NEW ARRIVALS

Planet Trip Records presents Sydney underground heroes Hugh B & Setwun’s first album, 2020’s Yeah Definitely, and its long-awaited follow-up, 2026’s Nah Maybe, as a deluxe vinyl LP package. Underpinned by the low-end heft of dub and soundsystem culture, their albums draw deeply from an expansive array of sensibilities: tones, textures and patterns shaped by post-punk and ambient music dovetail with abstract, sampledelic hip-hop drum loops. Meanwhile, Setwun’s mysterious neo-soul/modern R&B vocals glide on the beat. Punctuated by dialogue snippets, these songs feel like exploring the multiverse with an interdimensional boombox. Yeah Definitely began as a batch of instrumentals. Having previously worked with an MPC, drum machines, instruments and Logic Audio, Hugh used a borrowed PC and Renoise, a tracker DAW associated with 21st-century jungle/drum & bass production. Afterwards, he sent them over to Setwun, who sketched vocals on top with ease. If Yeah Definitely came together quickly, Nah Maybe was a longer process. Still inspired, Hugh B knocked out a second folder of beats with neon-lit city-pop references, slow-jam grooves, and elegant guitar figures. This time, however, something wasn’t clicking for Setwun. The only cure here would be the passage of time. Over the next six years, Hugh and Setwun continued to collaborate while pursuing solo projects. Hugh released jungle, ambient house, dub and post-punk records through Planet Trip Records, Not Not Fun, and his OTIS Records label, while performing live, DJ, and leading the Modern Pop Ensemble. Similarly, Setwun, also a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and DJ, released a series of records that explore jazz, soul, house, and broken-beat electronica, forming a loose constellation for Mandarin Dreams and Extra Soul Perception. Alongside these efforts, he played shows and began performing with his backing band, The Soulstranauts. Early in 2026, something clicked, and Setwun drafted vocals for the second batch of beats over an evening. Not long after, he invited Hugh to mix Nah Maybe, every bit as special as Yeah Definitely. By waiting for the right moment and putting themselves outside of their comfort zone, Hugh B and Setwun have bottled lightning twice. We’re very pleased to be able to share Yeah Definitely and Nah Maybe with you.

In the early ‘10’s the WPH Summer Special was a yearly tradition: a stamped vinyl only releases featuring lost tracks, one-off collabs, dreaded digital only gems, etc. Some summer specials were so hot we released them in the winter to battle the cold… Guess what? It’s back! Four killer tracks on one slice of vinyl. Satoshi Fumi remixing Ian O’Donovan to devastating Detroit-styled effect, Red D taking things deep with some dreamy deep house magic, Fabrice Lig going from ‘Border 2 Border’ on vinyl with Red D & Lady Linn and then Uit De Hoogte teaming up with Lefto for an oldskool house jam that will only be available on this release. If this doesn’t get your heat up…

The blissed family band is back! TENGGER have always moved together, through time, space & genre. 'SKY' arrives as a new chapter: a little more still, a little more inward, while keeping all the warmth that's always been at the heart of what they do. Embodying the band name meaning "endless sky" in Mongolian and "vast sea" in Hungarian, their 8th album 'SKY' centres on the feelings of boundless, infinite expansion. Conceived as one continuous environment rather than a collection of tracks, the album unfolds slowly through luminous synths, patient drones and Itta's breath-like vocals. Like a soft big sky you can actually float on: 'SKY' is vast, warm, and wide open. "Rather than a specific emotion, we hope the record opens a certain awareness — that the sky is not just something to be seen. Through it, we sense a connection to something much larger — a feeling of being linked to the wider universe. This sense of connection runs through the entire record."

Wewantsounds is honoured to announce the first-ever international release of the legendary collaboration between Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) and Don Cherry, featuring Carlos Ward. Following Ibrahim’s recent passing, this long-awaited edition is all the more relevant. Recorded live in 1972 at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, this highly sought-after album was originally released exclusively in Japan in 1974 on the cult jazz label Trio Records via its revered Nadja imprint. An essential chapter in the musicians’ discographies, the performance skilfully blends jazz with rich South African rhythms and global influences. This definitive reissue features fully remastered audio, the original artwork, and a booklet with new bilingual liner notes (Eng/Fr) by Jacques Denis.

