main instrument, the piano. The results are beguilingly reminiscent of her beloved debut album Esja, but with subtle extra layers of synthesiser, and on two tracks cello from friend and long-running collaborator Dobrawa Czocher. 'On Giacometti' is presented as a limited edition LP with bespoke packaging featuring Les Naturals - Chocolat (Gmund) sustainable recycled paperboard made from 100 % recovered paper with Foil Artwork by Łukasz Pałczyński. Plus Double sided printed insert and download code inside. Words by Hania Rani "On Giacometti" When I was asked to compose a soundtrack for a movie about the family of Giacometti I didn't think twice. Alberto Giacometti, a Swiss artist, who worked mainly as painter and sculptor has been one of my favourite artists for a long time. His individual style, aesthetics and the character of his creative process is still fascinating to me on many levels, so being able to dive even deeper into his universe, getting to know not only him but also his family was an opportunity that I couldn’t miss. Little did I know how far this "yes" will take me - not only mentally and on a creative level but also physically. Thanks to the director of the documentary - Susanna Fanzun and by a stroke of luck and a couple of extra questions I decided to move for a couple of months to the Swiss mountains, not far away from the place where Giacometti was born and where the place he called home was, although he didn’t live there. Susanna showed me a place close to her hometown where I could rent a studio and work on the soundtrack but also for my other projects. It was the middle of a winter, the area was full of ice and snow, just like only it can happen still in the mountains. The residency house was located in a valley surrounded by high mountains and the sun in the winter season was not coming up for too long during the day. I remember she told me about it and added "that not everyone is feeling well there, but I hope you will". I did. Being almost separated from reality, the city and its entertainments, people rushing and everything that usually takes my attention I could fully concentrate on the music and soundtrack, spending most of the day with my own thoughts and having enough space to experiment and be free in a creative process. This soundtrack would probably be a very different thing if composed in a place that I am usually living in. I took this a chance to explore something new about myself as a composer and human being, taking the opposite direction that I would usually choose for myself. The album "On Giacometti" includes the excerpts from the soundtrack, the most representative tracks and those which became a strong voice itself. Based a lot on improvised melodies, simple harmonies, structures and silence it reminds me of my debut album "Esja" which was partly composed and recorded in another chilly place - Iceland. All these components, both mental and physical, guided me back to my main instrument - piano, which I tried to redefine again with a language of the space that I was working in. The space is usually the key element that gives me the answer about the arrangement or character of the project. Space seems to be the first to appear and music is the invisible power which is changing its angels. Living surrounded by mountains makes you change the perspective and understanding of scale as Alberto Giacometti once famously wrote in a letter. It gives an impression that things that are actually far away, like mountains, are close and the other ones that are not so far away, like people, seem small, watched from a distance. You feel like touching the mountain top with your finger could be as easy as touching the tip of your nose. The snow additionally protects the whole area from the noise, each sound lands softly on the ground accompanied by echoes of immeasurable space. Each scratch or whisper is becoming an autonomic entity, opening the gate to the world of ghosts and lost spirits. It's easy to think that time stands still there, while nothing is moving and changing at the first sight. But the ubiquitous ice and snow reveal the passage of time, transforming frozen paysage into the wild stream of water - each day, hour and second. Melting and vanishing, clearing the space from white powder and noise consuming surface. Invisible process for a one night traveller, becomes painfully real for longer time settlers. Time flows with each new wave of sound coming through the river, reminding us that we are part of the cycle, which endlessly repeats itself. I left the valley with the first breath of the spring.

