NEW ARRIVALS

From the basement of a now-condemned motorcycle gang hideout in Dayton, Ohio comes STONE COAL WHITE! Ultra-primitive and ultra raw funk with classic Ohio funky soul elements. The A-side - “Hell Below,” a cover of the Curtis Mayfield classic more closely resembles the East Of Underground version, with a furious tempo and driving wah guitar. File under Unhinged Funk. The B-side, “Free,” previously available as a 45 on the private press label Ewing from 1971 is quite literally inconceivably rare. Now, thanks to our friends at Numero Group, this two-sided heater is available for a low price...while supplies last.

ÖLÜM is a Los Angeles-based Anatolian rock and roll group led by frontman Aykut Özen of Izmir. The group brings new life to the timeless genre of Turkish folk and presents a growing repertoire of original compositions. ÖLÜM is determined to bring back the 1966-1982 golden age of Anatolian psychedelic rock, pioneered by Erkin Koray and Baris Manco., complete with fuzz guitar, Hammond and Leslie pairings, analog synths, Farfisas, melodic riffs, and strong moustaches.

Through a collaboration with Cincy label Chiefdom Records comes a fresh 45 on Colemine from Doctor Bionic. Both cuts from this 45 feel Colemine-core: funky, dirty drums, jazz keys and guitar, and a groove that just won't quit. Put "Expert Witness" on during your next DJ set and watch the floor fill up. Ohio's take on much of the funky west coast jazzy funk over the last couple of decades. Doctor Bionic is nothing short of prolific, having released over 10 albums in the last five years. Keep your eyes on this up and comer on the scene. And don't forget to flip it over for the nightcap. "Mistake" is a mellow guitar driven tune to close out the night in a melancholy way. Sparkling Rhodes, sparse guitar, and driving drums are the order of the day.

TMZ stood out as a fiercely unique presence on TRANSONIC COMPACT DISC 01 and 02, the compilation albums that marked the first standalone releases from the newly reborn TRANSONIC RECORDS. An existence that could well be called an out-of-place artifact in techno history, this debut album bridges the gap between a hidden past and the present.

Kevin Drumm’s The Mild Temper gathers over six hours of work shaped by gradual change, fine detail and sustained tones. Across six discs, he explores density, resonance and space through small, deliberate shifts rather than overt movement. Sounds emerge, recede and recombine, holding a careful balance between stillness and motion. There’s no narrative push here—just close attention to texture, duration and the physical presence of sound. The result is a cohesive, absorbing body of work that reflects the precision and focus of Drumm’s long-standing practice.

DJ Plead drops a killer 2nd LP with ‘Please’ for Oslo’s Smalltown Supersound, pursuing a 2020 debut for our lockdown series - ‘Relentless Trills’ on Documenting Sound - with a finer balance of Arabic dancehall swivel and spatio-textural tactility - big RIYL DJ Python, Lenky, Taymour, Muslimgauze. For over a decade Jarred Beeler aka DJ Plead has drawn on his heritage in a unique catalogue of productions splicing microtonal flutes and keys wth dancehall and techno rhythms for the likes of Livity Sound, AD 93, and Air Max 97’s Decisions. With ‘Please’ he picks up where his debut LP ‘Relentless Trills’ left off in 2020 on our Editions series, taking the long form canvas as an ideal place for him to ease off the club gas and open out his ideas with a heightened sensuality and romantic pathos which works a treat on swaying bodies as much as rested minds. Four years since that last solo shot, the ‘Quick EP’ for Livity Sound in ’22, and a plethora of collabs with TSVI, DJ Python, rRoxymore a.o., Plead emerges amid fellow auteurs - Actress, Barker, Jamal Moss - on Oslo’s long-running Smalltown Supersound with increased confidence in his own sound. It’s palpable in his sparing strokes of melody and unhurried pacing, coupled with a tender feel for weightless structures that are just as happy to shrug off the beats and get lost in their own thoughts as he gently grips the hips for an eyes-down shuffle. The mah-ragga-nat single ‘Ride TV’ is a perfect example of his rudely atmospheric tekkerz, and about as hard as it gets, while the rest really gives it up in lushest, hair-kissing style. His feel for richly humid, evocative ambience colours it front to back, from the seductive licks of ‘Return to Deuce’ thru the flamenco trills of ‘Traffic’, taking it to cinematic levels on the floating pads of ‘Seven Eight, Too Late’ and the Vangelisian plumes of ‘Open Era’, to aerial cat’s cradle of flutes and subs to ‘Sush’ and hand-played drums of ‘Right-on Time.’

