NEW ARRIVALS

"As expected, the set began with some brain-blasting brutal noise [...] Although Merzbow is known for his extreme electronics, he is much more diverse and creative than most give him credit for. The best part of the set was when both Merzbow and Mats [Gustafsson] worked more carefully with their electronics while Mr. Pándi played some cerebral, shifting currents on his drums [...] which brought this set to a grand climax [...]". » GALLANTER, Bruce. « Downtown Music Gallery », June 2018 "The festival concluded—climactically and cathartically—with a bracing wall of sound, noise and fury from the trio of Gustafsson, the mystical Japanese noise master Merzbow and impressive young Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi.". » WOODARD, Josef. « DownBeat », May 27, 2018 "If you've seen Merzbow perform live, a question you probably wouldn't ask is, "How can we make that louder?" Well, the answer comes in the form of sax monster Mats Gustafsson and a relative newcomer, Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi." » HILL, Eric. « Exclaim! », May 20, 2018

At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of… Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib. The recording of “Exactement” required two sessions in the studio: February 1st and May 18th 1974 – in between the two dates, Lancaster recorded, alongside Clint Jackson, the excellent “Mother Africa”. Two names appear on the cover of “Exactement”: Lancaster (Byard) and Speller (Keno). Byard Lancaster wanted to be precise, moving regularly from one instrument to another: first on piano, which was the first instrument he learned. On “Sweet Evil Miss Kisianga”, his inspiration is first and foremost Coltrane (even if leaning more towards Alice than John), this announces the storm to follow. It is Lancaster’s horn-playing which really stands out: on alto (the sound of which is transformed by an octavoice on one track, "Dr. Oliver W. Lancaster") or soprano saxophones, as well as on flute or bass clarinet, the musician walks a tightrope making the most of all the risks he takes. Using the full register of his instruments, he has fun with the possibilities. Then, Lancaster invokes or evokes Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and even Prokofiev, before going into a danse alongside Keno Speller on percussion. Above all, he has a unique sound. Byard Lancaster, on whatever instrument he plays and by continually seeking, always ends up hitting the right note… ends up by playing exactement the note he had to play.

Cult digidub mutators Froid Dub slow their steez to deeply knackered, ghostly levels on a follow-up to joints with Krikor and Ransom Note. Back with Parisian patrons Delodio, the pair bring a deep studio knowledge earned since the ‘90s (and their days together as Bosco) to a half hour of purposefully sluggish pressure slanted at the earliest or latest hours of the night/day. With Black Roots Players’ ‘Slow Tempo’ riddim possibly in the back of their mind, they keep it all heavily downbeat and rent with a psychoacoustic nous that draws lines between The Black Ark, GRM, and DJ Screw. ‘Deep’ feels like the onset of a space cake, all super blunted vox and wiggy synths, and ‘The Swap’ snaps tightly to slowed digidub templates, next to echoes of ’Slow Tempo’ in the cranky chords of the title tune. They really let the bass flare in acres of space on the spangled zingers ‘Too Digital’ and an acidic ‘Love’, whilst crossing lines with Full Circle’s proto-goa trance in ‘Diggin’’ and the swampy motion of ‘No Sense’.

Sooj — a collaborative project between members of Duster and Dirty Art Club. Picking up where their 2024 two-sider Anhedonia II b/w Ecstasy Cowgirl left off, Crusher sees Duster’s slowcore drift dissolve into Dirty Art Club’s sample-heavy, collage-minded production. The result is neither band, nor side project, but something more elusive — a third space built from tape hiss, chopped memory, and late-night signal bleed. Across its runtime, the album avoids the gravitational pull of nostalgia. Instead, it hovers in a liminal present — part collaboration, part escape route.

Light in the Attic is honored to announce the long-awaited reissue of Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, the revolutionary 1982 album from composer and musician Charanjit Singh. Pairing Indian classical ragas with then-state-of-the-art Roland synthesizers and drum machines, Singh created an electronic masterpiece that was far ahead of its time.