Death Is Not The End’s 333 sub-label follows the reissue of Devon Russell’s Darker Than Blue LP late last year with a first-time reissue of a veritable reggae-dancehall holy grail – Robert Ffrench’s 1985 LP ‘Wondering’. Pioneering artist and producer (and cousin of the late, great Pat Kelly) Robert Ffrench was born in central Kingston in 1962, recording his first records in 1979 at the age of 17. Coming out off the back of a slew of roots & early dancehall-style 45s cut with a wide range of producers thoughout the early ’80s, the Wondering LP followed closely after two acclaimed LP sets (‘Showcase’ produced with Lord Koos & ‘The Favourite’ for Ossie Thomas’ Black Solidarity label – plus a split showcase LP with Anthony “Gunshot” Johnson for Jah Thomas’ Midnight Rock label). Ffrench would write and produce the Wondering LP himself in it’s entirity, laying down the tracks at Herman Chin-Loy’s Aquarius & Michael Carroll’s Creative Sounds studios with the help of engineer Christopher Daley. Representing the sound of an artist first confidently sriking out on his own, the album elegantly mixes a classic rub-a-dub & lovers rock-inspired sound with nascent digi-esque flourishes. It boasts an enviable list of contributors too, incl. Sly & Robbie, Dwight Pinkney, Robbie Lyn, Nelson Miller (Burning Spear) and Ronald “Nambo” Robinson among others, with Beres Hammond also providing backing vocals in places. Following the release of Wondering, Ffrench would continue to write and produce, soon after releasing two further self-produced LPs for Edgar White’s Parish label – and founded his own ‘France’ label in the late 80s, through which his productions would start to hit big, most notably alongside Courtney Melody on ‘Modern Girl’, and with US rapper Heavy D on the track ‘More Love’. Robert’s productions released through later label ‘Ffrench’ would go on to boast the cream of the crop of dancehall artists throughout the 90s and early 2000s, and he is often credited with discovering Buju Banton (producing his first single “Ruler” on the Stamina riddim). Ffrench is still actively producing music of his own to this day, having released singles ‘Everyday of My Life’ and ‘Black Is a Colour’ in late 2022 and Feb 2023 respectively, available through all digital platforms now. 333, under exclusive license from Robert Ffrench.

Gondwana Records announces ‘Goodbyes’, the debut album from Estonian-born, London-based sound artist and pianist Hanakiv. A deeply beautiful, meditative piano album featuring special guest Alabaster deplume. “This is an album about healing. It is about saying your goodbyes to everything that doesn’t serve you anymore. Each of these songs has a little goodbye in it. So, these are very beautiful and necessary goodbyes”. Hanakiv is a young composer and musician from Estonia (now based in London) who creates meditative piano-based ambient music with elements from classical and electronic music. ‘Goodbyes’ is her debut recording and draws on influences as diverse as Tim Hecker, Björk “Vespertine”, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Aphex Twin as well as her own cultural heritage. Music has an important part in Estonian culture, especially choir music and its traditions, but Hanakiv also draws on her love of nature – the beautiful Estonian seaside and forests - and on her time in Iceland. However, it was moving to London that gave her the freedom to make her own music: “London gave me the freedom and courage to really be who I am (as a person and musically)” and her heritage and her new home both offer inspiration to Goodbyes, as Hanakiv moves between these two opposite places, a bustling metropolis and a small country full of nature, drawing inspiration from both as she sculpts her own voice. Hanakiv had an unconventional music education – she started studying music at a school for handbells when she was nine and was part of a handbell ensemble for eight years. Starting on piano at the same time she went on to study composition at high school, and later at the Estonian Academy of Music. Eventually switching to electroacoustic composition, she studied in Reykjavik, and did internships in Malmö, and again Reykjavik before moving to London. She grew up in a musical family and her grandmother was a piano teacher and choir conductor. “I would always ask her to take me to her choir rehearsals. I remember sitting under the grand piano, listening to the choir and just being mesmerised by the sounds. She also teaches in a local music school in the south of Estonia with about ten pianos, and I’d spend a lot of time there as well. I believe this was the starting point for me to get to where I am now. The last two pieces on the album (Home II and Home I) are composed in this same music school, so it feels like a full circle. An early influence was Regina Spektor “the first artist who made me really want to play piano” alongside dream pop and Sigur Rós’ as well as Estonian contemporary composers such as Erkki-Sven Tüür and Arvo Pärt. Later her studies took her to Reykjavík: “There is this amazing record shop called 12 Tónar in Reykjavik where you can drink espressos and listen to all their vinyls. I spent quite a lot of time there. There is something about Icelandic music that really excited me (the mixture of contemporary electronic sounds with melancholy, emotionality). This is when I started getting more into electronic music, and experimenting outside of classical music”. Following a year long break from studying and inspired by making an electroacoustic soundtrack for a friend’s abstract video, she was inspired to complete a masters in electroacoustic composition, diving fully into the worlds of sound recording and mixing and focusing on surround sound and how to position and move sounds in space, eventually doing an internship with composer Kent Olofson in Malmö, who works with multi-speaker systems for theatre productions. “I learnt a lot from him and he introduced me to some of my favourite plugins I’ve used a lot on this album as well.” Hanakiv moved to London just as the pandemic hit and found herself trapped, in a big new city, without any network or family and so just concentrated on making music. “I stayed in my room with my basic equipment - keyboard, Korg minilogue, SM 58 and Rode nt1-a microphones, laptop and speakers. I was reading about mixing, and trying out different things and listening to a lot of music to get the sense of the mixes and production and finishing a commission piece for 5.1 multi speaker system at that time so I set up four speakers for quadrophonic surround sound in my room!”. She also found her way back to piano - my instrument – and started practicing again, playing the pieces she used to play, but also just improvising, and this was the beginning of what would become her debut album, ‘Goodbyes’. “I started appreciating everything about music again (even melody!), and everything just came together naturally, and I arrived to a point where I finally found my voice, and I had something that I wanted to say and share. I composed “Meditation I” first and started with “Goodbye”, and all the other pieces are derived from that. Without “Meditation I” there wouldn’t be this album. If you listen closely, “Meditation I” starts where “Goodbye” ends; “Meditation II” is born from “Meditation I”. But it was meeting Fi Roberts, a sound engineer based at the legendary Strongrom Studios in Shoreditch, London in December 2020 that really brought the album into focus. The pair bonded over an interest in prepared piano and a similar approach to production ideas (a balance of not overdoing it, and letting the songs speak for themselves, but being open to explore) and Fi became a friend but also a confidant and eventually co-producer “Fi has a big impact on this record but I don’t know how to really explain that properly. Of course, this album is sonically stunning thanks to her amazing mixes and recording skills, but she also believed in this music so much and it created something very special - that’s difficult to measure with words. She just works with heart, and I really appreciate that” This then is ‘Goodbyes’, the first offering from a major new voice, who offers us a meditative work full of space and tranquillity but also life and friendship and meaning. And we are very proud to welcome her to the Gondwana family.