On Cooked, Oren Ambarchi folds his all‑star studio jam aesthetic into something gloriously unhinged. Two side‑long epics twist piano ripples, synthetic “voices,” mutant trumpet tones, electric Miles haze and digital pyrotechnics into a foot‑tapping, brain‑scrambling, joyously cuckoo ride that still feels meticulously shaped. Tip! Tip! Tip! Cooked extends Oren Ambarchi’s recent run of large‑scale studio constructions, but this time he lets his most irreverent impulses sit right at the center of the frame. Where 2022’s Shebang revealed how far his trance‑logic grooves could stretch, this new album comes “a la – yet so far from” that predecessor, nudging the template into stranger, more cartoonish territory without sacrificing the care that underpins his work. The record is built as two side‑long pieces, each a little ecosystem where a rotating cast of international collaborators makes the foot keep tapping even as the ear and brain struggle to process what’s just happened. Long‑time listeners will recognize the tension at play here. Beneath Ambarchi’s triple‑digit discography of hypnotic minimalism, there has always been a vein of joyously wayward exploration: riffs that arrive out of nowhere, synthetic mischief, sudden genre swerves. Cooked is a landmark because it allows that “gloriously cuckoo sensibility” to flood into one of his most high‑profile solo statements. Surrounding himself with players from Australia, Germany, Japan and Sweden – among them Joe Talia, Johan Berthling, Will Guthrie, Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O’Rourke, Michiko Ogawa, Marcus Pal, Fredrik Rasten, James Rushford, Andreas Werliin and Konrad Sprenger – Ambarchi layers, edits and recombines performances in a way that recalls Edgar Froese’s spiraling synth rock, Steve Hillage’s cosmic guitar flights, and the studio‑obsessed pop alchemy of Godley & Crème, yet never feels like pastiche. “Hidden Tableau,” the opening side, sets the tone. It begins disarmingly with Eiko Ishibashi’s gentle piano ripples, then immediately swerves with the entrance of a groaning synthetic “voice” – a ghost in the machine conjured and steered by Konrad Sprenger, also at the production helm here as he was on Shebang. For the first half of the piece, this moaning, morphing presence becomes an unlikely soloist, a concerto for artificial throat and delicate backdrop of piano, organ‑like washes and Ambarchi’s signature shimmering Leslie‑soaked guitar. As Joe Talia’s drums slip in with a beautifully flexible swing, harmonies puff into woozy clouds, and the synthetic voice stretches toward something like a mutant trumpet, blurring instrumental identities. Then comes the left turn: intricate guitar patterns and filigreed synthetic arpeggios overtake the scene, locking into a kind of motoric, nimble drive that feels both inevitable and inexplicable. Somewhere in this lattice might be Jim O’Rourke on synth – or it might be Ambarchi’s endlessly re‑routed guitar, as his recent work has taught us that almost any sound could be traced back to his instrument. The piece never quite settles, instead gliding through phases that feel like snapshots from different histories of experimental rock and electronic music, stitched together by an internal logic that’s more dreamlike than schematic. The second side, “Sleight of Hand,” foregrounds Ambarchi’s Swedish comrades, especially Johan Berthling on double bass and Andreas Werliin on drums. It opens with glistening layers of electric 12‑string guitar, immediately invoking electric Miles Davis touchstones – the weightless yet charged atmosphere of “Feio,” or the slow, suspended reimagining of David Crosby’s “Guinnevere.” Berthling’s sparse, punctuating bass lines become anchor points in an almost weightless field of detail, while Michiko Ogawa’s sho and James Rushford’s array of acoustic keyboards thread flickers of timbre and harmony through the haze. The music feels like hovering above a shifting landscape: nothing quite locks, yet everything relates. Midway through, the whole construct is abruptly overwhelmed by a knotty, hyper‑complex “solo” from Marcus Pal on digital synthesis – a blistering, pointillist eruption that seems to teleport the record into an alternate timeline where Allan Holdsworth traded his SynthAxe for Xenakis’s UPIC system. Rhythmic and harmonic shapes flash past too quickly to grasp, yet their density adds a new, vertiginous layer to Ambarchi’s world. As Will Guthrie’s drums and percussion build around it, the music reaches a peak of sizzling intensity, then veers sideways into a gently surreal coda: Zawinul‑esque chords glimmer, Fredrik Rasten’s guitar drifts over a sprightly rhythm box, and the uncanny, bird‑like whistling of Isak Hedtjärn floats above, turning the closing minutes into a sunlit, slightly absurd stew.

