NEW ARRIVALS

Evidence has traveled the world, released a string of acclaimed albums with Dilated Peoples and as a solo artist, has become a respected producer crafting beats for Kanye West, Beastie Boys and Linkin Park among others. For his part, Alchemist has become one of rap’s triple threats, producing for Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Nas and many more. Alchemist is also an accomplished rapper and Eminem’s touring DJ. While they were building their respective careers, Evidence and Alchemist had worked together regularly collaborating on Dilated Peoples albums, Evidence’s solo material and Alchemist’s releases. As the pair continued collaborating, they began labeling themselves as Step Brothers when they would record, as noted on Evidence’s The Layover EP. The pair then decided it was time to record an album together. Now as the Step Brothers, Evidence and Alchemist deliver another stellar musical achievement, Lord Steppington, which delivers lyric-driven, punchline-heavy and intricate rhymes. Lord Steppington boasts the best of the duo peppered with frequent collaborators and friends, including Action Bronson, Roc Marciano, Domo Genesis,The Whooliganz, Styles P, Fashawn, Rakaa, Blu and Oh No.

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.

This is a solo percussion work recorded in 1980 and released in 1981 by Masahiko Togashi, one of Japan’s foremost percussionists and drummers. After the accident that left him partially paralyzed, Togashi developed his own techniques and performance methods, using drums, bells, gongs, and a wide range of percussion instruments to capture the unique sound world he envisioned. This album documents that deeply personal sonic exploration.

Julia Holter always knew there were multiple forms her song “Materia” could take. The tune’s dynamic, Hildegard von Bingen-inspired melody and dense modal chords stood on their own without a complex arrangement on her wondrous 2024 album Something in the Room She Moves, but she felt a lingering desire to expand the texture and stretch out the harmony. Though she could hear the potential orchestration in her head, Something was already abundant with layers of sound by the time she finished it. She stuck with the original form of “Materia,” then, her cresting voice and blue Wurlitzer hosting games of harmonic hide-and-seek above subtle electronics. But on the new Materia, a kind of companion LP or sequel to Something, Holter has realized not one but two distinct versions of the song. “Materia 2” is a hallucinatory dream of drum machine, fretless bass, and clarinet, Holter’s voice spiraling through the ether alongside that of Jessika Kenney. She reconsiders the lyrics, too, novel fragments of surrealistic images reinforcing the original’s link between spirit and body, between love and blood. And on “Materia 3,” Holter literally slows down the take from Something. (It’s intended to be experienced as a “bonus track” in an homage to the CD era of her youth.) The change not only emphasizes the unpredictable glory of the harmonies within but also reiterates the song’s emotional sophistication, the sense that it’s about learning how to live. Materia is only seven tracks long, but Holter works in nearly that many modes here. There is the slowed “Materia” and the version reimagined for two voices, of course, but there are also two tracks that spooled out of the DAW project files and full band she built for Something. There are two astounding improvisations: one where she manipulates her voice so that each word seems to contain a symphony and another that is one of Materia’s most spellbinding and emotional pieces, “My Twin,” from which Holter lifted a riff to build the song “Fantasy.” These seven songs show that Holter is among her generation’s most open writers of art-pop, moving among ideas and idioms with exploratory aplomb. Materia is a kind of playground for Holter, where each distinct scene steadily coheres into a moving whole.