Mammal Hands fifth album ‘Gift from the Trees’ offers a fresh perspective on the unique trio’s singular music. The first to be recorded in a residential studio, the band enjoyed the opportunity to go late into the night searching for a deeper, more organic experience, closer to both their writing process but also their trance-like live performances. While some of the music was pre-composed and had even been performed live, the band also enjoyed the opportunity to improvise ideas in the studio. There was also a conscious decision to move away from the sound and ambiance of the recording studio, with the band opting to engineer the record with their go-to live engineer Benjamin Capp before mixing the sessions with Greg Freeman in Berlin. The idea was to try and capture more of the energy of the band’s captivating shows. The Welsh environment outside the studio doors seeped into the music presented on Gift from the Trees, with two recording sessions (one in winter and one in the spring) bringing different moods: one bleak and wintery, the other more hopeful and bright – an energy that permeates through tracks such as Kernel and Dimu.

Recorded 'live in-studio' in London, July 1970. Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. This is one of those occasions when we ‘labellers of music’ get stuck in our own glue. Consider the complication: A group called Indo Jazz Fusions containing Indian and British musicians, an American-born guest, and the result, a uniquely beautiful music which is patently not quite Indian, not quite jazz, not quite contemporary-American. I think the most accurate thing you can say is that it can only be played the way it is by men in contact with the jazz tradition. The group is led, and all the compositions save one were written, by John Mayer. Born in Calcutta, trained first in Indian music, then in classical European music, he came to England about twenty years ago to pursue an orchestral career as a violinist. More recently he has devoted his time entirely to composition and to his Indo Jazz Fusions unit, an idea dating from four or five years ago. As a group it’s been through a number of changes so that now it’s a very fiery, jazzy unit indeed, which doesn’t mean that it’s no longer Indian, as can be heard in the first piece - Raga Malika, based on the rules of the classical Indian raga, a set scale of notes - a kit of parts almost - from which all the resulting solos are built. The rhythm in that case, twelve beats. Not to a bar so much as twelve beats in a recurring cycle. In Serenade you’ll notice the pastoral nature of the sound of Larry Adler’s harmonica against Stan Sulzmann’s flute. In John Mayer’s composition Romance, from which guitar, sitar and tabla are absent, it reaches a degree of intensity seldom heard outside the music of Vaughan Williams, and the piece has one of the most sinuous, unpredictable melodies I’ve ever heard. Larry Adler is the first man as far as I know to have made the harmonica a concert instrument, a feat he achieved in the 1930s, and it’s from the late Thirties that George Gershwin’s Summertime comes. It’s the first time that John Mayer has ever arranged a standard number for this group, and the results are very beautiful indeed. Sarabande by John Mayer is a little more Indian in flavour, though it has a familiar title. In this, John Mayer himself plays violin. The final piece is a return to the raga form, in this case built on a rhythm of eighteen beats. Among the things you’ll hear is a kind of duetting between Jim Moyes on guitar and Clem Alford on sitar. A technique known as the Raga Mehga. I think that Britain is the only place where so many elements could be brought together so successfully. Peter Clayton - July 1970