Recording live at Mumbai’s HMV studios, Singh married the past to the future—blending the ancient Indian tradition of ragas (a melodic framework, similar to a scale, from which musicians can improvise or compose) with pulsating, electronic dance beats. Released without fanfare, it faded into obscurity and Singh retired from recording to focus on private concerts, but that’s where the story begins…

Released in cooperation with Singh’s estate, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat arrives on June 26th. The 10-track album was remastered by Johanz Westerman at Ballyhoo Studio Mastering and stretched across 2-LPs for the highest quality listening experience. The vinyl was pressed at Optimal Media and housed in a gatefold jacket that replicates the original artwork.

An accompanying 16-page LP booklet features previously-unreleased photos and two new essays: the first from Arshia Fatima Haq and Jeremy Loudenback of Discostan—a multimedia collective and record label focusing on music from South West Asia and North Africa—while the other comes from filmmaker and writer Rana Ghose of event and film production entity REProduce Artists, who managed Singh in his final years and documented his triumphant return to the stage. Additionally, fans can find a limited-edition pressing of Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat on ‘Pearlescent Transcendent Future’ Color Wax, while the album will also be reissued on CD with a 32-page booklet containing all of the above.

More on Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat:

Indian multi-instrumentalist and composer Charanjit Singh (1940–2015) never intended to be an electronic dance music pioneer when he recorded 1982’s Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. Yet three decades later, his inventive use of state-of-the-art synthesizers and drum machines would prompt some to crown him the “Godfather of Acid House.” The real story, however, runs much deeper.

A native of Mumbai, Singh spent much of his career as a Bollywood session musician, collaborating with renowned composers like RD Burman and Shankar–Jaikishan, and appearing on some of the most iconic Hindi film hits of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Outside of the film industry, Singh recorded several of his own albums and toured the world alongside the era’s biggest stars—an opportunity which allowed him to collect new instruments, including synthesizers and other electronic devices. As psychedelia and disco wove their way into Bollywood scores, Singh was at the forefront, integrating a host of electronic textures into his work (his hypnotic Transicord introduction on “Dum Maro Dum” from 1971’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna is among his most recognizable performances).

By the turn of the ‘80s, however, Singh was disenchanted by the creative limitations of session work and embarked on a solo career. Not long after, on tour in Singapore, he discovered three Roland devices that had just hit the market: the TR-808 drum machine (released 1980), the TB-303 bass synthesizer (released 1981), and the Jupiter 8 synthesizer (released 1981). While this trio would fuel early electronic dance music in the coming years, Singh was among the first known artists to pair them on record when he was inspired to create his next album, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.

Using only the three devices and recording live at Mumbai’s HMV studios, Singh married the past to the future—blending the ancient Indian tradition of ragas (a melodic framework, similar to a scale, from which musicians can improvise or compose) with pulsating, electronic dance beats, while programming the TB-303 to follow classical Hindustani scales. From the hypnotic drones of “Raga Bhairavi” to the uplifting jams of “Raga Bairagi” the album proved perhaps to be a bit too visionary for its time. Released without fanfare, it faded into obscurity and Singh retired from recording to focus on private concerts.

Two decades later, Dutch DJ and record collector Edo Bouman was in New Delhi when he came across an old copy of Ten Ragas. Bouman was astounded by what he heard—electronic music that had all the hallmarks of acid house, recorded five years before Chicago DJs coined the term. Bouman spent the next few years tracking down Singh and, in 2010, reissued the album on his label, Bombay Connection.

Soon, Ten Ragas became a viral sensation, sparking disbelief and debates about the origins of acid house. But, as Haq and Loudenback explain, those in the conversation “Had little frame of reference for [Singh’s] music outside of the parameters of western club music.” Viewed through the lens of the Hindi film industry, they argue, the album’s through-line comes into focus. In the ‘60s, when Western artists were looking to India for inspiration, Bollywood was “A laboratory for discovering sounds, and for harnessing every new technology that could be found or repurposed…. Singh’s album is more fittingly placed within the framework of the expansion of Bollywood’s experiments in disco, rather than that of acid house.”

