NEW ARRIVALS
1316 products
Pulse is Qur'an Shaheed's debut for Leaving Records —as a pianist, poet, and vocalist from Pasadena, based in Inglewood— she fuses formal classical training with a deep commitment to improvisation. Guided by spurts of instinctual, jazzy vocalization and lyrics that incant dreams of an exalted future, Pulse transcends genre, capturing a journey toward presence, revelation, and a liberated poetics of sound. Through this album, Shaheed offers looping reflections on transformation and acceptance, revealing the fruitful arc of her artistic growth.
Shaheed's musical journey began in a family of musicians, led by her mother, Sharon, a pianist and music school owner, and her father, Nolan Shaheed, who toured with Stevie Wonder and was Marvin Gaye’s music director. Introduced to the piano at the age of four, she trained rigorously, laying a foundation of discipline and technical skill that has now evolved into a freer form of spontaneous, genre-defying expression. Shaheed’s musical practice is an extension of her world—playful, bold, undaunted. A fluid approach to fashion—colorful, deconstructed pieces, geometric piercings, and intricate tattoos—mirrors their creative philosophy, where compositions dissolve into iridescent soundscapes.
Produced by Spencer Hartling at his Altadena studio, “Wiggle World,” Pulse reveals the synergy between Shaheed and Hartling. His tape looping and improvisational production imbue the record with a transfixing vibrancy and otherworldly glitches, showcasing a palpable collaboration that is equal parts immersive and omnivalent, with each element harmoniously intertwining to elevate the overall sound. “Spencer really helped solidify the demos that I had created. He truly added the magic. I had seen him perform a few times, and I loved his improvisation,” Shaheed shares. The album also features Maia Harper on flute and harp, adding hypnotic textures that deepen its emotional scope.
Pulse builds on the groundwork laid by her 2020 release, Process, but ventures far beyond, embodying the vulnerable evolution that Shaheed describes as “meeting myself where I was,” in reverberant explorations of longing and imagination. The album’s title lays the conceptual groundwork for an immersive aliveness echoed track after track. This record emerged from Shaheed’s desire to create fluid music that reflects the evolving self, unconstrained by convention or expectation. Beginning with late-night demo sessions, she experimented outside of digital audio workstations, using her keyboard and a Roland SP-404 sampler to craft each track. Shaheed’s ethereal vocals, shifting from dreamlike whispers to bold intensity, blend among jagged keys and neo-soul elucidations. “Improvising let me be free of expectation,” Shaheed reflects. “I wanted to make something that wasn’t bound by themes.”
Lyrically, Pulse traces the limits of felt presence and weaves threads of sempiternal connection, using poetic reflections written in Shaheed’s phone's notes app. Each track extends an invitation to both meditate and move. Tracks like “Dream” resonate with premonition and discernment: “I still dream. You can’t take away the things that I know. In my mind I know, I know.” Forging an effortless path for listeners to enter a portal of psychic reconfiguration and reflection. “I wanted each track to feel like a different window into my mind,” she says. Diaristic fragments and collaged production cues offer a window beyond Shaheed’s mind, calling into a transformative world. In “Doo Doo Doo,” listeners are invited to imagine an expanded existence through an unflinching manifesto: “I’m not here to help you. I’m not here to pull you up (no no no). I’m not here for you. I’m here for me. Enough for the jobs that won’t even pay me.” Simultaneously in devotion to self and critique of labor exploitation, Shaheed connects varied pieces—verse by verse—to a coherent future vision where liberation starts now.
Shaheed draws inspiration from movement, breath, and community: “Finding my flow—that’s when inspiration comes.” The record’s eleven tracks illuminate Shaheed’s resolve for wide-ranging, innovative musical techniques that merge intuitive composition with methodical devotion. Pulse is a spirited, unflinching approach to a new sound from Shaheed, inviting listeners into a field of lucid vision and resonance, capturing Shaheed’s voice in its most liberated form.