Across 8 concise vignettes, Chantal Michelle alchemizes acoustic instrumentation with a spectrum of layered feedback and field sounds, depicting fractured beauty amongst a precarious reality. Michelle’s work is characterized by intoxicating juxtaposition and enriched with an array of source material to construct immersive narrative. Much of the work here was recorded during her time in New York City, perhaps a pre-requisite to the heightened tension at play. Opening with lucid choral vocals, a mysteriously seductive anaesthesia disseminates before evaporating into surging feedback, vocals dissolving as quickly as they appeared. It’s this oscillation between states that permeates throughout the work. Whether it’s the esoteric rumbling of acoustic drones, or the radiant fusion of distorted chords amongst the warming sounds of tropical atmospheres, moments of serenity are conjured up in a space so bliss that their endings incite an immediate nostalgia. Fleeting melodies are pierced by shattering cries of feedback; gossamer tones engulfed in saturated noise. Amongst the instrumentation, buzzing field sounds tremor with hyperreal peculiarity and hallucinations shape noise into sounds of the familiar; the rumbling of an overheard aeroplane or the whirring of distant grasshoppers. Similarly, recurring motifs elicit a false sense of security in their subliminal familiarity, soon exposed as echoes, a reverberation of what was left behind. At the approaching climax, the blissful onset anaesthesia has worn off, interrupted by a powerful chorus of deep, gothic synthesis that fuels post-apocalyptic fever dreams, an unnerving and mesmerising symphony. The unresolved tension leaves us in a state of delirium, questioning if the tranquillity we experienced was ever really there. Michelle was immersed in Fleur Jaeggy’s 'The Water Statues' whilst recording, and its imprint is woven into the sonic fabric of 'Broken to Echoes'; a sublime liminal dream-state, pervaded by haunting visions. It’s a view of the world captured from inside the enclosure of a cell membrane. Through translucent mesh, we see the billowing tension of our surroundings, protected only by the most delicate walls.

‘Health’, by Frankfurt-based artist and musician Man Rei, aka Kristin Reiman, opens wistfully amongst lush, echoing drones, their vocal intimations stretched out in boundless, iridescent cycles. It’s amongst these reverb-drenched murmurs of 90s shoegaze that a vast space makes way for their confessional ruminations on the disarray of life and its messiness. Man Rei’s work is woven with intricate narrative, take ‘Cusp’ (2020), where expressions of fatigue and lethargy meld into an absorbing idle dream state. In ‘Health’, they confront the impermanence of their existence, their words ‘I am not endless’ cutting straight to the core in a potent shot of bittersweet sorrow. The sheer weightlessness of the A side elicits a blissful reverie, disguising the underlying narrative of discontent and uncertainty. As meandering piano rings out in ‘Just another let it die’, Side B veils into shadow; a paranoid self-reflection with unnerving synths brooding in suspense. At the height of this tension, the deep, rumbling bassline of ‘Endless-no’ summons a fever dream of devastating heartbreak. Man Rei’s unique ability to modulate tension conjures immersive shifts, and the whispered solace of ‘Still, by’ provides respite from the heartache. The same duality resonates in their diaristic verse, replete with both dry wit and sensitive observations on the melancholic human experience. Within these songs is a voice that illuminates the overlooked, a pervasive synthesis of idiosyncrasy and beauty, all imbued with the irresistible and tender spirit of Man Rei. As the closing words of ‘Without fear’ reverberate, there’s a feeling akin to acceptance, Reiman’s perception of loneliness intertwined with hope.

