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Go Kurosawa is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and co-founder of the independent label Guruguru Brain. Best known as the drummer and vocalist of Kikagaku Moyo, he has spent the past decade building bridges between East and West, sound and silence, rock and ritual. soft shakes is something different. A personal chapter in Go’s journey, it marks his first solo album, created entirely by himself and made, for the first time, purely for himself. After Kikagaku Moyo disbanded, Go spent some time producing records for other artists, but with soft shakes, there was no plan. Just the instinct to pick up an instrument, play, and see what might unfold. As he puts it, “The whole framework is new. When I made music for the band, I always knew who would play what. This time, it was just me. No plan, no expectation. And weirdly, that became the concept: doing it all myself, for the first time.” Go has a rare kind of musical instinct. He can play anything, hears everything, and yet never takes himself too seriously. For a long time, making music alone wasn’t part of the plan. Music had always been about connection. But over time, as he travelled, collected instruments and set up Guruguru Brain studio in Rotterdam, the sound of a solo voice emerged. soft shakes came together between January and June in Rotterdam, through dark, rainy, quiet days. Each day, Go would head to the studio, pick up whatever instrument was around and simply play. The process was slow and instinctive. “If something still moved me the next day, I’d add to it. If not, I’d start something new. One step at a time, without pressure.” Even as a solo record, the music doesn’t feel tight or controlled. It has the looseness of jamming, the joy of following where the sound wants to go. “I wanted that feeling, even if I was jamming with myself.” What comes through is music that feels playful, layered, rhythmic and delightfully unexpected. Just like Go. The album artwork was created by his partner Ao, her first time doing artwork for a record. “It captures the freedom and boldness of trying something new and I love it,” he says. soft shakes arrives at a moment of transition. Go recently relocated to Fukuoka, Japan, after years of living and working in Europe. “While making this album, we were deciding where to move. I knew it would be my last creation while living in Europe. When I listen back, I can hear that longing for something, towards a far away home.” The record feels like the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another. “Now I’m excited to build a studio in Japan and start again. I don’t know what will come next, but I want it to be shaped and influenced by new surroundings.” And while this record might be personal, Go hopes it offers something to others too. “I wish people would travel somewhere else through music. You float around, lose track of time, and when the record ends, you feel the soft comfort of coming home again.”
Mika Vainio started making a new Ø album in 2014. He almost finalized the record before his too early passing in 2017. The album Sysivalo is the 9th out of 8 full scale albums, released under the Ø alias by Vainio. Ø was his longest running project from 1993 to 2017. Sysivalo was recorded during 2014-2017 and is 60 min long album with 20 tracks, produced by Vainio. He described the record as a distinct Ø album that was going to include several shorter tracks, etudes. The title, Sysivalo, is invented by Vainio by combining the Finnish words sysi (dark or sinister) and valo (light).
Like life itself, the album carries a quiet darkness - honest and full of hidden light. The many of the tracks are beatless subtle soundtracks of eclipsed emotions. Like an incapacitated creature waiting for something to happen.
The closing track Loputon (Endless) is maybe the most beautiful tracks Vainio has ever written, Vainio's last word.
Mika Vainio started making a new Ø album in 2014. He almost finalized the record before his too early passing in 2017. The album Sysivalo is the 9th out of 8 full scale albums, released under the Ø alias by Vainio. Ø was his longest running project from 1993 to 2017. Sysivalo was recorded during 2014-2017 and is 60 min long album with 20 tracks, produced by Vainio. He described the record as a distinct Ø album that was going to include several shorter tracks, etudes. The title, Sysivalo, is invented by Vainio by combining the Finnish words sysi (dark or sinister) and valo (light). Like life itself, the album carries a quiet darkness - honest and full of hidden light. The many of the tracks are beatless subtle soundtracks of eclipsed emotions. Like an incapacitated creature waiting for something to happen. The closing track Loputon (Endless) is maybe the most beautiful tracks Vainio has ever written, Vainio's last word.
Domenique Dumont’s fourth album, Deux Paradis, arrives like the three that came before it – with an air of mystery and wonder. This is dance music for inner worlds – rituals, revelations and reveries.