Blues in the Mississippi Night documents a remarkable 1947 session recorded by Alan Lomax in New York, shortly after performances at his Midnight Special concert series. Featuring Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson—originally credited under pseudonyms for their safety—the recording pairs intimate performances with candid conversation. Prompted by Lomax, the musicians speak openly about racism, labour and life in the Jim Crow South, tracing the blues back to lived experience. The result is a powerful blend of music and testimony, grounded in the realities that shaped the form. Remastered from the original tapes by Lomax Archive, this edition restores the clarity and presence of the session. It stands as a vital historical document, capturing three defining voices in direct, unguarded form.

On revelations of divine love, jason calhoun’s fifth release for Dear Life Records, Calhoun has assembled an especially potent album of work that whirrs, hums, and glows. Unlike his recent output centered around extended, hypnotic compositions, the fourteen tracks here immediately request your attention and curiosity. Their concision only underscores one of his greatest strengths: the ability to capture an evaporating, fleeting moment, and hold it close. The title is a nod to British Anchoress Julian of Norwich, whose collected writing of the same title is the earliest of any woman written in English. Here it serves as a unifying theme for Calhoun's particular palette of restless textures and tentative melodies. This is personal music, to be sure, but it also feels tactile, almost taffy-like in its presentation—and with such a potent combination, it is hard to resist a smile while listening. Like when the insistent pulse grounding 'last one' suddenly changes color as yawning tones reveal themselves, or how 'eye dilation' tiptoes into the room with each note sounding like a carefully chosen step. Though never precious or fussy, the album remains resolutely intimate. Calhoun puts it plainly: “Julian of Norwich says “‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’. These days, I’ve been having my doubts that this is true. As no solution to the issue at hand, I look for the revelations of divine love in my life, and I find them--in my partner asleep on the floor in our studio, my survival of a social interaction with a stranger, being bad at chess. Don't ask me what they mean-I'm still figuring that out myself. Maybe we can figure it out together.” It is from this place of doubt, searching, and openness that the album finds its footing. When asked about the origin of the album's cover art, Calhoun explained, "I see this spot all the time on my commute home from work". A true statement of how the mundane and meaningful are interwoven, from someone who celebrates that union better than most. Unlike Julian of Norwich, Calhoun is no hermetic mystic himself-but in his daily life he works at an oncology center, doing routine but necessary work to provide treatment for those in need of it. While he might resist any analogizing, it is sincerely easy to say that Calhoun's body of work, which is only fortified by revelations of divine love, also offers care and company.

To be an attentive listener to the world as it stands is to be saturated with language. Speech resounds through nearly every space that features human beings, whether unwanted or desired, mundane or profound. Words sit on the page and in the ear, proliferating endlessly. This superabundance has long been a point of fascination for composer and musician Ben Vida, but over the past several years it has led to a new method of music making that simultaneously exalts and interrogates the primacy of language in our sonic and cultural environments. Gently, playfully, Vida breaks down language’s hierarchy of meaning and sound until they exist in egalitarian harmony. Oblivion Seekers is Vida’s newest album in this mode of composition, following 2023’s collaboration with new music ensemble Yarn/Wire The Beat My Head Hit. Like its predecessor, the music’s focus is on coordinated duets of spoken word in a neutral tone, the variable cadences of the words in motion creating complex internal rhythmic structures. He is joined by the voices of Nina Dante, Christina Vantzou, John Also Bennett, and Félicia Atkinson, creating a singular tone that is neither theirs nor his, fluid in its gender presentation, accent, and diction. The instrumental compositions that form the album’s understory have the casual flow of dialogue, conversational but subdued, rarely the agent of change. Here, Vida likewise called upon an accomplished community of players to accompany him: Dante on harp, Bennett on bass flute, Matt Bauder and Will Epstein on saxophones, Henry Fraser on bass, Cleek Schrey on violin, and Booker Stardrum on percussion. These elements form lattice-like structures that the text darts in and around, often adhering to downbeats but otherwise moving freely within each lilting phrase. A tranquil, focused temperament persists, enhanced by the reserved cadence of the voices that makes it feel as if the music is one long mantra that never quite reaches back to its genesis point. The effect is entrancing, equally soporific and gripping, implying repetition without ever moving exactly the same way twice. The instrumentation on each of the album’s four pieces varies; “Be Yr Own Abyss” is defined by the wave-like counterpoint of saxophones, while the ambiguous chime of vibraphone floats over “Oblivion Seekers” and Fraser’s swelling bass provides the album’s sole dramatic entrance. The music shifts in the ear as the text constantly redefines and recontextualizes the composition’s form and movement, even as it remains consistent in its otherworldly glow. The text is often drawn from snippets of language that Vida encountered throughout his life as he was composing: overheard mumblings from the supermarket line, impactful phrases from a novel he was reading, impressions of the music that wouldn’t leave his turntable. Small details, otherwise insignificant, accumulate not to form a narrative, but an impression of the complex meaning-making process that happens as one lives day to day. Characters and scenes flicker in and out of the frame, and phrases that beg to be unpacked are allowed to glide by. In “Be Yr Own Abyss” something like a thesis appears without fanfare: “Her tongue was out to kill her / all hail this mental space / constructing ambiguity / and the endless stream.” On two separate occasions the listener is told that waves are heading our way. There are many predecessors to these types of novel confluences of music and speech. Vida’s love of Robert Ashley is well documented, but perhaps even more significant are Mark E. Smith and The Fall, Neil Tennant and the Pet Shop Boys’ spoken verses, the entire history of hip hop, Meredith Monk. The way the words are delivered matters just as much as the words themselves, revealing an intentionality and directness that Vida highlights and subverts with the text’s abstract construction patterns. On Oblivion Seekers, the omnidirectional din is the marble Vida chips away at to illuminate the way we process the vast strangeness of the world. Its triumph is that we lose none of the beautiful mystery of how these signs bridge our external and internal worlds.