On Cooked, Oren Ambarchi folds his all‑star studio jam aesthetic into something gloriously unhinged. Two side‑long epics twist piano ripples, synthetic “voices,” mutant trumpet tones, electric Miles haze and digital pyrotechnics into a foot‑tapping, brain‑scrambling, joyously cuckoo ride that still feels meticulously shaped. Tip! Tip! Tip! Cooked extends Oren Ambarchi’s recent run of large‑scale studio constructions, but this time he lets his most irreverent impulses sit right at the center of the frame. Where 2022’s Shebang revealed how far his trance‑logic grooves could stretch, this new album comes “a la – yet so far from” that predecessor, nudging the template into stranger, more cartoonish territory without sacrificing the care that underpins his work. The record is built as two side‑long pieces, each a little ecosystem where a rotating cast of international collaborators makes the foot keep tapping even as the ear and brain struggle to process what’s just happened. Long‑time listeners will recognize the tension at play here. Beneath Ambarchi’s triple‑digit discography of hypnotic minimalism, there has always been a vein of joyously wayward exploration: riffs that arrive out of nowhere, synthetic mischief, sudden genre swerves. Cooked is a landmark because it allows that “gloriously cuckoo sensibility” to flood into one of his most high‑profile solo statements. Surrounding himself with players from Australia, Germany, Japan and Sweden – among them Joe Talia, Johan Berthling, Will Guthrie, Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O’Rourke, Michiko Ogawa, Marcus Pal, Fredrik Rasten, James Rushford, Andreas Werliin and Konrad Sprenger – Ambarchi layers, edits and recombines performances in a way that recalls Edgar Froese’s spiraling synth rock, Steve Hillage’s cosmic guitar flights, and the studio‑obsessed pop alchemy of Godley & Crème, yet never feels like pastiche. “Hidden Tableau,” the opening side, sets the tone. It begins disarmingly with Eiko Ishibashi’s gentle piano ripples, then immediately swerves with the entrance of a groaning synthetic “voice” – a ghost in the machine conjured and steered by Konrad Sprenger, also at the production helm here as he was on Shebang. For the first half of the piece, this moaning, morphing presence becomes an unlikely soloist, a concerto for artificial throat and delicate backdrop of piano, organ‑like washes and Ambarchi’s signature shimmering Leslie‑soaked guitar. As Joe Talia’s drums slip in with a beautifully flexible swing, harmonies puff into woozy clouds, and the synthetic voice stretches toward something like a mutant trumpet, blurring instrumental identities. Then comes the left turn: intricate guitar patterns and filigreed synthetic arpeggios overtake the scene, locking into a kind of motoric, nimble drive that feels both inevitable and inexplicable. Somewhere in this lattice might be Jim O’Rourke on synth – or it might be Ambarchi’s endlessly re‑routed guitar, as his recent work has taught us that almost any sound could be traced back to his instrument. The piece never quite settles, instead gliding through phases that feel like snapshots from different histories of experimental rock and electronic music, stitched together by an internal logic that’s more dreamlike than schematic. The second side, “Sleight of Hand,” foregrounds Ambarchi’s Swedish comrades, especially Johan Berthling on double bass and Andreas Werliin on drums. It opens with glistening layers of electric 12‑string guitar, immediately invoking electric Miles Davis touchstones – the weightless yet charged atmosphere of “Feio,” or the slow, suspended reimagining of David Crosby’s “Guinnevere.” Berthling’s sparse, punctuating bass lines become anchor points in an almost weightless field of detail, while Michiko Ogawa’s sho and James Rushford’s array of acoustic keyboards thread flickers of timbre and harmony through the haze. The music feels like hovering above a shifting landscape: nothing quite locks, yet everything relates. Midway through, the whole construct is abruptly overwhelmed by a knotty, hyper‑complex “solo” from Marcus Pal on digital synthesis – a blistering, pointillist eruption that seems to teleport the record into an alternate timeline where Allan Holdsworth traded his SynthAxe for Xenakis’s UPIC system. Rhythmic and harmonic shapes flash past too quickly to grasp, yet their density adds a new, vertiginous layer to Ambarchi’s world. As Will Guthrie’s drums and percussion build around it, the music reaches a peak of sizzling intensity, then veers sideways into a gently surreal coda: Zawinul‑esque chords glimmer, Fredrik Rasten’s guitar drifts over a sprightly rhythm box, and the uncanny, bird‑like whistling of Isak Hedtjärn floats above, turning the closing minutes into a sunlit, slightly absurd stew.