Harry the Nightgown return with Ugh, their second album and most ambitious work to date — a fizzing fusion of hyperpop, experimental electronics and avant-pop songwriting. Now a trio, the group features original members Spencer Hartling (aka tp Dutchkiss, founder of Wiggle World studio) and Sami Perez (Cherry Glazerr, Jerry Paper, The She’s), joined by DIY harmony obsessive Luke Macdonald, also a touring member of Cherry Glazerr.
Five years on from their self-titled debut, the band embrace imperfection with open arms, crafting an eleven-song record packed with warped hooks, dense production, and flashes of emotional vulnerability. Released on Leaving Records, Ugh takes cues from artists like Björk, fka twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tirzah and Vegyn, but filters them through Harry the Nightgown’s own playful, fractured lens.
When you’re running a label, a demo occasionally comes across your desk that makes you reconsider everything you thought your label was all about. For Balmat, such was the case with this stunning album from Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, and Hahn Rowe. It sounds like nothing we’ve released so far—and that very otherness opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us.
Fans of ambient, experimental electronic music, and sound art will be familiar with Vitiello, a New York native, long based in Virginia, who has collaborated with a cross-generational list of greats: Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Lawrence English, Tetsu Inoue, Nam June Paik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. On labels like 12k, Room40, and Sub Rosa, he has explored a wide range of minimalism, microsound, lowercase, ambient, improv, and other styles. But this album is something different. It may begin in ambient-adjacent territory, but it quickly veers off, and it just keeps zigzagging, taking on elements of krautrock, post-punk, dub, and the groove-heavy interplay of groups like Natural Information Society and 75 Dollar Bill.
This stylistic turn is thanks in large part to Vitiello’s choice of collaborators. “We’re coming from three different schools,” Vitiello says: “sound art, art rock, and punk rock.”
Active since the early 1980s, Rowe—a violinist, guitarist, and producer/engineer—has played with, or manned the boards for, a frankly jaw-dropping list of musicians: Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Roy Ayers, John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Swans, Live Skull, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Anohni, R.E.M., Yoko Ono, and many more. But he might be most closely associated with Hugo Largo, a one-of-a-kind New York quartet—two basses, vocals, and Rowe’s violin—that in the late 1980s helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become known as post-rock.
Canty, of course, is the legendary drummer of Fugazi, the visionary DC post-hardcore group, as well as Rites of Spring before them, and, currently, the Messthetics, a Dischord-signed instrumental trio with guitarist Anthony Pirog and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally.
Vitiello’s trio first collaborated on First, a 17-minute piece released on the Longform Editions label in 2023. Second picks up where the freeform drift of First left off, channeling the trio’s exploratory energies into more intentionally structured tracks and—in a real first for Balmat—some almost shockingly muscular grooves.
“Sometimes my projects are more conceptually driven,” Vitiello says, “but I think this was more musically geared. I just wanted to open up the references and bring in an incredible drummer, bring in some melodies, and I’m sort of the center.” But his collaborators, he stresses, are “vastly creative in making anything I might suggest better.”
Like its predecessor, Second took shape in phases, shifting between improvisation and collage. Vitiello laid down the skeleton of the music at home, sketching out initial ideas on Rhodes keyboard and acoustic and electric guitar; he then fed the parts through samplers and his modular system, recording 10- or 20-minute jams. Once he had edited them into more structured forms, he hit the studio with Canty, who added not just drums but also bass and piano; finally, Vitiello took the results of those sessions to Rowe, who played violin, viola, electric bass, and 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and assisted in some of the final structuring and mixdown.
A few more surprises along the way: Reanimator’s Don Godwin, the studio engineer where Vitiello recorded with Canty, contributed what he calls “resonant dustpan”; and none other than Animal Collective’s Geologist, who just happened to be in the studio that day, sits in on hurdy gurdy on “Mrphgtrs1,” the album’s gorgeous, stunningly atmospheric drone closer. “I love these chance encounters,” Vitiello says. “Somebody I admire, a group I admire—that was an unexpected gift.”