Deux Paradis is a ten-track song cycle that leads the listener through the rhythm of a day, the bloom and fade of a relationship, or even the stages of a life. It begins with a song about waking up – the candy-striped dub of “Enchantia” – and traces the sun’s arc with the pixelated reggae of “La Vie Va” and the sensuous rush of “Amants Ennemis”. As night falls, the songs take on a twilight quality in the shimmering pop of “The Order of Invisible Things” and the seductive pulse of “Visages Visages” (a subtle nod to the Desireless classic). There’s also the baroque swoon of “Deux Paradis” and the soft exotica of “Visiteur de la Nuit”. Bolder and richer than before, it’s vintage Domenique Dumont – timeless and romantic, yet laced with an unplaceable sense of longing, like in an Éric Rohmer film.
After the instrumental film score People On Sunday (Leaf, 2020) composed solo by Arturs Liepins – singer Anete Stuce returns to Domenique Dumont, bringing her inimitable joie de vivre. Deux Paradis
completes a trilogy of releases alongside Comme Ça (2015) and Miniatures De Auto Rhythm (2018) on the Antinote label.
Deux Paradis took shape between 2022 and the end of 2024 in studios in Riga and Paris, and on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa.
This expansive double pack from Silentes finds each side of vinyl taken up by one long, ever-evolving piece of music based around one original. Gianluca Favaron & Stefano Gentile go first with their take on 'Landslide,' which goes from whirring machines sounds to brain cleansing sine waves and found sound abstraction. Dub techno don Rod Modell explores emptiness on 'Landslide' (Reworked) and Carl Michael Von Hausswolf's take is an eerie one with scratchy textures and filtered synth meanderings. Rod Modell then closes out with another rework of his own remix that will leave you adrift in space.
For many bands, having all their gear stolen would be catastrophic. For Third Ear Band, this unfortunate 1968 incident opened a portal to beneficial change that would ultimately define one of British experimental music's most singular statements. Now, Antarctica Starts Here presents the first-time vinyl reissue of the group's self-titled 1970 sophomore album - often called Elements due to its elemental track titles - complete with new liner notes by Dave Segal that illuminate this remarkable chapter in acoustic psychedelia's evolution. Leader and percussionist Glen Sweeney viewed the theft as a sign to alter Third Ear Band's approach entirely, switching to exclusively acoustic instruments just as electrified psychedelia reached full bloom. Alongside Paul Minns (oboe, recorder, whistles, flutes) and Richard Coff (violin, viola), Sweeney struck out on an individualistic path that blended Indian raga with chamber music - without plugging in. Following their powerful 1969 debut Alchemy, which established them as a solemn force in the global underground, Third Ear Band's self-titled album represented the full flowering of their alchemical vision. The four tracks - "Air," "Earth," "Fire," and "Water" - correspond to the basic components of medieval European alchemists' doctrines, creating what Dave Segal describes as "epic, trance-inducing jams that suggested secret knowledge of infinity." What distinguished Third Ear Band from their contemporaries was their peculiar estrangement from the counterculture on a sonic level. As Segal notes, "Even outré contemporaries such as Comus and Jan Dukes De Grey sounded like pop groups compared to TEB." Having no traditional front person or electric instruments, the group forged a path that flowered most vividly on this album. The methodology was deceptively simple yet profoundly effective: "Sweeney laid down a steady pulse on hand drums, while Minns and Coff wove in melismatic patterns on oboe, recorder, violin and viola." This approach created what Segal describes as "a communal transcendence in sound – a hypnotic swirl that doesn't swing, but rather wafts and undulates with cloistered beauty." The album's four elemental compositions exist in what Segal calls "an eternal now, a perpetual wow. It is an ouroboros of organic textures, seemingly magicked into the air spontaneously, yet possessing a rigor that suggests long hours in the lab." Without electricity, Third Ear Band somehow "burrowed deeper into your consciousness" than their amplified contemporaries. Originally released on Harvest in 1970, this album has remained out of print on vinyl for decades, making ASH Records' reissue a significant event for collectors of British experimental music. The influence of Third Ear Band's acoustic approach can be traced through subsequent generations of artists from Popol Vuh to Trad, Gras Och Stenar and beyond - groups that understood how acoustic instruments could achieve psychedelic transcendence without electronic amplification. This reissue preserves the album's original four-part structure while presenting it with the sonic clarity that reveals the intricate interplay between Sweeney's rhythmic foundation and the melodic explorations of Minns and Coff. The inclusion of Dave Segal's comprehensive liner notes provides crucial context for understanding Third Ear Band's unique position within the experimental music landscape.
