NEW ARRIVALS

On Revolutionary Pekinese Opera, Ground Zero - under the ferociously precise direction of Otomo Yoshihide - detonates a cut‑and‑splice orchestra where free improv, noise, opera and plunderphonics collide with undimmed urgency. With the blessing of Otomo Yoshihide himself, Revolutionary Pekinese Opera returns to vinyl as one of the defining artefacts of 1990s avant‑garde music, sounding less like a period piece than a live explosive smuggled into the present. Originally conceived as a hypercharged reimagining of revolutionary opera through the cracked lens of sampling culture, the album captures Ground Zero at the height of its powers: a band that refused to respect borders between genres, media or histories, instead treating them all as combustible material. Three decades on, these compositions still feel like they might slip the stylus off the groove through sheer centrifugal force. At the core of the record is Otomo’s role as a kind of Deus ex machina from Fukushima, orchestrating a dense, unruly melting pot of musicians, sounds and strategies. Turntables, guitars, horns, rhythm section and electronics are marshalled into a constantly shifting field where nothing is allowed to remain stable for long. Fragments of Peking opera collide with free jazz eruptions; abrupt cuts splice militant fanfares into stretches of near‑silence or sandblasted noise; cartoonish samples and solemn themes rub shoulders, unsettling each other. What could have been a mere collage becomes, in Otomo’s hands, a tightly argued montage, where each juxtaposition pushes the music into a new, volatile state. The album’s power lies in how it weaponises experimentation without losing a sense of structure. Ground Zero operate like a rogue theatre troupe and a demolition crew at once, pulling recognizable motifs out of the wreckage only to shred them again seconds later. Passages of almost symphonic weight flare up out of scratchy loops and feedback, while sudden drop‑outs expose tiny, nervous details - a stray cymbal brush, a voice buried in the mix, a tape wobble - before the full ensemble slams back in. The result is a music of permanent revolution in miniature, forever overthrowing its own premises, yet somehow coherent in its manic logic. What is striking today is how little of Revolutionary Pekinese Opera’s allure has faded. In an era when sampling, hybridity and “experimental” tags have been thoroughly domesticated, this record still feels genuinely disruptive, its raw drive undiluted by time. The vinyl reissue not only restores one of Ground Zero’s keystone statements to its proper physical scale - with all the crackle, impact and dynamic extremes that implies - it also reasserts the album’s place as a key node in the global avant‑garde of the 1990s. Heard now, these pieces continue to strike with the same force they had on first release: unruly, subversive, and rigorously constructed, a reminder of how dangerous a band can sound when the studio, the archive and the stage are treated as one continuous battlefield.