An unexpected gift is a great way of describing Second as a whole: three veteran musicians venturing outside their usual zones and finding a new collaborative language together. The results can’t be neatly slotted into any given genre; they belong not to any given category, but to the spirit of conversation itself.
Salamanda and Tristan Arp lend effervescent reworks to key numbers off the gossamer-spun debut of ambient electronica by Singapore/London’s Yingtuitive, all flyaway strands of gamelan, flickering pulses and 8-bit circuitry given an emotive warmth and quiet strength...
“Singapore-born, London-based producer yingtuitive introduces herself with Letters To Self 寫情書, a deeply personal debut LP arriving on Will Hofbauer’s Third Place.
A classically trained pianist whose musical identity draws from Southeast Asian traditions, electronic experimentation, and diasporic reflection, yingtuitive crafts soundscapes that feel both intimate and expansive. The project is accompanied by two stunning reworks from esteemed creators: South Korean ambient duo Salamanda, known for their lush, meditative textures, and US artist Tristan Arp, celebrated for his organic, shape-shifting productions.
“Every musical moment in this album is essentially a letter to my self in some form…” - yingtuitive
Across eight original compositions, Letters To Self 寫情書 unfolds as a sonic diary, a search inward, a series of tender emotional missives to the self. Gamelan-inspired textures glimmer alongside field recordings captured in Singapore and the UK, while delicate, improvised piano passages echo memories of home. These elements intertwine with fragments of film samples and experimental electronics, resulting in tracks that glide through ambient, ethereal, and blissful terrains. It’s music that floats and envelops, as though nature itself had grown into sound, serene and rich in emotional resonance.
Written during a period of deep reflection, the album meditates on identity, homesickness, belonging, and the overwhelming noise of the world outside. Each piece feels like a still moment within chaos, a soft conversation between past and present selves, where harmony emerges from internal conflict. From angelic piano melodies to glitchy bursts of experimentalism, yingtuitive bridges her Singaporean roots and UK influences with blissful grace. Letters To Self 寫情書 marks not just a debut release, but the formation of a unique musical voice, gliding between cultural languages with honesty, vulnerability, and quiet strength.”
Quickly following March’s The Fool - our label debut - Sa Pa reveals his new album Ambeesh on Short Span.
Coming five years after In A Landscape, and nearly a decade since his debut Fuubutsushi, Ambeesh is a collection of Sa Pa’s unreleased work.
Written between 2014-2019, the album has been conceptually curated as a follow up to his FORUM debut. Ambeesh possesses the unique language and liveliness of ambient, layered field recordings, and dub techno found in those earlier records, with those seamless skydives through pressure formations that were found on the Enter Sa Pa mix.
These pieces have been crackling under the surface of Sa Pa’s released work to date and there’s little else that compares. It’s a cache of some of his deepest and most texturally thrilling music.
Singular in its combination of atmosphere; Ambeesh presses on the body at the right volume, and moves in thrust and riposte with the listener’s circadian rhythms. Sa Pa continues to dissolve the border between club-informed experimentation and intimate headphone listening.
Ambeesh marks the artist’s return to his homeland Australia and an exciting new chapter.
Iranian-Irish co-op Saint Abdullah & Eomac dissect and reshape reams of Persian pop in gritty, hip hop and deco-club leaning electronica frameworks, speckled with live drums and original vocals
“In ‘Of No Fixed Abode,’ Saint Abdullah and Eomac extend their experimentation with genre dissolution to press upon the tensions that exist between culture, place, and migration. This fourth collaborative LP addresses the inherent fluidity of cultural memory, accepting our inability to remain fixed in the past, and explores how best to carry its spirit forward into an ambiguous future.