Hot on the heels of ‘Mordechai’, the critically acclaimed third album from US psych-rockers Khruangbin, the Texas trio are set to become the latest act to present their own LateNightTales in the popular, long-running musician-curated album series.Having first come to prominence in 2013 when producer and D.J. Bonobo included Khruangbin’s ‘A Calf Born in Winter’ in his own collection of songs for the series, the little known Houston trio had yet to release an album, but have since gone on to become international superstars forming their own exotic, individual sound. “The LateNightTales series is such a special thing to be a part of because we wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for Bonobo’s LateNightTales, because that’s how we got into the LNT family – and got a break.”With a mind-blowing selection of tracks that cross borders and cultures, Khruangbin’s deep love of global grooves – from Asian pop to Nigerian reggae – Japanese mellow groove to Latina flavas – are steeped in eclecticism; Nazia Hassan’s Hindi-disco ‘Khushi’, produced by British-Indian legend Biddu, South Korean rock band Sanullim who contribute ‘Don’t Go’, a pair of African bangers from Nigerian Maxwell Udoh and Roha Band, from Ethiopia; a diversion to Belarus for Песняры and thence to Madrid for the strident vocal performance of Paloma San Basilio with ‘Contigo’ before hightailing back to Texas.Elsewhere, the Lone Star state reps proudly, with David Marez and Kelly Doyle plus, in the LateNightTales tradition, the band deliver an exclusive, horizontally brilliant version of Kool & The Gang’s ‘Summer Madness’, while the mix concludes with a spoken word piece by Tierney Malone, accompanied by fellow Houstonian Geoffrey Muller’s atmospheric banjo rendering of Erik Satie’s ‘Gnossienne’.“It’s cool to think about what you would listen to late at night, as a band together, lighting a spliff, kinda vibe. We definitely wanted to cover as much global territory as possible; so it was the globe and then home. We wanted to show the treasures from our hometown, or people from our hometown that the rest of the world probably doesn’t know. That’s what makes Khruangbin Khruangbin. The stubbornness about being so hometown-centric but what makes Houston is this this constant international influence. That’s that gulf stream, bringing it right into Houston. So I guess that’s kind of the theme.”The LateNightTales series was established back in 2001 with Fila Brazilia taking to the controls and mixing up the first of what would continue to be the first choice of music connoisseurs worldwide. Since then, the series has seen releases from the likes of The Flaming Lips, Hot Chip, Floating Points, David Holmes, Bonobo, Jon Hopkins, Röyksopp and many more.