Graze the Bell is a collection of soul-stirring, mesmerizing solo piano pieces, and the most distilled offering of David Moore’s artistry to date. Known for his atmospheric compositions with Bing & Ruth, as well as his collaborations with guitarist Steve Gunn and Cowboy Sadness, this marks Moore’s first widely shared solo piano album. Using the piano to meditatively inquire into the human condition, Graze the Bell is a sanctuary of sound, and an invitation for listeners to meet him in the present moment.

Key importers/translators of Japanese Kankyō Ongaku to the Western world, Visible Cloaks present a fine new bouquet of digital flowers pruned in-the-mix with help from Lifted’s Joe Williams and arranged with input by Félicia Atkinson, Yoshio Ojima, and Satsuki Shibano. Ryan Carlile & Spencer Doran’s Visible Cloaks have been instrumental in bridging the rarified world of ’80s Japanese environmental ambient and its modern offshoots since their self-titled debut of 2015. Their ‘Fairlights, Mallets and Bamboo’ mixtape and original productions inspired by that particular time and space - circa the emergence and application of game-changing musical technology - have been indispensable for discerning diggers and ears. Their first album since 2019, ‘Paradessence’ now marks the duo’s return to a sound they helped bring to wider interest, displaying cross-border/generational binds between experimental scenes in Japan, US, and EU across an intricately crafted and romantic spirited album defined by its technical sorcery and sense of adventure. Benefitting from the energy of their collaborators and time out to sharpen and reassess their sound, ‘Paradessence’ feels like the most fully realised iteration of Visible Cloaks’ illusive world building. 14 succinct pieces open out a fantasy playground where prior spars Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano chime into the pitch bent, shatterproof contours of ’Shapes’ and again with Félicia Atkinson’s french vox in ‘Thinking’, before Satie-esque piano phrases are refracted into hyaline hyperprisms glistening with Joe Williams touch on ‘Zinna’. The shearing shape of ‘Balloon’ impresses in its hyperreal tactility, and the synthetic wind-swept strings of ‘Swirl’ brings us teasingly close to oneiric dimensions also touched on in ‘Telescoping’, suffused with ultrasonic insect sounds that lend a frisson of waking dream detail for the susceptible.

The latest mixtape LP, “Even The Devil Smiles,” comes from rapper and producer IDK (Jason Mills).

Female fronted screamo from the cursed Elgin, Illinois scene. Hot on the heels of our Sequoia box set's repress of their $400 2x7", Numero gives The Lazarus Plot's complete recordings the hand-screened treatment. Compiled on Something Good Has Got To Come From All These Goodbyes are the aforementioned 2x7", split with Long Live Nothing, The End 7", a stray V/A, and two previously unissued songs, all housed in a D.I.Y. chipboard jacket and limited to 500 copies. Singer Laura Laurent's accompanying 24-page booklet includes lyrics and photos from these pioneering second waver's two year run. Not copping this will definitely remind you of your favorite word (regret).