There it is...!!! This is one of the best of the year, it's amazing, really. Six tracks and 48 minutes of superb ambient synthesizer raga! New York-based Arushi Jain is an Indian-born, US-based composer, modular synthesizer player, vocalist, technician, and engineer. Focusing on reinterpreting his roots in Indian classical music through the lens of electronic music, she continues in the spirit of electronic music legends such as Suzanne Ciani and Terry Riley, while personally exploring her own musical heritage and upbringing, reconstructing ancient sounds within a contemporary framework. This album is intended to be listened to during the sunset hours, thereby inviting the listener into the depths of their own being. This album is similar to the ethereal and devotional appeal of labelmate Ana Roxanne, but is more cosmic and cosmic in nature. It's heavenly meditation music. As you would expect from Leaving, they bring in great people after such strong names as Sam Gendel and Green-House. I can't take my eyes off the vibrant LA scene any longer. Her music is also a celebration of Indian culture, and for this occasion, she is asking for donations on her bandcamp release page. Limited to 300 copies.

El Nido: a welcoming embrace in uncertain times The world changed forever in the second quarter of 2020. The life we were used to ceased to be, as we were overcome by constant fear, distrust in all that surrounded us and a fatalist attitude towards the world we lived in. With the pandemic came lockdown, mandatory isolation for months, empty streets, face masks, hand sanitizer, the fear of going out, an absurd roll call of Covid fatalities, the daily tension of not knowing when it would all end and the urge to “get back to normal,” something that certainly never happened. Out of that pandemic saturation and that urge for “normality” came 'El Nido' (“The Nest”), the third album by Italy-based Colombian producer Montoya, who describes this record as “becoming virgins of destiny again, facing up to that fatalist world and creating that longing for tranquility. Savoring that moment prior to the pandemic, that instant when the most important thing wasn’t the immediate reality or the global situation.” Montoya sees 'El Nido' as that quiet place that you think of when you close your eyes; it is a beach or a mountain, a sunrise or a sunset, a wave in the sea refreshing your body, or an almost-whispering wind that immediately silences everything around you. On his previous records, 'Iwa' in 2015 and 'Otún' in 2019, his work as a producer prevailed, feeding the growing wave of Latin American electronica, fusing IDM and techno with indigenous root music, Andean folklore and rhythms from the tropical Caribbean coast and ancestral Pacific in terms of instrumentation. But on 'El Nido' Montoya splits the balance, offering us five merely instrumental tracks and six collaborations with Latin American artists, including Colombians Nidia Góngora on “Soñé,” Montañera on “Sierra” and Pedrina on “Nubecita.” It also features Mexican artist Pahua on “Flor del Mar,” the Peruvian Lara Nuh on “El Faro” and the Franco-Venezuelan La Chica on “Palosanto.” Starting from the name itself (“The Nest”), an evocation of home, 'El Nido' is also a Filipino municipality on the island of Palawan, a place that turned out to be Montoya’s last live experience before the pandemic. That place with crystal clear seas and white sand became the scene and starting point for this work, reflecting on the abstraction of a chaotic world and proposing blurred destinations with each song, like places that exist within memories when we close our eyes, letting us inhabit them, for a couple of minutes at least. On the other hand, it’s a record that approaches love; as a yearning and a refuge, as a guide and an anchor, but also as a rhetorical figure that makes us vibrate and elevates us, while at the same time keeping us grounded and letting us settle in the place that we can use as our shelter. 'El Nido' will be released on July 7th, 2023 on ZZK Records

Growing up in Minnesota, life constantly took multi-instrumentalist and producer Lutalo Jones back and forth across the Mississippi River, through the beating heart of the Twin Cities, from their home in Minneapolis to school in St Paul. In 2021 Lutalo and their partner moved east, to settle among the green peaks of Vermont, having taken ownership of an area of land with the intention of building a small community for themselves. The aim is to accomplish a long-held dream: to live life differently, to invest in and create something tangible that can be passed on to future generations. The to-and-fro of that early life has been replaced by something altogether more steady, a burning desire to not get so caught up in the intensity of the world.It's this overwhelming potency of modernity that ripples through Lutalo's musical work. Their six-song debut EP, Once Now, Then Again, bristles with tension, despite the open laidback nature of the performance. The new EP – which follows a few well-received singles in 2021 and a run of live shows alongside Adrianne Lenker – spans both of Lutalo's contrasting worlds, the songwriting beginning in the Twin Cities before being finished in the serene surroundings of Vermont, and both environments leave their mark on Lutalo's rich and absorbing sound.For now, Lutalo's world consists of new pastures and new beginnings, the search for brightness in spite of all the dark. They remain optimistic in attitude, and steadfast in their belief that change can only happen when you believe in a better future. "At the same point you also have to recognize that this is also your time to be alive," Lutalo says, "and to try to find beauty in those moments and focus on the smaller details: to watch the water trickle down the stream, to see the ice as it melts from the rooftops."