Phillip Fullwood was born in Kingston, Jamaica, a cousin of bassist George ‘Fully’ Fullwood, before moving to the parish of Saint Ann’s, and then on to Linstead, Saint Catherine. Perhaps it was the importance of the region’s history with slavery that inspired him, but as a young man hanging around the local nyahbinghi community he started pursuing Rastafari.“I was twelve years old before my mother cut my dreadlocks. Cut my hair off my head. I was no rasta then, yunno. And then after a while I become rasta because I was hanging with guys like Sons of Negus and Ras Michael.”The move to St Catherine gave Phillip not only a spiritual direction in life, but also close friendships with two youths named Eric Donaldson and Freddie McKay.“We used to play together. Freddie know my father and my brother. I know his mother. She used to ride a donkey come to town to the market and go back to the country the next day. She was a poor luck lady. Didn’t have anything really. So me an’ Freddie become friends, yunno. Freddie McKay occupation was a painter and do entertainment on the side. He was a good stage actor, a good dancer. Eric Donaldson used to be a fisherman. He lived at a place called Bog Walk. I hear he have a club there now. But Freddie was my friend and him love singing. We used to stay over by Freddie little room. His girlfriend went to America and she sent a picture of her back to him. That’s why he sing ‘your picture is hanging on the wall’. Because of that picture. And the song become a hit.”Phillip’s first foray into song-writing came with ‘Old Joe’ for Freddie McKay, released on Freddie’s debut album for Studio One.“You know how I write that song? My father was town councillor and he had a man called Mr. James, he was kind of handicapped. Walk on his hands. One day I went over there and I asked Mr. James ‘Look man I’m hungry, I need some food’. Do you know what he told me? ‘Son if you can’t buy land you can’t buy stone and if you can’t buy beef you can’t buy bone.’ And he was eating a steak at the time. I started to cry. I went back over to Freddie’s house and there was a guy called Privy. He used to play with the Soul Defenders. They were cooking and I tell what the man said to me. And Privy said, ‘don’t you know Joe and Job is the same name?’ That’s why Freddie sing ‘You just can’t buy land if you can’t buy stone. Old Job I don’t want your job’. Yunno? That’s how I become a writer.”Phillip, now inspired to write poetry and song lyrics, travelled around the country selling African literature printed in London, getting a few cents for each publication sold. On one such trip he met the young Winston Rodney, aka Burning Spear, and was soon writing songs with Spear, and touring as a percussionist in his band. In America they recorded ‘The Whole World Wants To Be Free’ together, and also Phillip’s first lead vocal on ‘Love Everyone’, a longing plea for love and unity. His close relationship to Burning Spear gave Phillip valuable insight into studio work, and his move into production and mixing was inevitable, soon resulting in the profound self-production ‘I Gave You My Word’ in 1979, with arrangement and backing vocals by Winston Rodney.Also in 1979, Phillip met Winston McKenzie, with whom he would start the group I-Mo-Jah.“Imojah mean ‘Unity’ in Swahili. I used to do upholstery in a room I rented in a little dancehall and Winston’s mother used live cross the street from the beach and that’s how I met him. He come to America when he was 14. He’s from Saint Ann’s too. And when I come to America I used to stay at his house in New Rochelle, New York.”In 1982 Phillip moved to the US where the I-Mo-Jah group, which had been started in Jamaica, gained a third member with vocalist Cassandra Jenkins.“Cassandra lived around the block. She’s a young American girl, only sixteen at the time. I was in my thirties. I think Winston McKenzie was in his thirties. I don’t know where she’s at. She was a nice girl. She used to come over to Winston and hang out. Her parents never approve of her being around us either. She was in to reggae – a few Americans get into it.”While in the US, they started going over the rhythm tracks that Phillip had brought with him on master tape, deciding which to re-record and create news songs over. The backing tracks featured Jamaican musical dignitaries such as Sly and Robbie, Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace and Clive ‘Azul’ Hunt, and would form the backbone of the ‘Rockers From The Land Of Reggae’ album. New vocals were recorded at SFZ studio in Long Island and New Age Studio in Queens, with further overdubs on keyboards and lead guitar, and the album was mixed by Phillip.“Them give me the board and I do the mixing myself. I don’t know if it come out good or if it come out bad. I gave Spear a copy of the album and he said ‘yeah it sound good’. There was a man who played the music over the radio and Freddie McKay say ‘man, I hear the music play over the air - you sound good’, and I never continue after Freddie McKay tell me he heard the music playing. I was never meant to be a singer to tell you the truth.”The striking sleeve, in black and white with green handwritten typography, told the story of Jamaica, with Arawaks overseeing the arrival of Christopher Columbus’ ship Santa Maria, whilst between two sound systems the dreads were dancing and smoking a spliff under a tree. The art was drawn by Magnus Johnstone, a painter and deejay who presented the radio show ‘Reggae Mukasa’ on WMBR, and would later become the foremost champion of the burgeoning hip hop scene in Boston.“Yeah yeah! He used to live in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He used to have a radio program. He was living more over on the black side. When I used to go to his house we used to drink Guinness stout, smoke weed, and he had a big room with a lot of painting. And we went to an art gallery one night and I was scared because there was a lot of white people. I got used to it. I got a lot of white friends after that.”With its off-kilter mix and eccentric vocals, the I-Mo-Jah album was never destined for mainstream success. But its distribution was seriously derailed by some unfortunate events.“When I made ‘Rockers From The Land Of Reggae’ I was taking about 500 to Jamaica and I was told I had to have a license to go through the customs. I got fed up and I just leave the album with them. They wanted me to get a license and all them things, and I said ‘Why I want a license to bring my own thing to Jamaica?’. They said no, so I leave them at customs. I don’t know what happened to them. Maybe they sell them. And that was the end of it. I give the rest of them to Chin Randy’s in Jamaica Queens to distribute.”And so ‘Rockers From The Land Of Reggae’ soon vanished into obscurity. By 1983 Phillip Fullwood had settled permanently in the US and virtually retired from music. Over the years, partly fuelled by its extreme rarity, the album’s reputation has grown immensely, and original copies now command a very high price. Phillip is thrilled that this reissue will now expose it to a wider audience.“Life happen that way. I got kids and grandkids. I’m just a small guy who was with Spear and just tried to do my thing, like everybody else in the entertainment biz. My occupation, my passport you know says entertainer. Wishing a t’ing, yunno.”