Sublime psych drone and gauzy chamber pop by Oakland, CA duo Cuneiform Tabs, unmistakably on a plane shared by everyone from Flaming Tunes to Jane Arden & Jack Bond, Cindy Lee, Animal Collective. “Quickly on the heels of their debut, Cuneiform Tabs return with Age, an LP that takes a massive leap forward in both melodic sensibilities and inventiveness. Bathed in late night psychedelia and the looping repetition of a drone sample, the group's experimental penchants remain, yet this time wrapped around tunes too sweet to be denied. In pulling back a little of the crackle and haze that made their first album so inviting, the Tabs have revealed more of their pop instincts. The overall effect is a perfect set of early Animal Collective demos or Syd Barrett attempting a Television Personalities cover at 3am. The duo of Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon continue their system of trading 4-track tapes between the Bay Area and London, a furtive correspondence until sonic nuggets are fully formed. While these songs are very much the product of the Tascam and rudimentary software that is integral to the band, this album is truly the embrace of their songwriting talents – not unlike the recent breakthrough of labelmate Cindy Lee. With the dream-like strum of "Ivy," slow shimmer of "Orbital Rings" and enchanting, madcap swirl of "Blended Medal," this is hypnagogic pop at its finest. Age is the record Bob Pollard hears in his head every time he steps down to the basement to pick up a guitar. This is the sound of riding in an elevator hearing McCartney singing "Blackbird" in the distance, only to have it draw closer and closer with each floor as you finally race down the hallway, putting your ear to each door searching for the source. This is Leonard Cohen smoking in the middle of the street outside a Suicide show. If all of this sounds phenomenal, it is.”
A name that breathes, a voice that whispers and howls in soliloquy. Collecting the echoes that follow—field recordings from Colombia, murmured poems, the spectral songs of birds—she stitches together a sonic diary, an audible thread between past and present. Like the shifting landscapes of Colombian magical realism, she bends nature as memory bends truth. From this alchemy arises Un Pensiero Intrusivo: seven folk incantations, captured live in Cagliari, Italy.
A new genre, steeped in something unnameable—a haunted flamenco, spectral invocations, a piano unmoored from time. The air thickens, the horizon tilts. A slow descent into vertical tropics, where distant sensibilities collapse into a single, hypnotic pulse.
1994 second album by the trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, unavailable on vinyl and CD since original release. A concept album with accompanying text for each track by James Woodbourne, it also includes additional production by Portishead and Mr Scruff. Remastered from the original tapes by Matt Colton, contains “Theme” for the first time on the 2LP edition.
Flur is the trio of Austrian-Ethiopian harpist Miriam Adefris, British saxophonist Isaac Robertson, and percussionist Dillon Harrison. Formed after years of playing in various configurations around London’s Goldsmiths scene and collaborating with artists such as Ganavya, Floating Points, Gal Go, and Shabaka, the group crystallised during sessions at Riverside Recording Studios and a South Bermondsey warehouse.
Plunge captures their debut outing—a fluid, exploratory collection that moves between composed sections and spontaneous improvisation. Drawing on free jazz, ambient, and contemporary classical influences, their sound recalls Alice Coltrane, Ambrose Akinmusire, Kaija Saariaho, Azimuth, and Angel Bat Dawid, balancing intimacy with vastness through a distinctive instrumental palette of harp, sax, and percussion.
Released on Latency, home to records by Nidia & Valentina, Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru, goat (jp), Tarta Relena, and Moritz Von Oswald, Plunge continues the label’s commitment to exploratory and genre-defying music. The album features cover art by New York-based, Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu, whose abstract, multi-layered cartographies echo the trio’s entangled, searching sound.
Sortilège is the new album from esteemed producer and DJ Preservation and ascendant talent Gabe ‘’Nandez. The two artists first linked on Aethiopes, Preservation’s 2022 collaboration with billy woods, where Nandez was featured alongside Boldy James on one of the album’s standout tracks. “Sauvage” became the catalyst for Sortilège, as the New Orleans-based producer and New York-based rapper gradually began exchanging ideas—first long distance, then in February 2024, when Nandez flew to New Orleans for two weeks, ready to work.
“It was smooth, very synergetic,” ‘Nandez explains. “We listened to mad music—Boot Camp Clik, Scaramanga, Cuban Linx—and I was asking questions about all types of shit, trying to soak up game and history, which I did.”