After the cataclysm of their Om debut, Al Cisneros & Chris Hakius come right down with its hypnotic follow-up, now returned to circulation on its 20th anniversary FFO Sleep, Earth, Popol Vuh. ‘Conference of the Birds’ (2006) had big boots to fill after Om’s immense 2005 debut ‘Variations on a Theme’, so they effectively slipped into a pair of sandals instead, feeling the sand between their toes on a pair of more desert oriented jams. Still squinting at durational horizons, they take all the time needed - up to and over 15 mins per side - to concentrate on more brooding strains of modal, psych-inflected stoner rock that works it magic more subtly. The hairy nads-out appeal of their previous side, and the grungier tone of their earlier, cult work as Sleep is swapped out for mantric, pentatonic riffs and sway that channel the blues via Ethiopian music, kosmiche and hard rock in ‘At Giza’, placing Cisneros’ monotonic vox higher in the mix over shimmering backdrop of hazed hi-hats and uncurling bassline yoked with a tongue-tip tension. But fret not heavy riff fiends, for that all comes with ‘Flight of the Eagle’, which effectively picks up where ‘Variation…’ left off, locking hard into a mantric cycle where Hakius’ damn slow but tight offbeat shuffles and the feedback worship riffs hold an intensity that breaks upward half way and soars in tumbling gyres to the end.

After the cataclysm of their Om debut, Al Cisneros & Chris Hakius come right down with its hypnotic follow-up, now returned to circulation on its 20th anniversary FFO Sleep, Earth, Popol Vuh. ‘Conference of the Birds’ (2006) had big boots to fill after Om’s immense 2005 debut ‘Variations on a Theme’, so they effectively slipped into a pair of sandals instead, feeling the sand between their toes on a pair of more desert oriented jams. Still squinting at durational horizons, they take all the time needed - up to and over 15 mins per side - to concentrate on more brooding strains of modal, psych-inflected stoner rock that works it magic more subtly. The hairy nads-out appeal of their previous side, and the grungier tone of their earlier, cult work as Sleep is swapped out for mantric, pentatonic riffs and sway that channel the blues via Ethiopian music, kosmiche and hard rock in ‘At Giza’, placing Cisneros’ monotonic vox higher in the mix over shimmering backdrop of hazed hi-hats and uncurling bassline yoked with a tongue-tip tension. But fret not heavy riff fiends, for that all comes with ‘Flight of the Eagle’, which effectively picks up where ‘Variation…’ left off, locking hard into a mantric cycle where Hakius’ damn slow but tight offbeat shuffles and the feedback worship riffs hold an intensity that breaks upward half way and soars in tumbling gyres to the end.