“Perhaps this is yet another example of how a public engages with those who are ahead of their time,” adds Rana Ghose. “This record is a direct consequence of a centuries-old classical music form, rendered through the lens of a visionary who used the vanguard of technology at the time to recast it, resulting in an artefact that, almost 40 years later, is finding entirely new audiences in an era marked by a changing and uncertain global landscape of soft-power assertion. Considering this reassessment is as exciting as it is fascinating. Much like this record.”

While Ten Ragas sparked plenty of conversations within the electronic music community, it also gave a bemused Singh a surge of newfound fame during the final years of his life, allowing him to play with his live collaborator Johanz Westerman (Thee J Johanz) to thousands of fans at packed club shows and festivals in Europe, the U.S., and India. Among those fans are Australian duo Glass Beams (who covered “Raga Bhairav”), German electronic duo Modeselektor, and Thom Yorke, who ranked “Raga Lalit” as one of his “6 Tracks You Need to Hear” via the BBC.

Most importantly, however, Ten Ragas resonated deeply with South Asian artists, who saw electronic music from India being recognized with new reverence. In the words of Vish Matre (of the UK DJ duo Dar Disku), “This record will be remembered for, not being the predecessor to another genre, but being a precursor to a lot of new music from the diaspora that relied on it as inspiration.”

Adrian Sherwood teams up with Speakers Corner Quartet and African Head Charge for new four track EP Barbican Heights, a project which traverses the musical worlds of dub, jazz, electronic, afrobeat, and beyond. Barbican Heights is born out of a spirit of collaboration, bringing together one of the UKs most innovative and influential producers, Adrian Sherwood; one of the longest serving and most iconic members of the On-U Sound family, African Head Charge; together with Speakers Corner Quartet, a rising force whose influence is integral to the sound of the contemporary UK jazz scene. Recorded during a singular day of creative spontaneity at Wicker Studios, the three acts, alongside Alex White of Primal Scream and Fat White Family, combined for semi-improvised reworkings of classic African Head Charge composition “Wicked Kingdom Of This Earth”, Speakers Corner Quartet’s own “Topanga”, as well as two new tracks constructed from scratch during the session

It's time for the 5th album of the Long Trax series, featuring six new tracks produced in an A/B style, cut onto 3 vinyl records and compiled onto a single CD. Staying all-hardware, with drooping synth pads and Rhodes piano, rhythm machines, space echo and spring reverb, and featuring 3 new narrators here to put us in our place. Stay independent, and anti-AI. All music by Will Long Artwork by Tsuji Aiko Mastered by Stephan Mathieu A Long Trax Productions release

AFTER DARK is the latest project from French producer Onra, conceived as the soundtrack to an imagined late-night film. Entirely self-produced, the album continues the sophisticated R&B and Modern Soul direction explored since his 2010 classic Long Distance and 2018's accomplished Nobody Has To Know, focusing on late 80's / early 90's inspirations. Structured like a film unfolding between dusk and dawn, After Dark moves through themes of intimacy, urban solitude, distance, and quiet indulgence. Analog synthesizers, tight drum programming, understated basslines, and selective live saxophone textures shape a cohesive body of work that favors mood and narrative over excess. The sequencing reinforces its cinematic intent, opening and closing with intro and outro pieces that frame the record as a cohesive night-time narrative album. Over 20 years since emerging in the mid-2000s from the beat scene, Onra has steadily evolved from sample-based Hip-Hop production toward polished, song-oriented projects rooted in contemporary R&B and Funk. With After Dark, he delivers one of his most focused and refined statements to date: a mature, immersive album built for late hours, and attentive listening. The first taster of the album to drop is the slick nostalgic ’Lap of Luxury’, sets the tone for the project, a blend between Instrumental Hip-Hop, late 80s R&B and 90''s Smooth Jazz.