The two also bonded over their shared francophone ancestry: Preservation is half French and ‘Nandez is half Malian. These connections made their way into the music as well, via both aesthetics and sample sources, and that sort of exchange courses through Sortilège, bridging the generational, geographical, and cultural gaps between the two artists with a record that feels a world unto itself. Esoteric, yet blunt and uncomplicated as a fistfight, Sortilège erases the line between urbane and urban. It’s a movie in a lucid dream, A Clockwork Négritude projected against the wall of a construction site. Mixed-use residential.
Tracing this arc, fellow travelers Armand Hammer, Koncept Jack$on, Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko, and billy woods all make appearances. Oh, and there are drums everywhere: drums that will rattle a hooptie and drums that whisper threats. Somehow, over the course of 14 tracks, Preservation seems to find his way to every instrument imaginable—yet each beat has room to breathe. Amidst this breakbeat symphony, ‘Nandez’s unmistakable baritone glides purposefully, ever forward, a bristling warship in troubled waters. Every time the bass thumps, ‘Nandez counterpunches. This is a record for heavyweight speakers and clunky headphones.
Sortilège can be translated as either:
Magical / Supernatural: Act of witchcraft, magical spell, charm, or curse.
Figurative / Literary: Symbolic enchantment, inexplicable fascination, often caused by a person, work of art, or an atmosphere.
We like to think it names the force at work within and between these songs.
Emerging in the aftermath of the Louisville–via–Chicago late-90s post-rock wave, The Mercury Program carved their own path with a vibraphone-led sound that blurred genre lines. Their 2000 album From The Vapors of Gasoline, released on Tiger Style, was no sophomore slump — its ten intricate, atmospheric tracks fused cerebral post-rock with unexpected flashes of dissonance and melodic warmth.
Rather than conform to the era’s prevailing styles, the group explored what might happen if new age shimmer and post-hardcore intensity shared the same space. The result was a record that felt both expansive and intimate, drawing in listeners with its textured arrangements and restless creativity.
This 25th anniversary remaster brings new clarity and depth to an overlooked triumph, illuminating the full scope of its inventive musicianship for a new generation of heads.
“Prudência / Praga”, or “Prudence / Plague”, is a double single with these two songs that I composed and which were originally recorded by two of my heroes: Maria Bethânia and Alaíde Costa. Curiously, they are two sambas: although I come from the rock and roll scene in São Paulo, I wound up writing a samba as if it were the 50s. At the time of my first heartbreak, at the age of 17, I had the record Jamelão canta Lupicínio with the Orquestra Tabajara on my iPod, and I identified with those dramatic sorrows, almost a hundred years old. In a way, I felt that Lupicínio Rodrigues was bloody and direct, like Tarantino, and Nelson Cavaquinho, heavy metal like Black Sabbath. So, I feel it’s a compact 45 of sambas but it’s also very Rock n Roll to me. Raw and coming from hell.
“Prudência” is that internal battle between the passionate side and the controlling side in the head of the former romantic bohemian. I wrote it for Bethânia to record on her album Noturno. Her version turned into a moving bolero. When I saw her singing it live and the audience singing along with her, I couldn’t believe it. I cried, hidden in the audience. She said that when she showed the record to her brother, Caetano Veloso, he thought that “Prudência” was some old classic that she had dug up to bring back to light. Nothing could be a greater compliment than this mistake on Caetano’s part.
“Praga” also has to do with MPB heroes of mine that I never imagined I’d see up close or have any relationship with or any connection with. I was asked to write these lyrics in partnership with the main man Erasmo Carlos for Alaíde Costa’s album! Surreal. Like many people, I got acquainted with Alaíde listening to “Clube da Esquina,” her singing with Milton Nascimento. And the idea was to do a poisonous cabaret song samba. The curse of a woman who has dumped a drunk. I love it when Alaíde sings “BIBIDA” in her recording of the song—a total legend. I wanted to produce a kind of horror samba recording, because if it wasn’t rock and roll, it wouldn’t be much fun for me. I went over to Bielzinho’s, and we recorded this chorus that explodes with the percussion and the choir of my friends Tulipa, Maria Beraldo, and Luiza Lian.