The fifth studio album from the legendary American stoner metal duo is, you'll be glad to know, equally as doom laden and spiritually heavy as anything in their canon. They've paired up with production overlord Steve Albini again to craft the four tracks on 'God Is Good', starting with monolithic centrepiece, 'Thebes'. At just over nineteen minutes this is where you get your money's worth, and Om ensure customer satisfaction with one of their most exotic compositions. The first half of the track is given to a raga like meditation featuring a sublime Indian Tamboura operated by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, accompanying Al Cisneros' foreboding vocals and distant tablas from Emil Amos, before subsiding into the crushing sloth-riffage you're built to expect, but have almost forgotten about in the state of induced bliss. 'Meditation Is The Practice Of Death' follows with a shorter and more intense movement featuring stunning studio trickery from the master engineers at hand, panning Amos' drums to the periphery of your psyche while Cisneros chants biblical prophecies and Lorraine Rath provides eerily indistinct Flute. Unusually 'Cremation Ghat I' features relatively uptempo time structures, revolving around polyrhythmic percussion and an ominous bass motif wafting up from below, before merging into 'Cremation Ghat II' with sumptuous Tamboura from Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe again, bringing the album to a reverent and spirit nutrifying close.

The fifth studio album from the legendary American stoner metal duo is, you'll be glad to know, equally as doom laden and spiritually heavy as anything in their canon. They've paired up with production overlord Steve Albini again to craft the four tracks on 'God Is Good', starting with monolithic centrepiece, 'Thebes'. At just over nineteen minutes this is where you get your money's worth, and Om ensure customer satisfaction with one of their most exotic compositions. The first half of the track is given to a raga like meditation featuring a sublime Indian Tamboura operated by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, accompanying Al Cisneros' foreboding vocals and distant tablas from Emil Amos, before subsiding into the crushing sloth-riffage you're built to expect, but have almost forgotten about in the state of induced bliss. 'Meditation Is The Practice Of Death' follows with a shorter and more intense movement featuring stunning studio trickery from the master engineers at hand, panning Amos' drums to the periphery of your psyche while Cisneros chants biblical prophecies and Lorraine Rath provides eerily indistinct Flute. Unusually 'Cremation Ghat I' features relatively uptempo time structures, revolving around polyrhythmic percussion and an ominous bass motif wafting up from below, before merging into 'Cremation Ghat II' with sumptuous Tamboura from Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe again, bringing the album to a reverent and spirit nutrifying close.

In the wake of the acclaimed Inland See, the on-growing analog ecosystem being animated for ten albums now by Bitchin Bajas boasts new high energy views. “Isle Peaks” speaks of directions in beats of time, weather and the heart to wherever coast they found themselves when they got it all laid out. Sourced from Inland See sessions, these cuts were subjected to further edits and tweaks, with electroacoustic textures of sampled kalimba, field recordings, autoharp and EWI to activate and transport divergent quadrants of the Bajas cinematic universe. The first two songs were previously released digitally on Qobuz in Jan ’26. “Watch your Step” has been added to balance scales and acidity for the “Isle Peaks” vinyl (and cassette) edition. "Watch Your Step" is exclusive to the physical product, not available for download. “Isle Peaks,” throbs with the heat and humidity of an unknown landmass, ascending to signal-splitting heights on both atmospheric and ecstatic scales, the most wired ever but calm, then trancing ambiently in heavy modern electronic church thick with drone and atmosphere. High-energy music, first to dance, then to dream! The escaped & wild stepchild of Inland See is a half-hour highlight of the rest of your life to be: “Isle Peaks.”

originally released 1999. "Well, never mind--as long as people love it, here's another few sides of long-ago and far-away O'Rourke back on vinyl for the first time since way back in the mid-aughties. It's the Halfway to a Threeway 12" EP back to set turntables a-spinnin'! Fans of Eureka and Insignificance (not to mention Jim's tomfoolery as part of the Loose Fur band) will appreciate the analog pressing of these four slices of the pop music party-pooper combination of folk, classic rock, smooth jazz and a bit of the old avant-garde to help communicate the twisted ways of the misanthrope that made Jim such a perennial in the fickle world of record sales. A quick listen to the title track will hip you to our meaning: Halfway to a Threeway exposes our sweet soul-crusher as a lustful man-beast on the make. The song is a straight folk number--straight, that is, until you listen through the haze of those six-string overtones and chirpy harmony vocals to hear the true perversity of O'Rourke's fantasies. The decadence of stardom seems to have turned Jim into not only a sex freak, but also a man who loves women of all persuasions--particular the crippled and brain-dead kind! Don't listen to this song alone--at least, not with the drapes open."