Taco weaponise the very idea of “tako” - octopus, kite, bunion, drunk, bald head - into a mutating post‑punk organism, a rotating guerrilla cell whose songs behave like incidents rather than compositions. “Tako” is one of those Japanese words that refuses to sit still. It can mean octopus, kite, bunion; it’s also slang for bald men, shaved heads, red‑faced drunks staggering home. The term slips between bodies, objects and insults, picking up grime and humour as it goes. In the early 1980s it became something else again: the name of a loose music and performance collective whose shows felt less like concerts than controlled disturbances. Taco emerged at the start of the decade as part of Japan’s post‑punk alternative wave, a shifting network of players orbiting Harumi Yamazaki, ex‑member of Gaseneta and the group’s volatile core. Around her gathered friends, acquaintances and fellow travellers from the Tokyo underground, forming a band that refused fixed membership, fixed genre, fixed anything. From the outset, Taco behaved more like a guerrilla unit than a conventional group. Personnel connected, collected, interrupted, scattered; line‑ups changed from gig to gig, and sometimes from piece to piece. Sound and image were treated as transient weapons to be deployed and discarded. Performances could happen with or without Harumi - reinforcing the sense that Taco was as much an anonymous mercenary outfit as it was a band, a name that could mask any number of combinations and intentions. What remained constant was the drive to send out music and noise that felt like it existed only for that night, that room, that confrontation, and then evaporated. In 1983 Taco released its first album, an anomalous, collaborative document that detonated across Japan’s underground as something both of and against its moment. The record functioned as a kind of local all‑stars compilation: key figures from the scene dropping in to contribute, while Harumi supplied the lyrics that stitched the whole together. Each track sounded like the reverberation of a particular cluster of people and circumstances - a conglomeration of voices, instruments, mistakes and impulses. Yet running through all of them were Harumi’s words, delivered with a force that turned scattered pieces into a single, bristling wave. The album didn’t simply collect songs; it spawned an “incident,” a disturbance that spread by word of mouth, tape dub and rumour. Then, as suddenly, it was pulled back: a separate scandal over some of the lyrics led to the records being recalled, ensuring that only a small number of copies ever made it into private hands. A second release followed in 1984: a 12" EP built around a live recording from the end of 1982. If the debut was a collage of sessions and personalities, this document caught Taco as a unit on stage, and what it revealed was an unexpectedly coherent musical engine beneath the chaos. For a band of indeterminate membership that specialised in one‑off performances, the playing here feels locked in without being smoothed out - grooves, fractures and eruptions held in tense balance. The record captures the power of Taco’s legendary live shows, but it’s Harumi Yamazaki’s presence that sears itself into memory: inflammatory, sensational, masochistic. Her muttered phrases and sudden screams ride over, and often wilfully against, the beat, treating rhythm as something to be taunted rather than obeyed. The effect is of a voice confronting the audience like a groundswell, an undertow that doesn’t care whether or not you keep your footing. One of Taco’s members once described the project as “an alternative counter organization”: a setup in which indeterminate participants fan each other’s heightened desires for personal revenge and retribution. In their words, Taco is “an ecosystem of tangible and intangible mouldy slime which accumulates in order for emotions to be acted out, both indoors in the studio, or outdoors on stage. That’s why the avenger can often end up being the victim.” It’s a metaphor that fits the music: thick, unstable, mutating, made from residues and leftovers as much as from polished ideas. Emotions congeal, are performed, and then rebound on those who unleashed them. The “alternative counter organization” is not a party or a platform; it’s a fragile, dangerous zone where sound becomes a way to test how far you can go before your own force turns back on you. The Alternative Counter Organization brings this history into focus not by tidying it up, but by acknowledging Taco’s refusal to be pinned down. It honours a group whose performances really were “like nothing before or since,” born from a word that already meant too many things and happy to add a few more.

Following his 1971 conviction for the murder of seven people, including the actress and model Sharon Tate, the notorious cult leader, Beach Boys associate and failed singer-songwriter Charles Manson was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Recorded with just an acoustic guitar in his jail cell, Live At San Quentin dates from 1983 and is probably the most poppy of Manson’s improvised far-out folk songs ever committed to tape, with flushing toilets and background conversations adding to the gritty low-fi realism. If you like the Lie album, you need this one too – Manson fans will not be disappointed!

Released in 1972 and long out of reach, Belle Gonzalez’s only album is one of those rare records that feels like a secret passed from hand to hand. Her voice is gentle yet full of presence, carrying songs that drift between British folk and the soft sway of Brazilian rhythms. It’s music that feels both of its time and strangely timeless, the kind of record you play once and then can’t forget. After decades in obscurity, Belle finally returns, restored with care and ready to be heard the way it always should have been.

lovesliescrushing's Bloweyelashwish is an ambient masterpiece, originally recorded in 1992 with a 12-string guitar, 4-track recorder, looping pedal, and boundless reverb. Scott Cortez’s project, alongside the haunting vocals of Melissa Arpin Duimstra, transformed bedroom daydreams into a serene, moonlit journey on a timeless sea. This expanded and remastered double album features five additional tracks, each distortion-laden and hypnotic, alongside lyrics and a replica postcard to guide listeners deeper into its world. Blindness, not eyewash, is the intended experience.