Kelly made you a mixtape. It’s an eclectic mix of ideas, recorded and produced at Transistor Sound Studio in Marin County, California. “I want to share what I’ve been working on,” Kelly explained. “It’s not a proper album, and it doesn’t have the same vibe all throughout. It’s a collection of different ideas, which is how I used to share the music I loved with my friends.” About half of the songs represent his influence directly from hip-hop, crate digging, record collecting and the art of sampling. The original beat-driven drums and looping melodies provide the backdrop for future emcees to record over. “When I first decided that I wanted to make my own music, it was with drum machines and samplers,” Kelly shared. “I’ve always been inspired by the sounds on hip-hop records. That’s where my musical aspirations began.” Fans of Kelly’s previous work know that he’s capable of creating the kind of classic records that are often the subject of sampling. The mixtape contains a few new original tunes, instrumental versions of his known b-sides Trouble and It’s Not That Easy, and a soul stirring acoustic version of Impressions of You, which was originally released on Kelly’s debut LP The Tales People Tell in 2019. Kelly is working with Colemine Records to release the mixtape exclusively on cassette. “Owning a physical copy of a song and using a specific piece of equipment to hear it – that was a huge part of my musical upbringing. This is a selection of different songs on a tape. It’s how I want people to experience it.”

“(I have) two fantastic singles by The Particles...they are two of my most prized vinyl possessions” – Carrie Brownstein (Sleater Kinney) on NPR The Particles formed at the height of the punk movement in Sydney, Australia in 1977, and spent their early years hanging out with punk legends The Saints. But by their first recordings in 1979 they were something else entirely – pioneers of infectiously melodic, playfully subversive indie pop. They deserve to be held up alongside contemporaries such as Orange Juice or Television Personalities, and 1980s Bubblegum makes a strong case for this with the first overview of their sporadic recording career. Guitarist Peter Williams and vocalist Astrid Spielman were the core of the group, surviving numerous lineups until the band dissolved in the mid 80s. Other bandmates include members of Chapter DIY heroes The Cannanes and fondly-remembered indie pop band The Lighthouse Keepers. The Particles only released three seven inch EPs and a handful of compilation tracks, but their scant recorded work is laden with inventive, irresistible pop hits. After self-releasing two EPs Colour In (1980) and Advanced Colouring (1981), their final EP I Luv Trumpet (1983) was the second ever release on iconic Sydney label Waterfront Records. This makes The Particles unlikely labelmates with the likes of Nirvana, L7 and Henry Rollins, who all went on to release records via Waterfront in Australia in the 90s. On 1980s Bubblegum, Chapter Music presents every known recording by the Particles, including digital bonus tracks from the first ever Triple J Live At the Wireless session in 1983. The LP features extensive liner notes based on interviews with bandmembers. Sadly, Astrid Spielman passed away in 2015, but the sheer joyful magic of her and Peter’s music lives on with 1980s Bubblegum.

Black Truffle announce the release of Le Piano Englouti (The Sunken Piano), the first collaboration between Brunhild Ferrari and Jim O’Rourke, offering up two side-long realisations of Ferrari’s tape compositions recorded in concert at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe in 2014, revised and mixed by O’Rourke in 2019. The title piece weaves an immersive web of electronics, pre-recorded piano, and field-recorded sounds, including the raging Aegean sea, the tranquil atmospherics of a Japanese island, and the roar of a pachinko parlour. Far from a slice of audio vérité, these geographically distant sites intermingle in an unreal space where they often become indistinguishable. Shadowed by electronics and reverberant snatches of piano, the field recordings rise up and recede like ocean waves, creating a constantly shifting texture that is nonetheless warmly inviting. Chirping birds are confused with their electronic doubles; snatches of footsteps and voices are engulfed by ambience of unclear origin. Increasingly present throughout the piece, the piano rises up one last time before being swallowed up for good by the pachinko parlour. Tranquilles Impatiences (Quiet Impatiences) takes as its source material the electronic sounds produced by Luc Ferrari for his 1977 Exercises d’Improvisation, seven tapes intended to be heard alongside instrumental improvisation. Brunhild Ferrari’s piece layers Luc Ferrari’s sounds into a dense new work that emphasises the insistently pulsing rhythms of the source material. In this realisation with O’Rourke, the piece becomes a monumental sound-object, a slowly shifting mass of skittering electronic tones, shimmering reverb, and growling bass from which field-recorded events occasionally arise. At times, the placement of these fragments of real life in a pulsing, insistent musical landscape calls up Luc Ferrari’s classic Petit Symphonie; at other points, the swarming electronics bring to mind O’Rourke's Steamroom work or even the vast expanses of Roland Kayn.