FEAR - the joint album from Jared Mattson of The Mattson 2 and Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra - was recorded in June of 2024. All recording and mixing took place in Palm Springs. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios in London. --- I woke up around noon, disoriented, half-dreaming. Music was playing — unfamiliar, fully formed, the kind of sound you assume belongs to someone else’s life. For a moment I thought I was still asleep, hearing music I wished I’d made. Then it hit me: Ruban Nielson was already awake, in the studio, listening to what we’d made. We both knew it. There was something inevitable about the music — like it hadn’t been created so much as uncovered. We listened on repeat, laughing, shaking our heads. One track brought up a shared image: an evergreen forest by a lake at sunset. Ruban suddenly looked up, eyes wide, like he’d just been handed a message. “I’ve got the title,” he said. American Eagle. The name landed the same way the music had — clean, obvious, impossible to argue with. The American Dream: hot dogs, Cokes, sunset drives. We both lost it, tears in our eyes from laughing hard for minutes straight. We swam in his pool. The conversation never stopped. The flow stayed constant, nourishing, effortless. Then Ruban said it again — the line that had already become a principle: “Let’s make more that sound exactly like this.” So we did. Two days later, 'FEAR' was finished. - Jared Mattson

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

Orgone, a contemporary funk band based in Los Angeles, has spent years updating the sound of 60s and 70s soul and funk for the modern era. Among their catalog, New You stands out as one of the most beloved releases among fans.

Critical Thot is the bold new collaborative album from Bay Area-based rapper/producer Sha Ray, and producer/electronic musician DJ Haram—two uncompromising artists reshaping rap and experimental sound. It is an intriguing pairing; Haram is one-half of the duo 700 Bliss with rapper and poet Moor Mother and has several solo records under her belt—including 2025’s critically acclaimed Beside Myself (Hyperdub)—and high profile collaborations with BbyMutha, Fever Ray, Ghais Guevara, and Armand Hammer. Meanwhile, although Critical Thot is Sha Ray’s official debut album, her reputation as a next-wave talent precedes her. Haram got wise in 2022 when she saw Sha Ray perform at a show in Brooklyn. “We spoke at the venue and after that I followed her on social media. She gave an incredible performance, so later on when she slid in my DMs asking for beats, I was already on board,” Haram explains.An Armand Hammer/DJ Haram show in LA was the nexus for these connections to yield fruit. Sha Ray flew down from the Bay to link with Haram, and although the two didn’t end up recording anything that day, it was the springboard for the cross-country collaboration that culminated in Critical Thot. The whole album was made remotely: Haram cooking up beats in Brooklyn and sending them to Sha Ray, who would send back demos and notes. They got to know each other as artists, and as people, while they worked on this project.“Haram and I have had so many overlapping experiences working as women in the music industry, which really enriched our bond. That, and her very striking approach to production, really inspired a lot of the writing on this record,” Sha Ray says.That writing is razor sharp and refreshingly direct. Sha Ray quickly proves herself to be in a class of her own, navigating even the knottiest of DJ Haram productions without taking her foot off the gas. Haram digs deep into her bag with beats that run the gamut from experimental and abrasive to slinky fun to darkly foreboding. Percussive thuds and shots are layered with intricate details and soft linings. A trappy banger dissolves into a flood of strings. A sparse industrial soundscape slowly coheres into a cacophonous uppercut of a rap record. Sha Ray bobs and weaves her way through every drum break and synth with a defiant ease. “As a rapper I’m pretty exclusively interested in interrogating misogyny and sexuality in my work. Critical Thot is a deliberation on unapologetic feminine authority, while being very honest about the complicated truth of being a participant in self-objectification, and sexuality as a social currency,” Sha Ray elaborates. “This record focuses a lot on defining power in feminine sexuality as relational and ever-shifting, and thus inherently imperfect. However, it is a power that I have and I am going to use it.”Critical Thot features contributions from Nappy Nina, JWords, and Archangel.