If you were to ask Joey Quiñones where he found inspiration for his music, you wouldn't have to look far from where the East LA son grew up. Listen to his work, and you're transported to a two-block radius of his neighborhood—from the liquor store to Sign of Music record store on Whittier Boulevard and back to a homie's house. In those two blocks, you hear cumbia blaring from the stores, punk rehearsals from a garage, oldies drifting from a neighbor's yard—a sensory overload that follows you home, all those genres singing in your head at once. This isn't a revelation to longtime fans of Quiñones' music. He has established himself as a premier interpreter of his generation, dedicating his career to offering his unique perspective on the Chicano soul songbook. But before Thee Sinseers, before the lush orchestrations and pitch-perfect harmonies that became his signature, Quiñones cut his teeth leading various backing bands for visiting Jamaican ska and dancehall acts touring Southern California. He describes those years as reggae college, getting yelled at by every Jamaican artist who had a record out. Those years of apprenticeship in rock steady and roots reggae would inform everything that followed—and on his new solo record Inna Soul Steady Situation, Quiñones finally showcases those influences front and center. That quintessential blending of styles rings out immediately on the opening track "Soul Steady Situation"—Quiñones's vocals enter like a selector toasting over the riddim, an alarm call announcing his intentions with an urgency that feels club-ready and immediate. Then comes the classic drum fill, dropping into a rock steady groove that establishes the vibe: this is dancehall-infused soul meant for movement, not just contemplation. It's a deliberate departure from Thee Sinseers' lush orchestrations, stripped down to showcase the Jamaican foundations that have always lived beneath Quiñones's work. Before you know it, you've taken off on a sonic soul spaceship with Quiñones at the helm, supported by his two-person crew: Eric Johnson from Thee Sinseers on saxophone and Eleazar from the Brown Boyz on piano, as you cruise across silver-lined clouds and dip your toes into dreamy moonlit grooves found on "Don't Let Go," "Driftin'" and "One More Night." What Quiñones manages to do on this record—with the full support of Colemine Records, the defining label for contemporary soul music happening right now—is prove time and time again that he is an artist willing to take risks and continue to show his prowess when it comes to experimenting with different styles, while still being able to authentically express himself. It's a partnership built on trust: Colemine has established itself as the premier destination for modern soul artists pushing the genre forward, recognizing that genre-blurring isn't a gimmick but the natural evolution of soul music itself. With that authentic self-expression, Quiñones and his crew manage to squeeze in some lighthearted fun as well, establishing a sense of equilibrium to counteract the heavier emotional overtones found on previous Sinseers efforts. A perfect example is "Bolsita," a tongue-in-cheek party song paying homage to iconic anthems like "Tequila" by The Champs and "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & the Drells. But Quiñones doesn't stop there—he folds in electric boogaloo, early Ray Charles big band energy, and the Latin soul flourishes of Joe Cuba and Willie Colón, creating something that feels both nostalgic and fresh. Eric Johnson's saxophone takes center stage, adding playful solos that widen the sonic spectrum. The term "bolsita," which translates to "little bag," serves as the lingua franca for "let's get the party started"—it's admittedly corny, Quiñones will tell you, but it's the kind of song where everybody's going to shout along whether they like it or not. And that's precisely the point. By the time you reach the end of the record, having followed Quiñones across various genres and eras, you realize you've witnessed an artist in his prime doing what the best always do: capturing something deeply specific—Chicano identity, East LA's sonic DNA—and in that specificity, revealing something universal. It's music that transcends age, race, geography, and class precisely because it refuses to sand down its edges. Cross-generational talent building timeless appeal, one genre-blurring groove at a time.