The album is built on a singular concept: every sound is produced from a single cello. While effects pedals are used to extend and amplify the instrument, no other instruments or field recordings are involved. What remains is the act of performance itself—an ongoing exchange between body and instrument, where sound emerges as voice. Yet the resulting sonic landscape resists any sense of limitation. Layered textures of percussive gestures, micro-noise generated by a self-made bow, and sustained drones unfold into a complex, immersive environment.

TMZ stood out as a fiercely unique presence on TRANSONIC COMPACT DISC 01 and 02, the compilation albums that marked the first standalone releases from the newly reborn TRANSONIC RECORDS. An existence that could well be called an out-of-place artifact in techno history, this debut album bridges the gap between a hidden past and the present.

A wave of global critical reappraisal is building around Japan's definitive techno label, TRANSONIC RECORDS. To mark the occasion, a two-disc compilation album showcasing the dawn of Japanese 90s techno is set for release.

Artur Strekalov, aka mu tate, joins the OST roster with another set of dreamtime snapshots that he collages into a plunderphonic scrapbook of new age-y samples, dialog snippets and squirly, bass-heavy rhythms. One for fans of Oneohtrix Point Never, Special Guest DJ, Space Afrika and Ludwig Wandinger, then. Last spotted breaking bread with Nexciya and Exzald S on 2025's 'Labège', Strekalov has become a reliable presence on the dubwise ambient fringe, spreading his influence across imprints like Warm Winters, Experiences and Alex Egan's Utter. He joins New York's OST, home of Organ Tapes, DJ Pitch and shineteac, among others, with 'life of mu', an album that moves beyond the gauzy, downtempo hum of his last solo joint, 2024's 'wanting less'. This one, as the title suggests, traces a more sturdy narrative, avoiding the overtly nostalgic bass-heavy ambiance that rooted its predecessors and emphasising more suggestive soundscapes that Strekalov peppers with movie samples. Opener 'world has ended for me many times...' cuts fluttering, 'Incunabula'-alike synth vamps into radio interferences and a woman's exasperated monologue that's spirals into distortion. It's remarkably open, too - Strekalov doesn't overload us with ideas, letting his story emerge slowly from the pregnant pauses and negative space. A song almost coalesces on 'low desire society' from whirring electronics and wily oscillations, and the IDM influences that emerged on the opener crystallize properly on 'world of'. But as soon as the album takes a more corporeal form, it inevitably turns to gas: 'lost in translation' is a selection of synthetic belches and cinematic cues and 'heavyweight' is anything but, an oozing, tempo-fluxed chug that's latched to its own druggy logic. Ben Bondy shows up on 'memory of a memory' as the track stumbles from warm, Toytronic-era electronix into crunchy emo-rock in the second half, and Yves B. Golden, who helped zhuzh up Ludwig Wandinger's excellent 'Is Peace Wild', adds her side to the atmospheric 'Yves's Story'.

Texas-born, Maui-based musician and producer Jesse Peterson aka Turn On The Sunlight's new LP via Music From Memory. "Originally formed in New York in the late 2000s, Turn On The Sunlight has evolved into a fluid, location-spanning practice rooted in collaboration, intuition and process. Now based on Maui, Peterson’s work draws together a wide network of musicians and environments, with recordings taking shape across Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, San Miguel de Allende and Haʻikū. Loosely situated within a framework of organic, ambient-leaning jazz, 'Iseo' unfolds as a series of open, exploratory pieces, with electronics sitting subtly beneath acoustic and environmental elements. Built from layered instrumentation including synthesizers, guitar, zither, flutes, voice and field recordings, Peterson moves between grounded, tactile detail and more expansive, immersive states. A sense of warmth and permeability runs throughout: organic percussion, environmental textures and drifting rhythmic elements lend the record a gently saturated humidity, reflecting Peterson’s base in Hawaii, where the presence of nature is felt as much as it is heard. Underlying the project is a way of working rooted in gathering, listening and tending. Instruments, ensemble sessions, field recordings and everyday environments are approached with attentiveness, shaped through collecting, refining and allowing things to settle. Relationships, landscape and lived experience shape the sound, giving 'Iseo' a tactile, almost hand-made quality. Rather than fixed arrangements, the album feels as if it has been organically and lovingly assembled through a process of listening and response, each element finding its place within a wider, evolving whole. This approach reaches a natural centre point in the 15-minute piece 'Medianoche En La Calle Aurora', which unfolds patiently, bending through shifting environments as motifs and textures emerge and dissolve with quiet continuity. Peterson’s role as both instigator and facilitator is central to the project. Bringing together a diverse group of collaborators including Carlos Niño, Mia Doi Todd, Laraaji, Ko Ishikawa, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli and Miles Spilsbury, he creates space for individual voices to emerge within a shared language. The result is a music defined by openness and generosity. 'Iseo' takes its title from Peterson’s son’s middle name, a word that can be understood to mean ‘one-world life’. The piece itself takes the form of a gentle lullaby, its melody loosely shaped around the syllables of his name and sung to Peterson’s son by Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, a close collaborator whose presence across the record reflects a long-standing relationship that extends beyond the music itself. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis."