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.

Their soulful funk awareness might have found its grandest stage with their self-titled 1979 “debut” for Mercury, an album that covered the band’s gritty soul with a layer of stifling L.A. gloss, that caused few heads to turn, and that marked the beginning of the end for Father's Children. Years before the coke dust had settled, another album’s worth of material had been tracked, the creative supernova that should have ushered the group into the nation's consciousness years prior. Who's Gonna Save the World is that 1973 explosion, conceived prematurely and then uncovered decades into a lengthy incubation inside producer Robert Hosea Williams’ suburban beltway garage. Unreleased previously, Father’s Children’s true freshman offering is a work genuinely concerned with its own time and place, bringing together comet-hailing funk, sunny group harmonies, fuzz-guitar solos, shimmering keys, bubbling percussion, spiritual prophecy, and dub experiments. Our deluxe LP edition includes the bonus 45 “Linda Movement” b/w “Intellect” and a folio full of promo photos that track the band’s evolution from D.C. doo-woppers to L.A disco denizens.

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.

XKatedral Anthology II is the second installment in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by composers affiliated with XKatedral working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces written from 2018 to 2020 by composers Kali Malone, Jessica Ekomane, Mats Erlandsson, Theodor Kentros, Wilma Hultén and Maria W Horn. This collection of pieces focuses on the use of synthetic sound and algorithmic composition languages as tools for precise work within the realm of spectral exploration. In addition to this, the electronic instrumentation in many of the pieces is augmented by acoustic instruments.

Dedicated to the memory of Sean Edward Stewart (6.2.81 - 18.3.10) Produced by HTRK Mixed by Nigel Yang Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Cover wave image by Trent Mitchell Polaroid by Eulalie Fumond Halperin-Katz, Paris 2009 Sleeve design by JCS Thanks: Mark, Gloria, Tia, Andrea, Conrad, Jeremy, Max, Julia, Andrew ℗​ 2011 Blast First Petite (UK) | Mistletone (AU) | Ghostly International (US)

“The Ruins of Things Unfinished” is the new album by Slow Leaves, the project of Canadian singer‑songwriter Grant Davidson. Featuring contributions from respected Canadian musicians such as Kris Ulrich and Roman Clarke, the record blends warm acoustic guitar textures with Davidson’s gentle vocals and carefully layered arrangements.

Sufjan Stevens, Asthmatic Kitty, and Soundsfamilyre announce Sufjan's third full-length album, a collection of songs for his birth-state, MICHIGAN, "The Great Lake State." Composed as a geographical tone poem, MICHIGAN follows a metaphysical expedition through the idiosyncrasies of middle America. Drawing from personal anecdote, regional history, and state heritage, Stevens mixes social and political grievances with songs about snowmobiles, Henry Ford, the Detroit race riots, and love. MICHIGAN's songs resonate with a range of sources-Vince Guaraldi, Terry Riley, and Nick Drake as accompanied by Stereolab and The Sea & Cake-in executing Stevens' peculiar palette that is simultaneously rock and blue-grass, jazz and pop, a style The Village Voice appraises as "Arthur Lee meets the Book of Psalms." In MICHIGAN, Stevens combines intimate, soft-spoken songwriting with the dense compositional complexity displayed on his previous release ENJOY YOUR RABBIT, which XLR8R called "...a transgressive, majestic album conjuring an academic jam session of Stereolab and Luke Vibert conducted by Steve Reich." Guest artists include Elin, Megan, and Daniel Smith (of The Danielson Famile), and John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud). Album art features original hand-paintings by Martha Stewart crafts editor Laura Normandin. MICHIGAN is the inaugural entry of THE 50 STATES, a cumulative recording project by Sufjan Stevens unparalleled in its panoramic enterprise: a record for each state! You think he's kidding, don't you? Now available from Asthmatic Kitty and Soundsfamilyre. Distributed by Secretly Canadian: release date: July 1, 2003 (which happened to be Sufjan's birthday).