アルバムについて Following the jazzy library vibes of 2023’s collaborative Dolphin LP with Greg Foat and Moses Boyd, the venetian maestro Gigi Masin returns to the ambience for which he is renowned, with Movement - his first solo full-length since 2020’s Calypso, and his Sacred Bones Records debut. Fuelled by creative reinvention and rhythmic motion, he moves seamlessly between melancholy electronic notes, technoid robotics, groovy liminal cloudscapes, and fathoms-deep ambient aquatics. Since early beginnings in obscurity, his 1986 debut album Wind slowly built an organic following on late night radio, later bolstered when “Clouds” was sampled by artists like Björk, Post Malone, and more. He now counts Oneohtrix Point Never, Devendra Banhart, Caroline Polachek, and the late Kenny Wheeler as fans. The new album Movement reflects on Masin’s place within the pantheon of ambient masters, his ongoing artistic ambitions, and his aspirations for a scene which he’s seen grow exponentially from humble beginnings. The LP is also an ode to literal movement, both in nature, and in human physical expressions to sound. Masin strived to make ambient music for movement, not in the standard dance music sense, but “dynamic music, with a beating heart full of love.” Reconfiguring ambient’s association with solitary listening and cold academia, Gigi went outwards, channeling something somatic that connects with the body, not just the mind. “Bed on Mars” sets the titular tone for Masin’s renewed curiosity, with cosmic atmospherics evoking the sensation of waking up on a new planet unafraid, whilst the poignant synthesized trumpet and suspended liminal limbo of “Lost” feels like floating adrift in an unknown sea. Delving further into off-centre beats is the celestial techno funk of “Deception Dance,” which sounds like Sun Electric jamming with Carl Craig and Kraftwerk. The bright beaming light of “Golden” radiates warmth, sounding like the bossa nova brother of Göttsching’s Balearic classic E2 E4. Despite the passing of his wife after a long illness, and losing his musical archive in a flood, Gigi remains pure-at-heart and positive, pouring his soul into the pursuit of beauty. The latest in a slow starting but steadily building career, Movement sees Masin continue to secure his seat at the table of true ambient greats.

William Basinski's epochal four-album box of slowly decomposing memories gets its long-overdue deluxe reissue, with liner notes from Laurie Anderson and a fresh mastering job from Josh Bonati.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest "ambient" albums of our era, 'The Disintegration Loops' is an enduring aesthetic touchstone. It didn't exist in a vacuum when it appeared in the early '00s, as the dust settled after 9/11, but Basinski's prescient meditation on decay in the wake of tragedy felt like a musical mark in the sand - a body of work that changed the way we think about repetition and tape saturation. The story goes that the composer, who'd been recording loop-based, minimalist experiments since the '70s, inspired by Brian Eno's 'Discreet Music' and Steve Reich's 'It's Gonna Rain', was going through his archive of reel-to-reel tapes when he realized the ferrite was flaking away from the plastic. Not willing to give up on the material, he recorded the output, letting the tape head destroy his pieces irreparably and adding reverb to the output.

Now, this would have been good enough without the additional context, but Basinski finished 'Disintegration Loops' on the morning of September 11, 2001, and played the first piece to his friends as they sat on the roof of his apartment block, watching agape as events unfolded. He used the footage he shot at the time for the covers of each disc, and the suite's solemn, thoughtful decline served as the unofficial soundtrack of our collective grief, an unfussy reminder of tragedy that plays out its haunted remnants of the past until they die, quite literally. There's been plenty of music that's aped Basinski's method since, and we don't doubt there'll be plenty more, but there's nothing quite like the original, and this latest remaster is the definitive version.

Alex Zhang Hungtai stands in stillness on 'Dras', but it's the kind of stillness that contains entire ranges of possibility. Recorded in 2019 inside Montreal's Saint Joseph Oratory (right before a piano demolition, no less), these nine pieces sat dormant on his hard drive through pandemic years until something finally clicked. What emerges now feels like watching someone trace the contours of their own interior landscape, each melodic line a careful negotiation with the unconscious. This is only a saxophone record in the barest sense.

The terrain here is tactile and unforgiving. On the title track, difficult melodies get torn apart and molded into emotive drones, dissonance interlocking where tones cut paths through the senses with metallic sheen. "El Khela" refracts into spectral layers that pull with eternal gravity, while "Estado" finds solace inside its own haze, rhythms barely audible but guiding forward with their cadence smeared against grey walls. These are small moments that become cathartic sonic breaths, each one revealing new passages through psychic geography.

There's beauty encased in the subtle repetitions of opener "Erg,” and in the glowing progressions of "White Dwarf." Zhang's saxophone becomes a dowsing rod for the uncharted, with electricity running through the album's veins while his breath anchors everything to something wordlessly human. The digital manipulation applied to those church recordings doesn't obscure that human element of 'Dras'. It transforms the raw material into something that navigates between external space and internal landscape.