After his legendary 1970s recordings became foundational totems of modern reggae, influential musician and producer Augustus Pablo continued to unearth new expressions of his singular sound throughout the two decades that followed. Whether elevating his dub mastery with digital techniques or expanding the instrumental palette on his bass-heavy melodica grooves, the pioneering Jamaican artist remained an innovator throughout his limited time in this world. Released just a few weeks before his untimely passing in 1999, Valley Of Jehosaphat was the final album from Augustus Pablo and an enduring statement from an artist who always remained true to his vision. With production values far exceeding the grainy classics of his early career, the collection's spellbinding instrumental arrangements resound with clarity, capturing the peaceful essence of Pablo's creativity. Now, Valley Of Jehosaphat is receiving a full vinyl release for the first time ever. Courtesy of Nature Sounds and the relaunched Rockers International, this 2LP vinyl edition also includes five bonus tracks highlighting rare 1990s Augustus Pablo material.

Japan’s distinctive punk and new wave scene emerged with the arrival of the “Tokyo Rockers” movement in 1978, led by musicians who had come of age within the underground rock culture of the 1970s. As that scene faded, these artists — energised by the shock of London and New York punk scenes — launched a last, defiant charge that crystallised as "Tokyo Rockers". From the beginning, many "Tokyo Rockers" musicians were deeply drawn to reggae. They listened voraciously to reggae records, especially dub, and even when they were not performing reggae outright, dub-informed ideas permeated their sound. Throughout the evolution from punk to new wave, reggae was absorbed naturally by the musicians at the center of the scene. Yet the connection between these genres was rarely acknowledged in Japan’s music media. In this sense, the creation of this compilation marks a truly groundbreaking moment as it may well offer a new lens through which to view the history of Japanese rock. "Japanese New Wave On Dub" takes a deep dive into the relatively unsung heroes of this culturally unique moment throughout it's first 5 years of maturation. 12 tracks that will embellish the record collection of any true music lover, a beautifully documented piece of niche Japanese underground culture from the firs half of the 80's, faithfully put together by Yuzo Iwata.

「Shima DUB」is the first CD album released by Harikuyamaku in 2013. Harikuyamaku dubs Okinawa'n roots songs sampled mainly from 60~70s vinyls. Dubeffects were reorded through the analogue mixer and some old effectors (space echo,roland halfracks...) in live. This is super addictive Okinawa'n DUB album will make you awarer.

“The idea of the black avant-garde exists, as it were, oxymoronically – as if black, on the one hand, and avant-garde, on the other hand, each depends for its coherence on the exclusion of the other. Now this is probably an overstatement of the case. Yet it’s all but justified by a vast interdisciplinary text representative not only of a problematically positivist conclusion that the avant-garde has been exclusively Euro-American, but of a deeper, perhaps unconscious, formulation of the avant-garde as necessarily not black. Part of what I’m after now is this: an assertion that the avant-garde is a black thing.”- Fred Moten

When we go searching for a Black avant-garde, we have to be prepared to look in unexpected places. The route to a Black avant-garde involves walking down – what some might consider – peculiar highways. Where they see strangeness, a road leading them nowhere, we see nothing but beauty. The paths Darren Cunningham went down, the highways he took to make Actress, are a chapter in the story of the Black avant-garde. Cunningham the footballer. Cunningham the Wulfrunian. Cunningham the ex-footballer. Cunningham the DJ. Cunningham the Londoner. Cunningham the producer. Cunningham the painter. Cunningham the writer. Cunningham the composer. This is where the Black avant-garde in Britain is made. This is where you have to go to find it.

Across an expansive discography of more than ten LPs, Actress has created his own arcane language of hermetic references and inter-dimensional electronic composition.