Through extensive research into 50 years of Persian pop, they meticulously reinterpret the legacies of artists like Andy, Hayedeh, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad, refracting samples by way of gritty beat work-outs akin to more contemporary musicians like Rezzett and Madlib. Through extensive archival research and sampling, they recontextualise these iconic melodies, placing reverie and frenetic drum programming in conversation with one another in a fashion that seeks to express a sense of two disparate tendencies cohabiting together, all while refusing homogenization. This reimagining extends beyond mere homage, serving as a conduit for exploring the narratives of migrant experiences, both in the UK and globally.
Sonically ‘Of No Fixed Abode’ plays with new sampling techniques, utilising the quick-fire intensity of the Roland SP404 with the cool precision of digital DAWs, and features collaborations with drummer Jason Nazary, sound artist Aria Rostami (both New York based), New Zealand-based mHz, and a vocal collaboration with London-based artist and musician Raheel Khan.”
California and New York aren't the only US cities to have pioneered underground hip-hop over the years. Back in the nineties, southern states such as Memphis, Tennessee were also hotbeds for the fast evolving musical phenomenon. As we push on into the second millenium; from the swathes of short-run, tape-only releases that came out in the 1990's, some are at last being cut to vinyl. Shawty Pimp and the Big Pimpin' Productions crew were brought to international ears in 2014 when his album 'Comin' Real Wit It' was pressed to vinyl and sold out in the blink of an eye. Gyptology Records (a new Europe-based Hip-Hop and Egyptian Archaology styled re-issue label) now present a vinyl pressing of the 1995 sequel; 'Still Comin' Real'. Here are eleven original, raw rap cuts, remastered and restored with love. Available June 2018 for the first time in the format that never goes out of style. Vinyl only for now and in one short-run only, no represses. Produced with the full consent and participation of the artists.
A compilation of DEEP gospel from the 1960's and 1970's. all culled from the vaults of DJ Jumbo and Pyramid Records. This is the real stuff - all guitar forward ballads that address existential issues. As healing a record as there ever could be. Cover art by the great Lonnie Holley!
Country, township jazz, and pop hits from the height of Zambia’s freedom movement. Vocalist, guitarist, and bandleader Alick Nkhata moved effortlessly between lonesome country slide, big band pop, and air-tight vocal harmonies, all with roots in Bemba and other African traditional songs and rhythms. It’s a dizzying, inclusive, expansive blend from an artist and music archivist who became the voice of his nation’s fight for freedom. The lyrics and music represent the times - lonesome country laments like “Nafwaya Fwaya” and “Fosta Kayi” drift along the railways to urban centers and copper mines. “Nalikwebele Sonka (I Told You Sonka)”, sung in “deep-Bemba” pairs honey-soaked yodels with a warning about the downward spiral of unemployment in townships, while Mayo Na Bwalya’ (Mother of Bwalya) is a mother’s plea to a traditional songbird for guidance of her wayward son. Songs like “Shalapo,” “Kalindawalo Na Mfumwa,” and his biggest hit, “Imbote,” infuse piano, big band horns, and even early electronic instruments into stunning syncretic pop masterpieces. Despite Nkhata’s role in Zambian independence and his influence on future generations of African artists, this LP is the first time his music is being reissued on vinyl. We’re honored to work closely with Alick Nkhata’s family, as well as with collectors around the world who provided some of the rare recordings. Music archivist, researcher, and NTS host Jamal Khadar wrote in-depth liner notes spanning the history of Zambian independence, and noted Zambian author and translator Ellen Banda-Aaku provides careful and deeply researched lyric translations. On high-quality black vinyl with deluxe 12-page booklet with unpublished photos, lyrics, translations, and liner notes written by NTS radio host Jamal Khadar.
Majestic Fantasies, debut album from the duo Space Ghost & Teddy Bryant, is the second release on Space Ghost’s new record label, Peace World Records. Produced by Space Ghost, with Teddy Bryant’s powerful vocals at the forefront, this new album sees the two artists effortlessly blend their shared influences from the late '80s and early '90s.
Over three years in the making, in Majestic Fantasies Space Ghost & Teddy Bryant look to the past for inspiration as they explore genres, techniques, and moods. Across the record, Bryant’s vocals shine as he demonstrates a strong ability to create memorable nostalgic hooks and catchy backing harmonies. Similarly, Ghost displays his knack for dissecting vintage production tropes and breathing life into them in a modern context.