Friend, james K’s critically-acclaimed third album, opens as a portal and continues to garner a life of its own, a constant earworm that continually resonates as the map of its emotional cartography shifts into new ground. The map continues to unfold with Friend Remixes. Speaking on the remixes, K says: “Friends remix Friend. It is such a sweet honour to have my friends and collaborators, whose work has inspired mine, interpret and translate this work into new narratives.”

At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of… Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib. “Funny Funky Rib Crib” is an unforgettable recording (made up of several sessions dating from the middle of 1974) of creative jazz overwhelmed by funk and soul. If Lancaster had already made successful albums in the same genre – notably New Horizons, under the name Sounds Of Liberation which he co-led with Khan Jamal –, this one is an homage to James Brown and Sammy Davis enjoying the company of a host of guests including François Tusques (electric piano), Clint Jackson III (trumpet), François Nyombo (guitar), Joseph Traindl (trombone)… Funny Funky Rib Crib’s cover is a three-quarter profile portrait of the saxophonist (who can also be heard on flute, piano and even vocals), however, on the record, it is the whole group, inspired and frenetic, that tests the melodies of “Just Test”, “Dogtown” or “Rib Crib” – the two versions of which display leader Lancaster’s art of nuance. On both sides of the album, the group also moves into a calmer groove, infused by blues and soul, “Work And Pray” and “Loving Kindness” are meditative tracks where listeners can lay back and relax before asking for more: Funny Funky Rib Crib!!!

Abstract dub dream-weavers SKRS INTL. & WZRDRY remerge at the behest of Bristol’s Accidental Meetings for a super lush dose of wormholing ambient dance pressure tipped FFO Rezzett, Peak Oil/False Aralia, Second Woman. ‘Orbit Flares’ combines the two Canadian units for the first time in over a decade, naturally reprising an empathic level of vibes in a half hour of music that betrays illusive tekkerz developed over the interim. Any semblance of sharp edges are smudged to a brilliantly psychedelic, polychromatic lustre and laced with disciplined, yet properly wayward rhythms that tumble, buckle and vaporise in fractious delirium. Each new SKRS drop is welcome around ours but, jeez, they really push into their most impressive work here, possibly thanks to wzrdryAV’s synaesthetic suss. Front to back it feel likes they catch minds/bodies in the split second before going under anaesthesia, and extrude us into pitch-bent helical vortices of plonging dub chords and gooey bass, finding bold new realms of computerised dub suss. Handrails are slippery as fuck, ground melts beneath feet, leaving bodies gyring in space between the weightless dub techno inflections of ‘1.1’, into air-stepping chicanery on ‘1.2’, or glitching like a hair-kissing Vladislav Delay on ‘1.3’. The smeared chords and scudding subs of ‘2.1’ call to mind Second Woman emulating the illusive dub-soul of False Aralia drops, and ‘2.3’ feels like distant rig heard on a Nitrous-induced permo. Sheer class for harder to please future dub freaks.