This take of “Prudência” came from the unpretentiousness of recording two live sessions of the song with Fred Joseph with the cameras of the 70s’ program “Ensaio” (MPB Especial) by the great Fernando Faro. The video take ended up being so unexpected and raw that it unseated the studio version, and that’s what you hear on the single. The idea behind the video is a sort of this temporal mindfuck; like found lost tapes of the MPB Especial from the early the 70s. Same microphones, same cameras, that zoom—time travel.
Between Mil Coisas Invisíveis, the end of the cycle with O Terno, and starting the new album process, I decided to take advantage of the respite to release this rock and roll 45 of sambas, without thinking too much or over-producing the thing. “Prudence? Don’t talk to me about prudence!” 😉
-Tim Bernardes, 2025
Rumah Sakit were a four-piece rock band based in San Francisco, CA. The group began to take shape in 1998 after guitarist John Baez, bassist Kenseth Thibideau and drummer, Jeff Shannon, all moved from Redlands to San Francisco. Fully formed once guitarist Mitch Cheney quickly joined, the band settled on the name Rumah Sakit – a literal Indonesian translation of “sick room” (aka hospital) – and a sound that fused the frenetic energy of Red-era King Crimson with a meditative melodicism that starkly contrasted the vast majority of so-called “math-rock” bands of the era. Soon thereafter, Rumah Sakit entered the studio for the first time to record what would become their eponymous debut album. Rumah Sakit was recorded in 1999 at The Music Annex – a hallowed megaplex that counts diverse icons such as Erik Satie, The Tubes, Michael Hedges, Montrose, and American Music Club amongst its many historical clients – in two somewhat clandestine overnight sessions with good friends and studio interns, Jay & Ian Pellicci. The album was made with a “no tricks” philosophy that would come to define the band’s approach to performing and documenting their music. Recorded entirely live with no overdubs in very few takes, the band embraced the art of using the natural presence of the room and strategic gear placement to capture the purest and most accurate representation of those songs in those moments. In an era that was quickly being transformed by the burgeoning popularity of ProTools and meticulously manicured, maximalist mixes, the world inside of Rumah Sakit was a refreshing respite. A year later, in the fall of 2000, Rumah Sakit flew renowned Chicago recording engineer and Shellac bassist, Bob Weston, out to San Francisco to spend two brief days recording an EP at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Recording. This EP would be released as part of Temporary Residence’s subscription-based CD series, Travels In Constants (alongside Mogwai, Low, Explosions In The Sky, Eluvium, and MONO). Aside from the original pressing of 1,000 CDs reserved for subscribers, the studio recordings on Travels In Constants were never available again on any format or platform. Reuniting with Bob Weston to meticulously remaster the original master tapes, Rumah Sakit 25 collects the band’s debut album and their long out-of-print Travels In Constants EP into one exceptional package. Featuring new cover art from old friends and collaborators, Jeremiah Maddock and Marty Anderson, the expansive gatefold 2xLP includes full-color printed inner sleeves featuring hundreds of previously unpublished photos documenting this inspired early era in the band’s history, as well as a massive full-size 24-page art book of previously unpublished artwork by Maddock. It’s an exquisite opus that masterfully captures a special band at a special time.
Garment Dyed T--sh
| S | M | L | |
| length | 66.0 | 71.0 | 73.0 |
| width | 47.0 | 52.0 | 54.0 |
| sleeve length | 18.0 | 21.0 | 22.0 |
| shoulder width | 46.0 | 50.0 | 52.0 |
Vanligt Folk unleashes their most daring work yet with Dischorealism, a wild mix of crabby 2-step rhythms, echoing yowls, and noisy club shapes. Following their 2017 release Palle Bondo, the Swedish trio continue to blur the lines between noise, club, and outsider pop, crafting a sound unlike any other.
This time, they focus on tight, groove-driven beats, while maintaining their signature weirdness with gravelly dub-noise textures, twisted hooks, and unsettling, possessed vocals. Exploring themes of friendship, sex, violence, and drug abuse, Dischorealism takes an impressionistic approach, leaving ideas open to interpretation and creating an eerie atmosphere that works on both the dancefloor and in more intimate settings.
With over a dozen tracks in 42 minutes, the album pulls from a range of influences—from fellow Scandinavians SHXCXCHCXSH to the dissonant, lo-fi worlds of V/Vm and Börft—but remains unmistakably Vanligt Folk. Highlights include the blunted 2-step of ‘DISKDASKO’, the acid-tinged ‘ÜNG GÜD’, and the peculiar odd-pop textures of ‘TJUF’. It’s an album that keeps you guessing, always on the edge of something strange.