By the time closer "Mazil" arrives, Alex Zhang Hungtai lets his saxophone speak its full resonance. Low, guttural expressions open up like chasms beneath melodic constellations floating in thick gravity. There’s a finality here even though something in these passages feels weightless. This is music permeated with inner dialogue, a wordless spell dancing above the psychic abyss. Tonal sequences disintegrate into narcotized sonics, a sharp elegant edge that cuts without drawing blood. This lonely work of exploration becomes something communal. 'Dras' is a map for traversing the space between where we are and where we might go.

Over the decades, Numero has excavated a metric ton of recordings from the depths of Detroit. From all manner of mini Motowns we've uncovered soul, R&B, funk, disco, boogie, and by nature of proximity—gospel. Previous examinations of the Revival and Big Mack labels turned up more than a few new apocryphal hymns, and Great Lakes Gospel Vol. 2 compiles a dozen curious church groups devotionally reaching towards the genre's frayed edge. Get lost in ecstatic choir funk, pulpit rappin', direct-injection guitar solos, and the holy spirit, should it move you. Look around the room. You could start a church with this thing.

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.

Greg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter – he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. On Beauty Land, his new album and debut LP for Dead Oceans, we’re guided by a wry but forgiving narrator, an underdog who has learned to balance cynicism and faith. These songs are self-effacing without self-pity, carefully constructed altars of imperfection channeled through pop melodies, shimmering but urgent guitars, and a voice that reaches for choir boy innocence. The bulk of Beauty Land was recorded directly to tape, almost entirely alone in Mendez’s makeshift home studio in Philadelphia – a small room with no natural light. It’s his first full length since his unexpected self-titled breakthrough in 2023, which was a slow burn success following 15 years of writing and recording music in relative obscurity between Philly and New York. Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago – plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction – but its intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best. Parts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world that’s cartoonish and warped – the broken-clock march of “I Wanna Feel Pretty,” the chiming toy piano on “Gentle Love.” “Mary / Dreaming” begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-fucked-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes. Death floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. There’s a fragility to how these songs are built: the way the funeral organ hits alongside the morphine on “Looking Out Your Window,” the devastating simplicity of “Frog,” with its slowed-down keyboard and bare refrain: “Please forgive me for my faults.” Beauty Land feels, at times, impossibly lonely. Which makes it really count when it doesn’t – like when Mendez sings in harmony with his wife and bandmate, Veronica near the end of “So Mean” and it feels like a cherished reunion, a fleeting moment of redemption, a temporary parting of the seas.

Indonesia’s own Thee Marloes treat us to a new non-stop 7” while they finish recording their sophomore album due out in 2026. Following up on the international success of 2024’s Perak, Thee Marloes will be touring the US and Europe this year and this new single is right on time for all of it.

The A side “I’d Be Lost” is a sweet love song where Natassya Sianturi sings praises to a man that needs nothing but her love in return. The gorgeous four on the floor backing track makes this one an instant stepper for the dance floor.

Keeping in the timeless 7” tradition of plug & ballad pairings, the B side “What’s On Your Mind” is as proper heavy drum driven slowie with climbing sitars and frantic piano chases. Tassya sings of the mysteriousness and intrigue of instant attraction, keeping her cool and professing her desire to let her guard down.

Sugar Minott, the man behind Black Roots Productions and Youth Promotion, started his career in the African Brothers with fellow musicians Tony Tuff and Derrick Howard, before building his reputation as a solo artist with Studio One. This well-crafted compilation by the French label "Deep Roots" showcases Sugar Minott’s productions in a showcase style, featuring vocals and dub versions that appeared mainly on the Black Roots imprint. This is not to be missed — a great collection from one of the most loved figures in Jamaican music.