Backwoodz Studioz is excited to announce the release of Crayola Circles, a collaboration between rapper Fatboi Sharif and producer Child Actor. While both artists have long standing connections to Backwoodz, this album marks their first collaboration of any kind and breaks new artistic ground for all parties. Sharif’s previous album, Decay, released on Backwoodz in 2023, was a haunting experimental rap masterpiece, an acid trip in a mental hospital. On Crayola Circles Sharif trades menacing psychedelia for a simmering stew of blacklight expressionism, his verses slipping effortlessly through the swells and tides of Child Actor’s masterful production. No matter how uneasy the waves grow, Sharif is at ease, a truth teller whispering anti-riddles in your ear.This album feels like a new chamber for Child Actor, as well. The producer has been on an impressive run since dropping CINE- a collaboration with rapper Cavalier- on Backwoodz in late 2024. Child Actor has shown up in the liner notes of everyone from Navy Blue (The Sword & The Soaring) to Earl Sweatshirt (Live, Laugh, Love) to ELUCID (Revelator) to Open Mike Eagle (Neighborhood Gods Unlimited), to Ghais Guevara (A Quest to Self-Mythologize), amongst others. On Crayola Circles Child Actor’s production is dynamic, shifting and sliding into new phases and movements in an instant. The beats are full and knotty, leaning into jazz and folk, while remaining tethered to the tender minimalism that is his signature. It’s a difficult balance for any producer, and here it is executed perfectly, placing us in a world of wood and brass, cowhide and undersea piano. On any other record, this soundscape would steal the show — and it very nearly does — but Sharif’s command never wavers, ever in control; a lucid dreamer in an induced coma.There are no guests, no skits, and no interludes. There might not even be songs, instead Crayola Circles seems akin to a great river; singular, traversing forest and jungle, mountain and valley, running from mouth to endless sea.

It's time for the 5th album of the Long Trax series, featuring six new tracks produced in an A/B style, cut onto 3 vinyl records and compiled onto a single CD. Staying all-hardware, with drooping synth pads and Rhodes piano, rhythm machines, space echo and spring reverb, and featuring 3 new narrators here to put us in our place. Stay independent, and anti-AI. All music by Will Long Artwork by Tsuji Aiko Mastered by Stephan Mathieu A Long Trax Productions release

Cult digidub mutators Froid Dub slow their steez to deeply knackered, ghostly levels on a follow-up to joints with Krikor and Ransom Note. Back with Parisian patrons Delodio, the pair bring a deep studio knowledge earned since the ‘90s (and their days together as Bosco) to a half hour of purposefully sluggish pressure slanted at the earliest or latest hours of the night/day. With Black Roots Players’ ‘Slow Tempo’ riddim possibly in the back of their mind, they keep it all heavily downbeat and rent with a psychoacoustic nous that draws lines between The Black Ark, GRM, and DJ Screw. ‘Deep’ feels like the onset of a space cake, all super blunted vox and wiggy synths, and ‘The Swap’ snaps tightly to slowed digidub templates, next to echoes of ’Slow Tempo’ in the cranky chords of the title tune. They really let the bass flare in acres of space on the spangled zingers ‘Too Digital’ and an acidic ‘Love’, whilst crossing lines with Full Circle’s proto-goa trance in ‘Diggin’’ and the swampy motion of ‘No Sense’.