One of the most expansive instrumental Hip Hop series to date, MF DOOM’s lauded Special Herbs collection assembles a mountainous collection of his beats, ranging from series exclusives to slightly reworked favorites he produced for himself and others. Released under the alias Metal Fingers, Special Herbs succeeds at capturing DOOM’s highly influential sound which continually breaks and reinterprets the rules of the game in favor of The Super-Villain. The world is a treasure trove of sounds, and the Metal-Fingered DOOM accepts no limits; ’70s Soul/Funk classic, ’80s R&B hits, rap nostalgia, and even soundbites from children’s records & TV all find their place in the ingredients needed to perfect his recipes.
When DOOM reemerged on the scene in the 90s, he firmly marked his return, capturing the theory of knowing the rules if only to better break them.
That sentiment was captured not only in his unique writing method, but also in his production style that birthed the moniker Metal Fingers. He seamlessly blended creative ingenuity with the all-too-obvious, and a unique ability to sample things oft-considered off limits, yet still create magic.
The 10 volume Special Herbs instrumental series captures a key moment in time of Metal Fingers DOOM as producer, assembling, and sometimes slightly reworking, select beats from albums such as MM..Food, Operation: Doomsday, & King Geedorah, as well as a collection of exclusive beats.
When DOOM reemerged on the scene in the 90s, he firmly marked his return, capturing the theory of knowing the rules if only to better break them.
That sentiment was captured not only in his unique writing method, but also in his production style that birthed the moniker Metal Fingers. He seamlessly blended creative ingenuity with the all-too-obvious, and a unique ability to sample things oft-considered off limits, yet still create magic.
The 10 volume Special Herbs instrumental series captures a key moment in time of Metal Fingers DOOM as producer, assembling, and sometimes slightly reworking, select beats from albums such as MM..Food, Operation: Doomsday, & King Geedorah, as well as a collection of exclusive beats.
When DOOM reemerged on the scene in the 90s, he firmly marked his return, capturing the theory of knowing the rules if only to better break them.
That sentiment was captured not only in his unique writing method, but also in his production style that birthed the moniker Metal Fingers. He seamlessly blended creative ingenuity with the all-too-obvious, and a unique ability to sample things oft-considered off limits, yet still create magic.
The 10 volume Special Herbs instrumental series captures a key moment in time of Metal Fingers DOOM as producer, assembling, and sometimes slightly reworking, select beats from albums such as MM..Food, Operation: Doomsday, & King Geedorah, as well as a collection of exclusive beats.
Strut presents Mulatu Plays Mulatu, the first major studio album in over 10 years from the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke.
Featuring masterful new arrangements of some of his classic compositions, Mulatu Plays Mulatu finds Mulatu revisiting the sounds that helped to change the face of Ethiopian music during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The album was recorded between London and Addis Ababa, working with his long-standing UK band, a tight, intuitive ensemble honed through years of live performance, alongside cultural musicians resident at his Jazz Village club in Addis.
Mulatu Plays Mulatu realises Mulatu’s long-term vision of Ethio-jazz, intricately balancing Western jazz arrangements with the rich sounds of traditional Ethiopian instruments including the krar, masenqo, washint, kebero and begena. Throughout the album, he reshapes familiar material with rich textures, expanded improvisations and a deepened rhythmic complexity, creating a body of work that feels as vital and contemporary as it does steeped in tradition. Familiar compositions like ‘Yekermo Sew’, ‘Netsanet’ and the celebratory ‘Kulun’ are reinvented here as elegant big band performances.
“Ethio-jazz brings us together and makes us one,” explains Mulatu. “This album is the culmination of my work bringing this music to the world and pays respect to our unsung heroes, the original musical scientists in Ethiopia who gave us our cultural music.”
Bridging continents and generations throughout his 50-year career, Astatke now offers us an invitation to hear his music again, with a completely fresh perspective. Ethio-jazz, like its creator, is always in motion.
Mulatu Plays Mulatu was produced by Dexter Story and features contemporary artists LA-based artists Carlos Niño and Kibrom Birhane. The album was recorded and mixed by Isabel Gracefield at RAK Studios in London and by Dexter Story in Addis. The inspired album artwork was created by acclaimed Oslo-based Ethiopian artist, Wendimagegn Belete with photography by Alexis Maryon.