Filled with underground, soulful gems, Majestic Fantasies draws deeply from the duo's passion for R&B, UK Street Soul, New Jack Swing, House, and G-Funk. Their 10-track LP freely blends these genres, paying homage to song writers like Teddy Riley, Jam & Lewis, Carl McIntosh, and DeVante Swing. On the album you’ll find tracks like “Some Things Last Forever” which explore New Jack Swing drum patterns and vocal hooks. Additionally the record holds dancefloor-ready House tracks including “Majestic Fantasies”’ and “Unconditional” which sit side by side with heartfelt ballads such as “Cheer Me Up,” and “Ultimate Love.”
Although the two have never met in person, Space Ghost and Teddy Bryant still find a way to connect through their music. Throughout the album, they demonstrate a mutual understanding of the sound they like to produce together: tasteful and playful love songs that feel positive and optimistic, bringing classic songwriting styles from the past into the modern music landscape.
Prolific Geordie acid and braindance producer Daniel Pringle aka The Jaffa Kid showcases a spectrum of mutating styles shared with Mike Paradinas, RDJ, Jega, Luke Slater or Plaid
Behind 100s of releases since he really got going in the 2020s, The Jaffa Kid’s prodigious output is here parsed for a carousel of flavours that prove his strength in diversity and a restless work rate generating quality results. Like the best braindancers he balances club needs and tropes with something tripper, headier in his melodic and harmonic arrangements, which favour piquant, microtonal tunings and psychoacoustic space over straightforward conventions.
Like the touchstones of µ-Ziq or AFX and their ilk, TJK expresses a certain strangeness of coming from this island in his reading of electronica as contemporary folk, and braindance as its wyrdest facet, modally fusing and acknowledging the input of successive waves of influence on these shores. There’s a wickedly eyrie electronic soul at play across the LP from the likes of his Gescom or BoC-esque pads and whirring breaks on ‘IOAM’, and hits of Plaid’s syncopated intricacies on ‘Colobia’, with fast-fwd Rephlex/Planet Mu rave in ‘241’ and jega-esque ‘Infinite Chasers’, saving highlights to the sounds of a ticklish robot in ‘Night Unfolding’ and a smart braindance update on modern D&B frameworks in ‘Extol II.’
Noisy, surreal and uncompromisingly idiosyncratic, The Shadow Ring's 1997-released 'Hold Onto I.D.' is a perennially misunderstood rust spot in their discography, marked by Graham Lambkin's choked free-form poetry and Tim Goss's eerie Radiophonic oscillations.
Squeezed between '96's 'Wax-Work Echoes', founder members Lambkin and Darren Harris's first album with keyboard player Goss, and '99's dark, concept-driven double album 'Lighthouse', it's easy to understand why 'Hold Onto I.D.' is one of The Shadow Ring's most overlooked full-lengths. Listening now, it falls perfectly into place; if they were playing fast and loose with the possibilities on 'Wax-Work...' and exploring new territory with 'Lighthouse', this is the point where Lambkin, Harris and Goss were able to take stock, augmenting the Bolan-goes-Jandek crankiness of 'City Lights' and its snotty follow-up 'Put the Music in its Coffin' with frazzled, hot-wired electronics and isolationist, paranoiac reflections. "You've got to learn the difference between sweat and dew," Harris deadpans on opener 'Watch the Water'. "You've got black lakes forming on your floor, and the dusty brown rug from decades or so ago becomes hot spot for shrimp and nautical foe."