XKatedral Anthology I is the first in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette early on in the label's history, while the two remaining pieces are presented by the label for the first time.

Original 2xLP Remastered by Bob Weston pressed on maui blue vinyl

Never-Before-Released Live Studio Album pressed on orchid purple vinyl

all 3 LPs are packaged in a triple LP gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves

After finishing American Don with (Steve) Albini, we were nearing the peak of interpersonal tensions that would eventually wash us overboard. I (Eric) became convinced we lost the true essence of the songs in the recording process. It was not a unanimous decision to record with Steve. We wrote the album entirely on guitar loops and Team Storm & Stress wanted to go further in the studio with Pro Tools, which felt related to both what we were doing and where we were going. Steve had just finished building the magnificent A room at Electrical and Damon insisted we would record there for the drums. He never budged on it. As soon as we got there we realized all the songs, which were written in stacks of overdubs on our pedals, would only allow for mono guitar recordings. We worked around this by performing the songs to a single loop and overdubbing all the guitars later allowing for a full stereo field to match the glorious bombast of Steve’s drum recordings. This approach

dramatically changed how we played. While it allowed for magic moments of improv (Peter Criss intro), once the album was done, it sounded bloated and the performances sluggish. With increasing certainty I was sure the sound of the Akai Headrush, and the tempos it set for Damon was the heartbeat of these songs. Ian agreed.

In an audacious last ditch hail mary, I had the idea to call Greg Norman (who worked for Steve!) and asked if we could secretly come to his studio in S. Chicago *road hot* after our next shows and re-record the album LIVE. It was an enormous gesture that could’ve never worked, but miraculously everyone agreed to do it and we gave it a try. Greg captured us at our most fiery hot personally and professionally. The tempos are faster and no one is holding back with anything to lose. These true live tapes show the songs exactly as we played them on the road where they were developed between June of 1999 and July of 2000. Now, 25 years later, the Greg Norman tapes have been dusted off, baked, and transferred to digital. With the aid of modern restoration tools, and the expertise of Sir Bob Weston, we were able to re-mix and master these recordings for the first 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.

Tirez Tirez’s Story of the Year documents a key transitional period as bandleader Mikel Rouse moved from Kansas City’s underground scene to downtown New York. Formed in the mid-1970s, Tirez Tirez blended new wave, minimalism and experimental pop, earning early attention while opening for Talking Heads and gaining support from figures including David Byrne.Originally released on Les Disques du Crépuscule, Story of the Year combines earlier Tirez Tirez material with later sessions recorded in New York and Brussels. The album captures Rouse’s early system-based approach, using layered rhythms and phased repetition that would later inform his development of totalism. Positioned between post-punk and contemporary composition, it catches a band in transition and an artist on the verge of a new direction.

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.

Following her Grammy-nominated debut, "surrealist blues poet" aja money returns with a soulful, jazzy scratch pad of ideas, concepts and philosophies that features Vic Mensa, Mick Jenkins, Brandee Younger, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and others. On the surface, monet's sophomore album might seem like a set of poems set to low-slung, post-Low End Theory beats and kosmische/spiritual jazz synths, but she's not that straightforward. Her politics are the beating heart of her craft and that heart beats with revolutionary energy: already this year, her second poetry book 'Florida Water' has been nominated for an NAACP award. Crucially, she reclaims the idea of surrealism for Black voices; following artists like Suzanne Césaire, she uses surrealism to set her politics free, not as a series of Jungian tropes and aesthetics. She's plugged in throughout and, most importantly, her delivery makes the music strangely gripping. Poetry's not the easiest sell, but monet's tongue-twisting tales of American brutalism have never felt more necessary. "Octavia Butler newscasting premonitions from a graveside in Altadena," she quips on 'hollyweird', just moments before a wild trumpet circles the air above. And on the brilliant 'for the Congo', she cuts even closer to the bone. "How many children," she asks. "How many children died for the sake of my comfort today?" African percussion penetrates her words and it's hard not to feel utterly crushed.