This is Sakamoto's world music, expanding on the world view of his previous work, "NEO GEO". [Released in 1989.]

The first release under contract with Virgin Records in the U.S.
The album featured Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), Robbie Robertson (ex-The Band), Robert Wyatt (ex-Soft Machine), Youssou N'Dour, Art Lindsay, and many other guests.
The songs on the Japanese version differ from those on the international version, and this time the Japanese version has been chosen at the artist's own request.
About half of the songs on the album are covers, including two Okinawan folk songs and "We Love You" by The Rolling Stones.
The cover photo was taken by Albert Watson.

For me the best LP recorded 1973 and released on Nodlow records, we have taken 3 wonder tracks from the epic “Time Capsule” LP – “Déjà vu” this quirky, catchy song has been edited down for the first time for this 7” 45 release. LP CUT is over 9mins long. Weldon on Keys and vocals back up with Emerson Cain, Lenny white Drums, Tony Wiles percussion and Alex Blake on bass. Speaking to the family, I found out that Weldon had wanted to release a 7” of this back in the day, but it never happened, until now! So this is for you Weldon!

On the flip is “I am”, a spiritual interlude of words and a feel that brings Weldon into the room, a poetic masterpiece of earthly ideas and musical chords.
“Bananas” is a 90s Jazz Club dancer, this again shows Weldon doing his thang. Super funky drums and bass, It has that Weldon turn around rift. Love it !!

A mixtape pulling together extracts from soundsystem tapes out of Manchester's storied street soul scene of the late 1980s to mid-1990s. Featuring DIY cassette recordings of sounds such as Broadway, Stereo Dan & Soul Control playing live at dances and blues parties in south & central Manchester from 1988 through to 1996.

We Jazz Reworks is an idea that repurposes some of the label’s output 10 albums at a time. That is, we invite producers whose music we love on board, and one by one, they tackle 10 albums worth of source material, of which they are free to use as much or as little as they choose. The series evolves chronologically, so this volume being number two, the source material is pulled from We Jazz LPs numbers 11 through 20. The artist has complete freedom. Volume 2 in the series happens with Carl Stone, a legendary figure in creative music. His career spans decades of unlimited musical innovation. Stone’s recent output on Unseen Worlds, the label who has also been instrumental in issuing some of his remarkable earlier work, ranks among the most original art of our time and renders notions such as ”genre” virtually meaningless. Here, We Jazz originals by Terkel Nørgaard, OK:KO, Jonah Parzen-Johnson and more are met here with a fresh sense of discovery, spun around and delivered ready for the turntable once again. Carl Stone says: ”It was wonderful that We Jazz gave me carte blanche to work with any materials from the set of ten releases in its catalog. This freedom to work with everything could have been a mixed blessing though, as it could be a challenge to try to deal with so much musical information. In the end I did what I almost always do: Let my intuition be my guide and to seize upon any musical items that seemed to fit into an overall approach.” ”To make a new piece I usually start with an extended period of what really is just playing, the way a child plays with toys. Experimentation without necessary expectation, leading to (hopefully) discovery of things of musical interest, then figuring out a way to craft and shape these into a structured piece of music. Each track uses a different approach, which I found along the way during this play period.” This conceptual approach becomes complete with the design, in which album graphics are treated in a similar fashion, reworking what’s there. This time around, the artwork is reinvented by Tuomo Parikka, a great friend of the We Jazz collective and a regular cover collage contributor for the We Jazz Magazine. credits released October 21, 2022 We Jazz Records presents the second volume of their reworks albums dealing with source material from the Helsinki-based label's catalog. This time around, it's Carl Stone's turn to tackle the source albums at hand and filter the label's output through his musical lens. We Jazz Reworks is an idea that repurposes some of the label's output 10 albums at a time. That is, the label invites producers whose music they love on board, and one by one, they tackle 10 albums worth of source material, of which they are free to use as much or as little as they choose. The series evolves chronologically, so this volume being number two, the source material is pulled from We Jazz LPs numbers 11 through 20. The artist has complete freedom. Volume 2 in the series happens with Carl Stone, a legendary figure in creative music. His career spans decades of unlimited musical innovation. Stone's recent output on Unseen Worlds, the label who has also been instrumental in issuing some of his remarkable earlier work, ranks among the most original art of our time and renders notions such as "genre" virtually meaningless. Here, We Jazz originals by Terkel Nørgaard, OK:KO, Jonah Parzen-Johnson and more are met here with a fresh sense of discovery, spun around and delivered ready for the turntable once again. "It was wonderful that We Jazz gave me carte blanche to work with any materials from the set of ten releases in its catalog. This freedom to work with everything could have been a mixed blessing though, as it could be a challenge to try to deal with so much musical information. In the end I did what I almost always do: Let my intuition be my guide and to seize upon any musical items that seemed to fit into an overall approach." "To make a new piece I usually start with an extended period of what really is just playing, the way a child plays with toys. Experimentation without necessary expectation, leading to (hopefully) discovery of things of musical interest, then figuring out a way to craft and shape these into a structured piece of music. Each track uses a different approach, which I found along the way during this play period." - Carl Stone This conceptual approach becomes complete with the design, in which album graphics are treated in a similar fashion, reworking what's there. This time around, the artwork is reinvented by Tuomo Parikka, a regular cover collage contributor for the We Jazz Magazine. !