Radical Frame arrives 18 years since debut album Hazyville, and it feels like an apotheosis. The image realised. We get the full gamut of Actress signatures. Short bursts of broken down music. Tiny sketches of zoomed-in sound. Refracted dance floor heat. And we get more. We get appearances from CASISDEAD on ‘Live By You’ (another image, another mask) and Rainy Miller (another artist from the provinces, Preston).

Today, we get ‘Overchord’ - the centre of the album paired with its precursor ‘Live By You’. It arrives alongside a video by Anna van der Velde, featuring Cunningham trapped in a luxury prison of his own making, contained but not constrained.

Perhaps Radical Frame is a container for everything that Cunningham has built so far. A frame he is handing over to the next in line. The next artist to make their own way in the Black British avant-garde.

“The idea of the black avant-garde exists, as it were, oxymoronically – as if black, on the one hand, and avant-garde, on the other hand, each depends for its coherence on the exclusion of the other. Now this is probably an overstatement of the case. Yet it’s all but justified by a vast interdisciplinary text representative not only of a problematically positivist conclusion that the avant-garde has been exclusively Euro-American, but of a deeper, perhaps unconscious, formulation of the avant-garde as necessarily not black. Part of what I’m after now is this: an assertion that the avant-garde is a black thing.”- Fred Moten

When we go searching for a Black avant-garde, we have to be prepared to look in unexpected places. The route to a Black avant-garde involves walking down – what some might consider – peculiar highways. Where they see strangeness, a road leading them nowhere, we see nothing but beauty. The paths Darren Cunningham went down, the highways he took to make Actress, are a chapter in the story of the Black avant-garde. Cunningham the footballer. Cunningham the Wulfrunian. Cunningham the ex-footballer. Cunningham the DJ. Cunningham the Londoner. Cunningham the producer. Cunningham the painter. Cunningham the writer. Cunningham the composer. This is where the Black avant-garde in Britain is made. This is where you have to go to find it.

Across an expansive discography of more than ten LPs, Actress has created his own arcane language of hermetic references and inter-dimensional electronic composition.

Radical Frame arrives 18 years since debut album Hazyville, and it feels like an apotheosis. The image realised. We get the full gamut of Actress signatures. Short bursts of broken down music. Tiny sketches of zoomed-in sound. Refracted dance floor heat. And we get more. We get appearances from CASISDEAD on ‘Live By You’ (another image, another mask) and Rainy Miller (another artist from the provinces, Preston).

Today, we get ‘Overchord’ - the centre of the album paired with its precursor ‘Live By You’. It arrives alongside a video by Anna van der Velde, featuring Cunningham trapped in a luxury prison of his own making, contained but not constrained.

Perhaps Radical Frame is a container for everything that Cunningham has built so far. A frame he is handing over to the next in line. The next artist to make their own way in the Black British avant-garde.

Anthology of all three albums in the Pentimento series, a remarkable late career renaissance by Jon Hassell, the pioneer of 'fourth world' music. Contains Listening To Pictures (2018), Seeing Through Sound (2020), and Music Is Invisible (2026), the latter a recording of his final ever live concert performance.

Maria W Horn takes inspiration from W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn on Melting Pillars of Snow, a new collection of compositions for contrabass recorder, shō, percussion, electric guitar, voice and electronics. Performed with Anna Petrini, Mattias Hållsten, Magdalena Meitzner and Mats Erlandsson, the album explores shifting landscapes, deep time and fleeting moments through intricate chamber arrangements and electronic processing. Horn also contributes narration, while Michael Gira of SWANS guests on the opening single, 'Scythe of Saturn'.