Bruno Berle is a singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and figurehead of a contemporary Brazilian music movement. With a quiet mastery of songwriting and an astonishing voice, his music has won hearts around the world. Since the release of his debut album No Reino Dos Afetos (2022), Berle has performed across the UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and China, only leaving his home country for the first time in 2023. Shaped by these journeys, Berle’s third studio album, Sem Fronteiras (Without Borders), reflects a utopian vision of a unified world. Recorded across London, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Germany, and Maceió, the album–co-produced alongside his longstanding musical partner Batata Boy–is the most expansive canvas Berle has worked on to date. Shot through with the imagery that has always animated his songwriting: open skies, morning light, vivid colours and the magic of human connection, Berle’s carefully crafted poetics and warm, delicate instrumentation drive this vivid body of work. “I came from nothing”–Berle doesn’t take his rise to global prominence for granted. Born to a working class family from Brazil’s northeastern Alagoas state, one of Brazil’s most economically deprived, Bruno moved frequently in his youth to follow any job opportunities his parents could find, before eventually settling in the coastal capital of Maceió. “I used to travel to Caruaru, Santa Cruz, Recife, Garanhuns, Arapiraca, which I loved and feel it made me ready to be in this rhythm i’, but at the same time I think not having friends from childhood and being in constant change made me a little numb to the constant upheaval”. On Sem Fronteiras, there is a similar duality at play. The album celebrates the collective joy and human connection that live touring brings, but it also sits with the darker realities of crossing borders. While music moves more freely around the world than ever before, our bodies are not granted the same privilege. Though he’s never lacked self-belief, Berle recognises that talent alone doesn’t guarantee opportunity. “Before my second album [No Reino Dos Afetos 2] everything I had ever recorded was made with the help and kindness of people who believed in my ability”. Determined to pay that kindness forward and help others from the sharp end of Brazil’s desperately unequal society, Berle produced and featured on the recent self-titled albums by his northeast Brazilian compatriots, Nyron Higor and Phylipe Nunes Araújo (both 2025), helping propel both onto the international stage. In turn, following the successes of Nyron & Phylipe’s albums alongside his own, Bruno finds himself at the forefront of a thriving community of artists now based in São Paulo, but primarily originating from northeastern states like Alagoas and Pernambuco. Much like the famed Clube Da Esquina movement that spawned in 1970’s Minas Gerais, they operate with a free-exchange of ideas, writing songs with and for each other, performing on each other’s albums and on the live circuit together. Lead single ‘Manha’ flows from this ethos. It was written by Berle’s friend and fellow Alagoan João Menezes (writer of ‘Ate Meu Violao’ and ‘Te Amar Eterno’ from Bruno’s previous albums) and Marvin Viera, and originally recorded on their 2018 album Areia e Mar. Sem Fronteiras opens with ‘Você Já Sabe Que Eu Te Amo’, just six beats of one nylon guitar chord ring out before changing key, paving the way for the gentle strike of fender rhodes and the arresting call & response duet between Berle and Higor. On ‘Amor Inteiro’, the album reaches a celebratory burst of catharsis, with the punch-packing drums of Pedro Lacerda and Nina Maia’s joyous backing vocals encapsulating the live energy that Berle and his band bring to the stage. With the abundant talents of this musical community at its heart, Sem Fronteiras releases 10th July 2026 via Far Out Recordings, supported by a summer tour across Europe. Bruno Berle will perform in a four-piece band alongside Nyron Higor, Phylipe Nunes, and Batata Boy, culminating in an appearance at Roskilde festival, Berle’s biggest live show to date. He’ll continue to carry a hopeful vision of a world where artists and musicians can move as freely as their music flows.

This compilation brings together eight tracks by Yassine Nana and his group, recorded between 1984 and 1989, during a key moment in Mauritania’s musical history. A central figure of one of the country’s most respected musical families, Yassine stands at the crossroads of a long-standing tradition and a period of deep transformation in form, sound and production. Recorded in Mauritania as well as during stays in Paris and Rabat, these songs integrate drum machines, synthesizers and electric guitars into Saharan musical structures. Influenced by reggae, soul and new wave, the group develops a sound that reflects the circulation of music and technology in the 1980s, while remaining firmly rooted in Mauritanian languages, themes and melodic systems. Love, travel, exile and music itself run through lyrics sung in Hassaniya and classical Arabic. Originally released on cassette and long confined to local circulation, these recordings offer a rare perspective on African popular music of the period, seen from Nouakchott. A body of work that documents a Mauritanian modernity, both popular and exploratory, now brought back into circulation by Les Disques Bongo Joe and Sofa Records. 