Lambkin's muculent tales of small-town boredom ink a rough outline of Folkestone, the somnolent coastal town where the band lived, contrasting literal decay with asphyxiating cultural emptiness. On previous records, The Shadow Ring had sounded as if they were delivering their own discrete reading of British rock, but the music falls away from the figurative even further here. The gunky, detuned riffs are there just to prop up the stern, psycho-satirical lyrics (guitars would disappear completely by 'Lighthouse'), and any rhythms have become little more than side-room ambient clatter. It's Goss's piercing, terror-stricken monosynth keens that take pride of place, forming an uncomfortable bed of anxious electronics that buzzes beneath the entire record. Lambkin and Harris break and bend their acoustic instruments as if they're speaking to the synth sounds from a similar vantage points, like forgotten remnants of British folk history.
A disheveled piano is tapped at furtively on 'Wash What You Eat', and dissonant chords crack awkwardly from a cheap acoustic guitar; Goss's swirling, pitchy warbles sound as if they've been pulled from a Quatermass re-run and copy-pasted with cheap cassette. And it's the fact that we're served this inner vision of humdrum British surrealism - a no-hope fantasized hi-culture/lo-culture melt fueled by tapes, fanzines and overdue library books - that makes it so enduringly good. Lambkin, Harris and Goss weren't pretentiously trying to affix their images onto concepts earmarked for the elite, they were working in their own damp, festering cinematic universe and presenting it warts 'n all. It's fucking timeless.
Originally conceived as a compilation of outtakes and live recordings from The Shadow Ring’s 1995 stateside tour, Wax-Work Echoes takes its name from the first line of “Put the Music in Its Coffin,” the title track of the group’s breakthrough release. Lambkin abandons the bits-and-bobs approach, advancing the Shadow Ring concept with entirely original material that builds on the unit’s self-mythologizing lyrics, celebrates the clicking of horse hooves, ponders on the sociability of rats and mice, and warns of the dangers of poultry. The first Shadow Ring album to officially include Tim Goss in the main lineup, Wax-Work Echoes reveals the group in its final and lasting form, awash in the outer bounds of atmospheric exploration, with Lambkin’s familiar wry and morbid lyricism and the stripped-down angularity of amateurishly detuned guitars fully intact. While Klaus Canterbury and Tony Clark seem all but forgotten, and the shrugged off S. Fritz is listed on the liner notes as performing only “when required,” Lambkin did solicit contributions from outside the inner circle. A bit of “Mambo Twist,” lifted from a tape of unreleased Vitamin B12 material sent to Lambkin by Alasdair Willis, found its way into “V.E.R.M.I.N.,” while an extended epistle contribution from Richard Youngs (and, technically, Brian Lavelle) would be employed in the second half of “Catching Sight/Of Passing Things.”
Released on CD in 1996 for Bruce Russell’s newly minted Corpus Hermeticum, Wax-Work Echoes was recorded concurrently with intense rehearsal periods, in anticipation of the forthcoming “Rose Watson Tour,” and was supported by a celebratory fanzine media blitz. The album seemingly absorbs the frenetic excess of the band’s transatlantic travels; Wax-Work Echoes channels the trio’s wilder instincts into an unresolved catharsis, not yet free of frustration or restlessness. Out of print for almost three decades and available here for the first time ever on long-playing disc, Wax-Work Echoes is a classic from the outer eddies of The Shadow Ring’s sound, a must-have for any aficionado’s collection: “A window slides, glass slips from frame / And canvas carcass breathes again.”
Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, The Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7"s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning in 2023 with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre–Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions has been conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group. Wax-Work Echoes and Hold Onto I.D. are the latest releases in a multiyear reissue effort that includes several LPs, a comprehensive CD box set, and a nearly five-hundred-page book.
"First vinyl reissue of this Indian classical masterpiece recorded by Shrimati Kalyani Roy in the late 1960s. Undoubtedly one of the most talented sitar players in the history of the instrument. She is considered as one the finest female players in a field that was dominated by her male counterparts. On these recordings, a two-volume set, she is accompanied by Manick Das (tabla) and Namita Chatterjee (tambura). Recorded in Japan on September 20th, 1974. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (V 2011LP) come as two separate LPs."