TOTAL Allison de Groot is a clawhammer banjo player from Winnipeg, Canada whose work spans old-time, bluegrass, and folk traditions. A recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and an Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year nominee, she is perhaps best known for her duo with fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves, whose albums Hurricane Clarice and their self-titled debut earned recognition from the IBMA, the Canadian Folk Music Awards, and the JUNOs.Rich Ruth is a Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist (born Michael Ruth) who records for Third Man Records. His solo albums draw from ambient, spiritual jazz, minimalism, and synth-driven post-rock, compositions that begin with looping drones and synthesizers and expand outward through collaboration. He is also a third of Shrunken Elvis, a Nashville trio born from long European drives and winter jam sessions, uniting Ruth with pedal steel guitarist Spencer Cullum and guitarist Sean Thompson in a shared creative space that prizes intuition over ambition. Their well-received self-titled debut arrived in 2025.The two came together when Ruth was set to produce a solo record for de Groot. Over the course of about a year in Ruth's Nashville studio, the project quietly shifted: the two began composing together, and what emerged is shaped as much by space and process as by melody. De Groot's clawhammer banjo moves through looping and delay, set against Ruth's synthesizer arrangements in a way that balances the tactile immediacy of acoustic instruments with the enveloping qualities of electronics. Patrick M'Gonigle contributed violin and string arrangements throughout, while Shrunken Elvis bandmate Spencer Cullum brings his pedal steel to several tracks, adding another layer of atmospheric depth to the record's palette.Shortly after completing the album, the group debuted the material live at Big Ears Festival as one of the event's surprise performances, a stripped, minimalist set that reflected the spirit of the recordings.The album captures two distinct musical voices finding not so much a meeting point as a new, shared language.

In Cyano, synthesist and composer Emily A. Sprague questions self, other, ecology, and life in a distant realm. Conjured around the idea of an imagined planet whose inhabitants are rebuilding forbidden capacities for expressivity and emotional connection, Cyano is a meditation on visibility, psychic transformation, light transmission, and worlds beyond our knowing materialized through an intuitive use of modular synthesizers and voice.

The Whole Of The Moon” is a classic. It’s a song about awe and hope and love for the people who show us the best of this often broken world, the blessed few who show the way and introduce us to things and thoughts.Keith McIvor aka JD Twitch of Optimo was one of those people, and this version of the track - electronic, euphoric, open-hearted - was made by some members of the broader Optimo community after his terminal brain cancer diagnosis in 2025. The task of making a version that could’ve been heard on the dance floor at Planet Peach, Mas, or the Sub Club on a Sunday night or Monday morning brought them together across oceans, an act of joy amidst so much loss.It was never intended to be released, but as it made its way to friends and others, it also felt wrong not to. Its sentiment is universal and applies to so many incredible people in music and beyond that are sadly missed.So here is the Watergirls’ first and last track, presented as a limited white label with some particularly lethal mixes from Sean Johnston of Hardway Bros and A Love From Outer Space. We’re giving all the profits to charity. It’s meant to be played out. It’s meant to make two friends hug and sing into each other’s faces. It’s for Keith and for everyone like him.

Buh Records presents Anthology 2: Works for the Experimental Orchestra of Native Instruments, a double album that deepens the exploration of the work of Bolivian composer Cergio Prudencio (La Paz, 1955) and his inseparable bond with the Experimental Orchestra of Native Instruments (OEIN), the project he co-founded in 1980 and of which he is now emeritus director. Like Anthology 1, widely praised by the international music press, this second installment continues to reveal the conceptual, aesthetic, and sonic magnitude of one of the most radical contemporary-music endeavors to emerge from Latin America. The OEIN is a unique ensemble within the international musical landscape. Its approach begins by embracing the traditional instruments of the Andean highlands in all their dimensions: their materiality, modes of sound production, tuning systems, cultural contexts, and the Indigenous philosophies that sustain them. It is grounded in central principles of Aymara music—arca-ira alternation, the formation of large “troops” of instrumentalists, and the communal energy of wakiña—integrating them into a creative process that articulates both tradition and contemporaneity. For Prudencio, these foundations are living structures that allow for the projection of an ever-expanding musical thought. Anthology 2 brings together works composed between 1989 and 2014 and performed by the OEIN and its chamber ensemble. Cantos crepusculares (1999), written for the Donaueschingen Festival, unfolds a sonic continuum in which successive atmospheres evoke the shifting light of twilight. Cantos ofertorios (2008), conceived during residencies in Bellagio and completed in La Paz, incorporates multiphonics, massive textures, and a performative gesture referencing the prayers and offerings of Aymara yatiris.