The San Diego via Boston alt trio's complete original studio recordings, remastered, restored, and compiled into one lavish box set. Wait A Lifetime gathers the band's peerless albums Junk and This Afternoons Malady, plus a first time vinyl pressing of R.I.P., expanded to include their unfinished 3rd album, singles, splits, and comp tracks. The 28-page accompanying booklet details the entire saga via Nina Corcoran's essay and dozens of period photos, all housed in a stunning case-wrapped and varnished box. Sink into the ground and fly.

Yara Asmar’s new album, “everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much”, presents 11 pieces recorded over the past year between the small town of Alfred in upstate New York and Beirut. These sometimes fragile and tentative sound sketches reflect the times as Yara steps out, as if onto ice, into a new life on a new continent. She works with unfamiliar instruments, new materials and new sounds to build on her intimate style; homemade mechanical music boxes and a personal archive of family recordings form the backbone of its delicate textures. Asmar explores the peculiar resonance of the metallophone and her collection of deconstructed toy pianos, and guides her music into ever more surreal territories. The result is a work that is dreamlike, fragmentary and strangely timeless.

Reverend Baron’s singular troubadour soul may best understand the capacity music has to span the distance between points on a map and pages in a calendar. Daniel, the acoustic instrumental follow-up to 2022’s Karma Chief label debut, From Anywhere…, expands the world beyond LA’s concrete canyons and overpasses to the bustling, churning sea of life that is Mexico City, to the sparse, rolling landscape of Red Cloud, Nebraska. In each locale, the constant companion was a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar — with a well-traveled history of its own. “It was my father’s guitar,” recalls Danny Garcia, the man behind the Reverend. “I found out a few years ago that it was my grandfather’s as well.” Ever-present since his childhood, the Mexican acoustic has taken on increased meaning for Garcia with each passing year. Hours upon hours spent playing, traveling, and breathing meaning into its fretboard have made it both a tool and talisman. “There’s the obvious bloodline and family and link…that link through history,” confides Garcia. “It’s kinda the only family heirloom I have.” Over the last while, all this playing (or “noodling” as Danny puts it) had Reverend Baron chasing a sound — one which belies the guitar’s origins. It’s a sound he would hear from time to time, and when it came to record Daniel, it would be his true magnetic north (or south as it were). Spinning through Daniel, and you will hear echoes of Antonio Bribiesca and Luiz Bonfa's guitar tones. Dig deeper and you’ll see the bones of Townes Van Zandt and Nick Drake guitar textures as well. While not claiming their virtuosity in his playing, the soul and vulnerability that have become calling cards for the first two Reverend Baron albums complement these influences. There is a warmth in Daniel that takes center stage in these acoustic meditations. From brief, fluid moments like “El Monte” and “How Glad” to the high-lonesome “Muchacho,” the songs drift like cumulus clouds over a deep blue skyway. Their graceful float is in stark contrast to the album’s origins. The studio Garcia was using for his intended second release on Karma Chief was a victim of the LA wildfires in January of 2025. “[The fires] halted work on my record,” says Garcia. “So I ended up leaving and went to Mexico City for a few months, and so worked quite a bit [on Daniel] there.” With his striped-down set up -- featuring his guitar, a few microphones, and a laptop -- the time in Mexico City set the tone for the project. “I just came into this space because it seemed like I could just do it…it seemed like it was time, and I didn’t have to force anything.” After leaving CDMX, Reverend Baron spent a few weeks in Red Cloud. While all the traveling and miles energize Garcia, this small midwestern village’s peaceful and unassuming nature was the ideal spot to focus and create. “LA is home and has its own cultural juice, which I love…Nebraska is very quiet. No one disturbs you, and I can just work and concentrate for weeks [there].”  Daniel’s 11 tracks criss-cross the laylines of border music and folk, but categorizing them along a fault line or genre tag misses the point. These acoustic numbers move with a deliberate ease, never overstaying their welcome. The songs respond to time and distance with equal parts reflection and transparency; both mirror and window to the soul. Daniel is Reverend Baron’s conversation with his bloodline, influences, and the stops along the way.  By the album’s closer, “Velasco,” Daniel’s conversation becomes your invitation to search for a path along that great sonic continuum housed within a song.