Paulownia by Merzbow is a 2025 full-length statement comprising two lengthy compositions that fuse intense electronic manipulation with Merzbow’s enduring fascination for natural phenomena. Across both pieces, the album merges organic inspiration and harsh digital process, producing a hypnotic yet confrontational experience.​ **Edition of 200** With Paulownia, Merzbow (Masami Akita) delivers a formidable new addition to a catalog already legendary in the experimental music world. The 2025 release spans two extended pieces—“Paulownia part1” and “Paulownia part2”—each developing a dense matrix of sound where digital noise entwines with subtle references to organic structures. The album’s name, drawn from the paulownia tree, hints at Merzbow’s long-standing environmental preoccupations; here, they are rendered less as representational themes and more as evocative textures and forms. The compositions surge with layered feedback, haunting drones, and micro-rhythmic fluctuations, evoking an ambiguous, immersive environment that rewards attentive listening.​ What distinguishes Paulownia is its ability to generate tension and release from the interplay between ferocity and fragility. The music neither settles into a predictable assault nor dissipates into formless ambience; instead, it sustains a meticulously sculpted intensity. As always, Merzbow’s commitment to tonality, texture, and structure resists easy classification, maintaining a delicate balance between repetition and change, aggression and atmosphere. For those prepared to let sound define its own territory, Paulownia is a compelling testament to Merzbow’s ongoing innovation, fortifying his place at the core of the noise tradition while persistently opening new vistas for exploration.​

Romanian composer, conductor, and musicologist Iancu Dumitrescu is often described as one of the leading figures of spectral music, yet he has produced a body of powerful works resonating with explosive sound and friction that places him very much in his own universe. Dumitrescu studied under his compatriot, the conductor Sergiu Celibidache, who rarely left behind concert recordings. From him Dumitrescu absorbed phenomenology and conducting techniques, incorporating them into his own compositional style.

In 1976 he founded the Hyperion Ensemble, leading it in numerous concerts both within Romania and internationally. In 1990 he established the independent label Edition Modern together with Ana-Maria Avram, through which he released more than thirty recordings over many years. In recent years, however, the publication of new recordings had slowed to a trickle.

This work marks a long-awaited new release: a recording of the concert performance of Libelocus, a three-part work performed in London in 2016. It brings together the distinctive style of this singular spectralist—from explosive ensemble passages to electronic music, all contained within the natural flow of a live performance. Moreover, this is the first LP featuring newly recorded material under his own name to be released in thirty-seven years.

“All possible processes. All channels open. Twenty-four hour alert." This Heat’s eponymous debut album, also known by fans as the 'blue and yellow', is a masterpiece of experimentation. This Heat's exploratory practice was based on extended collective improvisation that incorporated not just guitar and drums, but also viola, melodica, organ, household objects, and broken toys. They used tape machines to stretch the fabric of time and creative mic placement to warp space. They were fuelled not just by formal restlessness but also by rage at consumer society. Although widely considered to be Post-Punk’s finest, This Heat had actually begun performing at the start of London’s punk era. They developed new strange and volatile strains of avant-garde music that time has proved to be hugely influential, a blueprint for much that would follow. Featuring material recorded as early as their first public performance on 13th February 1976 and compositions that appear on the 1977 BBC Peel Sessions, their debut album was finally released in 1979.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi returns to Latency with Nexus, a full-length album recorded in Berlin that extends his radical reinvention of Persian percussion. Renowned for pushing the tombak and daf into new territory with unprecedented techniques, Mortazavi now incorporates voice, effects, and electronic treatments into his sound for the first time. These additions deepen, rather than depart from, his lifelong exploration of rhythm and resonance. The record opens with ‘Zendegi’ (‘Life’), built from the chant “Woman, Life, Freedom” as a gesture towards his homeland and beyond. Throughout Nexus, Mortazavi explores connection, transformation, and the unseen forces that shape reality, presenting rhythm as both guide and teacher. The album title itself points to a meeting place where energies, ideas, and times converge, capturing its meditative but exploratory spirit. The cover features artwork by American artist and filmmaker Jordan Belson, whose “visual music” aligns with Mortazavi’s trance-inducing percussion language. His hypnotic live shows have reached the Berlin Philharmonie, Paris Pantheon, and Sydney Opera House, while his rhythmic innovations have earned acclaim across experimental and electronic circles, including collaborations with Burnt Friedman and Mark Fell.