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.

Hiding Places is a collaborative album from Brooklyn-based rapper billy woods and Los Angeles beat scene veteran Kenny Segal, set for release by Backwoodz Studioz on March 29, 2019. On its face, it seems an unlikely pairing; woods—who moonlights as ½ of dissonant rap duo Armand Hammer—is a chaotic force, the warped relic of an NY indie-rap wave that never happened. Meanwhile, Segal has been in L.A. for twenty years; from paying dues with Project Blowed to pushing the culture forward with Busdriver and Milo. All the while, his soulful, dreamlike production precariously tethered to earth by the right drums or rumbling bass. But look closer and it makes more sense. After all, Segal lent his production to a couple of songs on Paraffin, Armand Hammer’s critically-acclaimed opus, and the two veterans have more than a few shared collaborators: Open Mike Eagle, ELUCID, and Hemlock Ernst amongst them. Hiding Places finds both artists deep in the labyrinth. Segal’s lush soundscapes have a new edge, woods’ writing is, paradoxically, at its most direct. Hiding Places is a child’s game: funny and cruel, as brutal as a fairy tale. The album features contributions from both artists’ well of collaborators with ELUCID, Self-Jupiter, and MOTHERMARY making appearances.

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.

With Réminiscences (2017–2019), Jean-Claude Éloy embarks on an ambitious journey through memory, transformation, and pure listening. This vast electroacoustic cycle—comprising Incantation, Confrontation, Contemplation, and Oppression-Libération—draws deeply from the sound world of his seminal work Yo-In. Éloy recycles and reworks electroacoustic materials originally created at the Institute of Sonology (Utrecht, 1979/1980) and incorporates an extraordinary archive of percussion samples recorded at his request by Japanese percussionist Sumire Yoshihara at NHK’s Electronic Music Studio in Tokyo, as well as contributions from Gaston Sylvestre and Michael Ranta. Unlike the original 1980 version—conceived as a sound theater for an imaginary ritual and realized with the participation of Michael W. Ranta—Réminiscences is conceived as a purely electroacoustic experience, liberated from the constraints of live performance. Éloy focuses on the most distinctive sources: boat sirens, natural phenomena (volcanoes, wind, rain, waves), African bird calls, industrial noises, and a wide palette of metallic, wooden, and skin percussion. The result is a celebration of sound itself—an acoustic ritual where each work explores a specific theme through the metamorphosis of its materials. Éloy’s intent is to draw the listener into a heightened state of auditory perception, encouraging a deep concentration on the sonic phenomena at the heart of the music. Réminiscences stands as a testament to his lifelong exploration of the power of listening and the transformative potential of electroacoustic art. Produced at Studio Eve-Défense, the composer’s home studio, and presented in a 5-panel digipak with a 24-page booklet, this release is both a culmination and a renewal of Éloy’s creative universe.

Superb, revered version-excursion in the grand tradition of Tempo Explosion. Willie Williams kicks off imperiously, on a classic Rhythm & Sound rhythm adroitly evoking Niney’s way with horns. Sugar and Tikkiman take a turn, besides Berlin faces like Cotton and Rod Of Iron. No one puts a foot wrong. More than twenty years ago now, this LP was cut ‘hot’, for maximum dynamic range, and deadly bass. With all copies since then derived from the same cut, many turntable set-ups may experience slight skipping at moments, especially during side 2. In addition, there are very occasional, scattered pops and crackles; for vinyl lovers nothing out-of-the-ordinary.