Orgone, a contemporary funk band based in Los Angeles, has spent years updating the sound of 60s and 70s soul and funk for the modern era. Among their catalog, New You stands out as one of the most beloved releases among fans.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Glera, Marco Benevento’s debut album on the label. Marco Benevento has always moved like someone who understands the studio as its own instrument, not just a room where the toys are. Long before he began appearing on stages with Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, and in the liner notes of albums by Clairo and Leon Bridges, Benevento was already thinking like a producer - listening for texture, tension, and negative space, and for the strange emotional alchemy that occurs when groove and curiosity collide. His new album Glera sharpens that instinct into focus, presenting Benevento not only as a virtuosic keyboardist and bandleader, but as a composer building worlds from rhythm, tone, and feeling. Glera is a genre-bending jazz record that folds in soul and reggae’s elastic low end with an open-door sense of possibility. The project began three years ago as a kind of private exercise, with Benevento writing intuitively, inspired by Italian film scores and melody. Over time, those sketches evolved into something broader and more muscular, culminating in the grand majesty heard here. What emerges is music that moves cinematically without becoming precious. Tracks can feel like chase scenes or slow dissolves, sometimes within the same song, with jazz improvisation sharing space alongside reggae pocket, orchestral elements, and psych-pop atmosphere. It’s exploratory but grounded, complex yet unmistakably groove-forward. Album opener “Frizzante” is pure musical celebration captured on tape - a high-energy, feel-good banger that finds Marco trading melodies with himself over a relentless groove. On “Turandot,” Benevento is joined by Italy’s own Marianne Mirage on vocals; the haunting, cinematic track sits comfortably between the worlds of Portishead and Serge Gainsbourg. Then comes “Big Top,” stretching the album’s palette even further; equipped with voice memos and peacock calls, it’s most aptly summed up as “circus funk.” Blow the whistle and the game begins with the jazz-fusion–esque dancefloor filler “Houdini,” a kick-in-the-door burner from the very first drumbeat. Blending dream pop into the mix on “I Can’t Control This Bliss,” Marco invites Dream Crease to the microphone for a dose of lo-fi gorgeousness. Elizabeth Steiner brings her storied harp work to “Miss Neptune” over a deeply vibey, reggae-influenced backing track. Putting the pedal to the metal, “Sprezzatura” plays like a high-speed pursuit through narrow streets, while “Quattro Passi” brings the pace down to a saunter, featuring jazz vocalist Chiara Civello. Marco Benevento is operating at the highest level, shaping sound with purpose and curiosity. This album announces itself loudly—both outward-facing and deeply intimate. It’s music that moves—across genres, tempos, and registers—while remaining anchored to the joy of discovery. It’s a record that embodies motion, carrying the past forward without ever standing still.

Blues in the Mississippi Night documents a remarkable 1947 session recorded by Alan Lomax in New York, shortly after performances at his Midnight Special concert series. Featuring Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson—originally credited under pseudonyms for their safety—the recording pairs intimate performances with candid conversation. Prompted by Lomax, the musicians speak openly about racism, labour and life in the Jim Crow South, tracing the blues back to lived experience. The result is a powerful blend of music and testimony, grounded in the realities that shaped the form. Remastered from the original tapes by Lomax Archive, this edition restores the clarity and presence of the session. It stands as a vital historical document, capturing three defining voices in direct, unguarded form.