Finally on wax; Shiner, Pontiac Streator and Ben Bondy's West Mineral debut as Shinetiac is a real downtempo pleasure, re-imagining classic Trip Hop with a gooey cybernetic core, hugely recommended for anyone on the line from Hysterical Love Project to Seefeel, Olive to A.S.O., Ulla to Arovane. All three members of Shinetiac are best known for their tenure in the neo-ambient weeds, gathering bounties for 3XL, Quiet Time, Motion Ward and of course Huerco S.'s West Mineral. Anyone familiar with their various side projects and solo deployments will have already clocked their obsessions with classic dreampop, trip-hop and cloud rap, and those influences are fully thrust into the foreground here, with the more trad ambient elements used as little more than decoration. 'Star Frog Dilla' opens the set and combs illusory Olive-like vocal harmonies over a jumble of choppy jazz samples and sirens, with a glitch-heavy beat that harks back to an earlier, simpler iteration of IDM. What makes it so inviting is that Shinetiac fashion a loveletter to pre-internet cultural collisions, pooling their empathetic energies in a lushly amorphous slant on ambient dance strung between classic Trip Hop, HD late ‘90s / early ‘00s electronic music x vaporous hypermodernism. They cycle freely from the curdled reflux of Y2K business in ‘Night Coomy’ to rudely electrified beatdown on another standout, ‘K2 Spiritual’ and its spongiform centrepiece ‘Prayer For Kim Cassidy’ calling to mind the most genteel ends of RDJ, lavishing electro drums over a seemingly dark backdrop and changing the mood immediately. Soon they're in almost balearic territory, turning moonlight into an island dawn with Orbital-esque time-stretched vocal echoes and SFX. The trio increase the tempo on 'Dog Cafe Rioz', working in that double/half-time mode that's been such a fixture on off-piste dancefloors in the last few years and letting languid electric piano phrases form hazy vapour trails. It all builds to 'Everlong', a cover of the Foo Fighters' 1997 anthem that Shinetiac spy through the lens of Sneaker Pimps - whose landmark '6 Underground' arrived only a year prior. It's a form of historical fantasy, imagining an interaction that never happened but maybe should have? Because it works, stripping away the bombast and replacing it with moody low-end pulses and pure vibes.

Ulla’s 28912 label returns with a gorgeous bouquet of lowercase wonders that'll cast a gentle spell over anyone on the line from Vincent Gallo to The Humble Bee, Sofie Birch to Tenniscoats.​ The fourth release on the label following Naemi's 'Breathless, Shorn' and Ulla's own 'Hometown Girl', and its ‘Other Girl’ companion piece, 'Puff' is a new album from Justin Cantrell aka J and the Woolen Stars, a core member of Naarm's underground scene as part of local supergroup Picnic, and the brains behind the excellent Daisart and se Dessaisir Publishing labels - we recommend you check in on both if you haven't already done so. ‘Puff’ is a glistening pool of lush refractions and music-box lullabies, featuring an array of acoustic instruments and fragile foley sounds that are gently peeled away until all we’re left with are the faded outlines of half-remembered songs. A sound that roots itself in the prophetic machinations of artists like Fennesz and the languid Japanese minimalism of Fourcolour or Moskitoo, 'Puff' strikes a delicate balance, sounding as bewitchingly informal as a Tenniscoats set, but also consistently muddling the perception of high and low-brow sound. Cantrell's skill lies in a sort of sonic conjuration, bamboozling the brains of those of us who grew up listening to stepped-on audio via ramshackle RealMedia streams by alchemising the content, turning found sound into gold. Just tell us you don't get chills from hearing the bitrate-impaired acoustic guitar on 'Dirty like an angel', set against a backdrop of windy, harmonic detritus. It's both meticulously contrived and gloriously off-the-cuff, like one of Vincent Gallo's classic 'When'-era demos reduced down to 96kbps. Similarly, 'She knows just what to say' provokes faint memories of folk music, with impromptu fiddle parts gently steamrolled to create a sound that’s nothing short of exquisite, like pressed flowers rediscovered in an old, discarded book. Even the more palpably electronic elements are hand sculpted in a way that belies the era we're living in - it's music for a digital age that sounds oddly unplugged, flawed and human. An unmistakably lovely antidote to the opiating nostalgia of our time.