Frighteningly young Tennessee-born free jazz prodigy Zoh Amba follows collaborations with Chris Corsano, Bill Orcutt, William Parker and Matthew Shipp with a blistered debut solo set for Smalltown Supersound. RIYL Peter Brötzmann, Albery Ayler or David Murray.
Since 2022, Amba's released a frightening amount of music, including solo albums for Tzadik and 577 Records, and various live oddities, experiments and ensemble efforts - not bad for a San Francisco Conservatory of Music dropout. Of course, there's more to the story than that; after dropping out, Amba took private lessons from legendary saxophonist Murray, who seems to have guided her spirit. And Amba doesn't just play the horn, she's well-known for flipping between instruments during her live shows, often playing the sax with one hand while she plays piano with the other.
She takes it a little slower on 'Sun', leaving some of the work to her her Sun Quartet (Lex Korten on piano, Caroline Morton on bass and Miguel Marcel Russell on drums), who just about match her energy. Dedicating her performance to the creator - Amba is a practicing Hindu - and to the late, great Peter Brötzmann, she captures the unplaceable energy of classic free jazz. It's easy to hear why she was so quickly courted by John Zorn and Bill Orcutt. Over eight short tracks, Amba shows us her personality as a horn player (and a guitarist on the celestial 'Champa Flower'), and lets her emotions pour out on the long final jam, 'In Heart', bending her notes through Korten's jagged piano hits.
フィラデルフィア・ソウルの名門〈Salsoul〉より、Ron Hardyによる伝説のリエディットが正規復刻。ディスコ〜ハウスを越境して愛され続けるFirst Choiceのクラシック「Let No Man Put Asunder」を、シカゴ・ハウスの先駆者Ron Hardyがよりフロア志向に再構築！ミニマルなループとグルーヴの増幅によって、原曲のエモーショナルなソウルが陶酔的なダンス・ナラティヴへと変貌。ディスコ史とハウスの系譜を繋ぐ重要盤です。〈Salsoul〉による正規12インチ復刻。
The 2018 live performance captured on Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s 'Chicago Waves' marked a beautiful turning point for International Anthem. The moment was recorded at our then-HQ in Chicago, Co-Prosperity, the day after Niño and Atwood-Ferguson performed as part of Makaya McCraven’s ensemble to celebrate the release of 'Universal Beings' and recreate their contributions to that album's “Los Angeles Side."
The two musicians were keen to use their time in Chicago to not only support Makaya's music but also create and present fresh sounds of their own to a receptive new community. In many ways this set of improvisational, exploratory conversation between Atwood-Ferguson’s violin/effects and Niño’s percussion/soundscapes cemented the growing interchange between International Anthem's bases in LA and the Windy City.
The 2020 release of this recording as 'Chicago Waves' magnified the unmistakable sound of togetherness audible in its grooves in a way that was uniquely cathartic given the difficulties, restrictions, and widespread social isolation of those times. But as that era fades further into the rearview mirror, 'Chicago Waves' maintains its power. It’s not a mystery—this is what togetherness sounds like.
The IA11 Edition LP features our IARC 2025 obi strip, plus a new 16-page 11x11" insert booklet with additional photos and extensive new liner notes by IARC co-founder Scott McNiece.
Irreversible Entanglements’s self-titled debut album was originally released in September 2017, and features the first music ever played together by the freshly assembled Philly/NY/DC-based quintet of poet Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), bassist Luke Stewart, saxophonist Keir Neuringer, trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, and drummer Tcheser Holmes. The explosive collection of improvised free-jazz with spoken word accompaniment was born after the group's initial meeting at a Musicians Against Police Brutality event (organized by musicians/comrades Amirtha Kidambi and Peter Evans following the state-sponsored killing of Akai Gurley).
As the original press release puts it: “the spirit and subject the band channels and explores represent a return to a central tenet of the free jazz sound as it was founded—to be a vehicle for Black liberation. As creative and adventurous as any recording of contemporary avant-garde jazz but offering listeners no abstractions to hide behind, this is music that both honors and defies tradition, speaking to the present while insisting on the future.”