Bassist and composer Milo Fitzpatrick (Portico Quartet) launches new collaborative project with saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands) Vega Trails is a new project from double-bassist and composer Milo Fitzpatrick, a founder member of Portico Quartet, who has also performed with the likes of Nick Mulvey and Jono McCleary and features saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands, Sunda Arc) in a richly powerful duo bringing together two powerfully charismatic musicians. The project which takes its name from Carl Sagan's science fiction novel 'Contact' (a book about signals of new life detected from the Vega system) and was born out of a desire to bring the elements of bass and melody to the foreground in their rawest form and Fitzpatrick explains that he deliberately chose the stripped back approach. “There is so much in just one musician’s sound; the emotional, the intellectual, the vulnerability and power of their character. But often these delicate nuances can be submerged in the quest for a group sound. In Vega Trails I wanted to grant the musicians space to breathe and be heard and for the listener to witness the intimacy and depth of a conversation between two voices, bass and melody. I was also interested in how the limitations would guide both the composition and performance and to push us both to places close to the limits of what we could play, and it is in this place where I believe the character of a musician blossoms and comes forward”. Tremors in the Static was composed during Lockdown as Fitzpatrick immersed himself in music that had space and sparseness such as Swedish fiddle music and Indian Classical music. Jan Johansson’s legendary ‘Jazz på Svenska’ (jazz versions of Swedish folk songs) was another influence, as was a collection of ancient lullabies by Spanish soprano singer Montserrat Figueras. Through exploring the harmonic and textural possibilities on the bass, Fitzpatrick would cycle riffs and motifs whilst singing melodies, and he began to create the music debuted here. However, it was only after listening to Charlie Haden’s album of duets, ‘Closeness’, that the project would come into focus as a duo, and Fitzpatrick immediately knew that the second musician had to be Jordan Smart. “I saw Jordan play at two Gondwana Records events – in Berlin and Tokyo. Both times I was mesmerised by the intensity and conviction of his playing. His commitment to the cause of transcending himself and the listener made a lasting impression on me. When I began writing this record, I knew I needed a strong player who had equal conviction in their playing as me, but also someone who understood the importance of melody” It was an inspired idea as Smart brought an openness and positivity which allowed the music to be both experimental and bold. Smart’s ability to play tenor and soprano saxophone with equal command, as well as bass clarinet and Ney flute, allowed them to open up the pallet of sound and pull the melodies into varying emotional landscapes. The final piece of the puzzle was the performance space. Fitzpatrick knew that he wanted the two players to react off of a third element. The music was written for an ambient space which interacted with the notes: decaying and disintegrating them into silence. They found the perfect space in a church in Fitzpatrick’s local neighbourhood of Stamford Hill. “The recording space is the canvas on which the sound interacts and flows, it is the frame in which notes can live, breathe and die and is as important as the other elements. A resonant recording space, like a church, allows this stripped back sound to resonate, echo and linger, enough to create images and landscapes in which stories can play out”. This then is Vega Trails, a project that brings together two open-mined and communicative musicians for the first time, to tell beautiful winding stories together and to create something soulful and new. Something bigger than both of them and something that leaves us all richer for hearing it. Enjoy!