Two versions of one of SUN RA's most enduring compositions, LOVE IN OUTER SPACE !!! This 7" single includes the classic take featuring vocals by David Henderson, and an alternate instrumental version never before released on vinyl. Featuring the almighty JOHN GILMORE on the drum kit! 7" vinyl packaged in deluxe, custom die-cut screen-printed jackets & printed inner sleeves. 45 RPM A side, 33 1/3 RPM B side. Lacquers cut by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Audio. Vinyl pressed by Cascade Record Pressing. Screen-printing by Seizure Palace. Artwork features elements from the artist Ayé Aton. LIMITED ONE-TIME PRESSING OF 300 COPIES.

Two classic SUN RA songs now available for the first time as a 7" single !!! The infinitely wise drum-driven solar chant of CHILDREN OF THE SUN, with the profoundly meditative & deeply relevant-to-now space chant THEY PLAN TO LEAVE. 7" vinyl packaged in deluxe, custom die-cut screen-printed jackets & printed inner sleeves. 45 RPM A side, 33 1/3 RPM B side. Lacquers cut by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Audio. Vinyl pressed by Cascade Record Pressing. Screen-printing by Seizure Palace. Artwork features elements from the artist Ayé Aton. LIMITED ONE-TIME PRESSING OF 300 COPIES.

SPACE KEY presents two previously unreleased versions of the classic RA composition "Lights On A Satellite" : the echo-drenched "single version" from the Fate In A Pleasant Mood sessions, paired with a sprawling celestial performance for WUHY radio in 1978. The A side is glued by a heavy tape echo, giving the familiar tune a different rhythmic framework and pacing, and adding beautiful new layers of chordal harmony and sparkling decay. It was recorded June 1960 at RCA Studios, Chicago and was apparently slated for release as a single on Saturn, never yet materializing until today. The B side is an excerpt from a very special WUHY radio broadcast in Philadelphia, performed by the 22-piece Spirit Of Jazz Cosmos Arkestra (its only known iteration). Here the percussion is up-front, the horn lines take a more fluid and free rhythm, and layers of flutes swell and hocket around the orbit of Sun Ra's twinkling piaon. A crucial rendition of a forever enduring song in an especially pleasant mood. Beautifully mastered for 7" by Adam Gonsalves and Telegraph Audio, and expertly pressed by Smashed Plastic in Chicago. Packed in hand-assembled silk-screened metallic silver and midnight blue ink jackets printed by Seizure Palace, with 4 different cover variations. Includes picture sleeve and ephemera.

Saphileaum has spent the past decade in passage between notable houses of atmospheric sorcery - Mule Musiq, Not Not Fun, Slow Life, Constellation Tatsu - and of course Good Morning Tapes, who now host their 3rd meeting, ‘Heavenly Hills’. A definitive chapter in his ten year saga, it is flush with symphonic strings and sky born keys, breezily urged by percussion that straddles chill out and folk zones. That said there’s also a Balearic - or should that be Black Sea? - appeal to its title tune, that lingers in the glistening wake of ‘Your Grace’, to the shimmering breaks of a parting piece ‘Alarko (Cosmic Eagle)’, falling into the space between Boards of Canada's cult-inspired hauntological nostalgia and Shackleton's hallowed ethno-dub. “The tracks in the album were written with the inspiration of the kingdom of Shambhala in the Himalayas. I'm deeply fascinated and touched by it. Even the album title, holds the idea of its Heavenly nature and the tracks are like individual, elemental parts of it. The album is not a journey into Shambhala, but rather a play and a dance with its energy, image and presence in my world. Alarko (Cosmic Eagle) is dedicated to my grandfather, Temur Tsiklauri, and I dedicate the whole album to my country Georgia, which I deeply love.”