It’s that balance of honor and defiance that is so palpable in this early music of Irreversible Entanglements which, despite its system-shocking effect, sits squarely in the lineage of East Coast free jazz (often echoing the mid-1960s work of The New York Art Quartet and Amiri Baraka, among others). That line can be traced through all of the band’s recordings, including two other albums released by International Anthem (2020's Who Sent You? and 2021's Open The Gates), and their 2023 album Protect Your Light (released by Impulse! Records). Now ten years on from their first collective sound captured in the recording session for this self-titled debut, it’s clear that Irreversible Entanglements's intensity of spirit and purity of purpose influenced our label as much as it did its own community.
The IA11 Edition LP features our IARC 2025 obi strip, plus a new 8-page 11x11" insert booklet with unpublished session photos and new liner notes by Irreversible Entanglements bassist Luke Stewart.
Very different from Biosphere's last AD 93 offering, 'The Way of Time' is a freewheeling set of atmospheric vintage synth jams, dubby ambient techno experiments and decelerated electro workouts that's inspired by American poet and author Elizabeth Madox Roberts' 'The Time Of Man'. Essential listening for fans of 'Patashnik', then.
On 2021's 'Angel's Flight', Geir Jenssen focused his gaze on Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14, tweaking and stretching it to tease out its essence. He's on more familiar ground here, using Joan Lorring's voice, from a 1951 radio adaptation of 'The Time Of Man', to guide us through a spruced-up spread of his signature sounds. If you've kept up with his releases, then you'll know that the last few albums have been made with restored keyboards and drum machines - a marked shift from his period using samples and software.
'The Way Of Time' seems to follow the same path: opener 'Time Of Man' is barely more than a brassy analog lead and Lorring's smudgy voice, while the title theme (that repeats in various forms), with its acidic plucks and sequenced repetitions takes us back to Jenssen's milestone album 'Patashnik', when he set the bar for ambient techno. It's a welcome return to familiar sonics; unlike his last couple of synth-heavy albums, that sounded like fun diversions and jams, 'The Way Of Time' holds neatly together as a unit, well braided by its journeyman theme. Lorring's voice is the anchor, and Jenssen's able to refresh his most referenced material with contemporary processes and techniques.
Latency present És pregunta, the second album from Catalan vocal duo Tarta Relena. Founded by Helena Ros Redon and Marta Torrella i Martínez, Tarta Relena explores the rich vocal traditions of the Mediterranean, singing in languages such as Classical Greek, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Catalan, Ladino, and more. Their music blends sacred and secular influences, drawing inspiration from flamenco, lyrical song, traditional music, and electronic experimentation.
És pregunta dives into themes of tragic contemplation, portraying the tension between natural and human forces grappling with mysterious and inevitable consequences. The album is a conceptual journey through fate, knowledge, and the struggle to reconcile our future selves with present realities. Influenced by Mediterranean folk, Georgian laments, and the mystic works of 12th-century visionary Hildegard von Bingen, Tarta Relena crafts a vibrant sonic world where the past and future converge.
Renowned for their captivating live performances, Tarta Relena has enchanted audiences at festivals like Sónar, Le Guess Who?, Mutek, Big Ears, and Primavera Sound. Their stage presence is enriched by subtle electronics and rhythmic patterns played on a ceramic amphora, creating a unique texture to their vocal artistry. Collaborations with artists such as Marina Herlop and Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés have further pushed the duo to explore new dimensions of contemporary folk music. For Tarta Relena, folk is a living tradition – deeply rooted in the past but always evolving.
Tarta Relena will debut És pregunta live at Unsound on October 2, 2024.
« Time and distance collapse in the music of Tarta Relena. With little more than their two voices, Helena Ros and Marta Torrella connect the far corners of the Mediterranean, drawing on traditions stretching back more than a thousand years. This is music of primal essence and unnameable
longing, full of frequencies that seem to tap an ancient ache in one’s bones.» – Pitchfork