single vinyl dub lp with music by Skin Flesh and Bones. Produced by Phil Pratt

A journey through Jamaica from Kingston to Saint Ann’s Bay on the north coast reveals the bountiful nature of the island, once described by the plundering Christopher Columbus as the ‘fairest isle that eyes ever beheld’. For a Jamaican in the late 60’s, travelling the well-worn roads in a minibus might well have been a joy for the eyes, but was also a test of the will, as the minibuses were usually packed like ‘sardine-can’ since the drivers earned on commission. It was by these means that a young and aspiring writer, Phillip Fullwood, would travel regularly from Kingston to reach Saint Ann’s Bay, selling literature printed in London, getting a few cents for each publication sold.“I used to sell African literature. It was one of the things I used to do for a living, yunno. Like the ‘African Word’. I used to get them from London. Literature about Africa, like South Africa. You know, back in the days when they used to beat black people, I mean like slavery days. The literature came from England through Africa. I used to sell it and get a few cents of the payment and then I’d return the rest to them. It was ‘69 to ’71, dem times.”On one such trip he would meet one of the formative influences on his life.“I went with a guy to Saint Ann’s Bay. On arrival I didn’t have nowhere to sleep and then he said tell me, ‘Look, I gonna let you stay with somebody tonight’. So we sleep on a little single-bed, yunno? We’d sleep like head-to-toe. When I wake the next morning the guy said to me‘My name is Pamo. I am the one called Winston Rodney.’”The man he had shared the roof with that night, sheltering from the Saint Ann rain, was none other than the young Burning Spear, a thoughtful artist taking his first steps into the music industry. That very same week Spear would travel to Kingston to record the song ‘Door Peeper’ at Studio One. As Phillip made frequent visits to Saint Ann’s to sell his literature, he and Winston Rodney became good friends, often meeting and cooking dumpling and yam over a small oil stove. Cooking, talking and writing music.“Burning Spear used to be a guy who pressed pants for all the people in the ghetto. They had this big ol’ coal iron where you put the charcoal in it. And then you pressed it and you put a piece of cloth over the pants when you press. That was his job. And during that time he was singing all kind of song.”When Burning Spear recorded the album ‘Marcus Garvey’ several of the songs were co-written by Phillip, and when the album became an international success, Phillip Fullwood was brought in to play percussion on the US tour that followed.“When we was travelling in the US, we record ‘The Whole World Want To Be Free’. It was the first time I sang. It recorded in a basement in Queens. It was a white guy who used to play guitar and he had a studio in the basement. They come in to the concert and we became friends and then we went to their house and stayed there. So we got together and used to smoke weed and play music.”The session, consisting of local musicians alongside Jamaican organist Bernard ‘Touter’ Harvey, resulted in two tracks, including Phillip’s first lead vocal on ‘Love Everyone’, a longing plea for love and unity. His close relationship to Burning Spear gave Phillip valuable insight into studio work, and his move into production and mixing was inevitable, soon resulting in the profound self-production ‘I Gave You My Word’ in 1979, with arrangement and backing vocals by Winston Rodney.This same rhythm, remixed into a long, enthralling dub, would form the introduction for the incredibly scarce album ‘Words In Dub’ (Jah Marcus LP, 1979). The highly unique set, released in a stark hand-printed sleeve, comprised self-produced rhythm tracks and some donated by friends, such as ‘Africa Rock’, a dub of ‘See Dem Da’ (Jah Marcus Roots 7”) by Burning Spear, with member Rupert Wellington on lead vocals. The first side also featured dubs of Purple Lights’ ‘Pestilence’, fronted by the singer Bangie, and ‘Revolution’ by Jah Blue & The Originals, who included Winston Rodney’s brother. ‘Reorganize The Race (Marcus Say)’, with its dense layers of digital reverb in the intro, later features singing about ‘weeping and wailing’ also by Jah Blue & The Originals, though the vocal cut was never released. Several rhythms would later get a do-over by Phillip’s American-based group I-Mo-Jah, perhaps the most thrilling being ‘Jah Say Love’, rerecorded by I-Mo-Jah as ‘Peace & Love’. ‘Hotter Fire In Babylon’ is a dub of Burning Spear’s ‘Spear Burning’ (Spear 7”), and the album closes with ‘Bubbling’, a dub of ‘Maybe’ (Yah Congo 12”) recorded by Phillip’s long-time friend Eric Donaldson.The original recordings were primarily laid at Channel One with Barnabas and Crucial Bunny at the mixing board, with ‘Hotter Fire In Babylon’ recorded at Randy’s by Chin Randy himself, and ‘Bubbling’ at Dynamic Studio. The final dub mixes were done at Channel One and also at the legendary Black Ark by Phillip Fullwood’s own hands.“Well the dub mix, I do it all. You know where I did that dub mix? By Lee Perry’s Black Ark studio. When I went there that day he was acting crazy and then I asked him how much money him charge me he said ‘No I don’t charge you no money’. Because I was in the studio doing all kind of stuff.”Also in 1979, Phillip met Winston McKenzie, with whom he would start the group I-Mo-Jah.“He come to America when he was 14. He’s from Saint Ann’s too. And when I come to America I used to stay at his house in New Rochelle, New York. That’s near to the Bronx. He was interested in music so we bring him from New Rochelle to Jamaica, but his home was really in America. I gave him ‘Words in Dub’ to bring it to America. He made only like 1,000 copies and he send me a couple of copies. Then he buy me a drum-set and bring to Jamaica. That’s all I get from it.”And so ‘Words In Dub’ soon vanished into obscurity. By 1983 Phillip Fullwood had settled permanently in the US and virtually retired from music. Over the years, partly fuelled by its extreme rarity, the album’s reputation has grown immensely, and original copies now command a very high price. Phillip is thrilled that this reissue will now expose it to a wider audience.“Life happen that way. I got kids and grandkids. I’m just a small guy who was with Spear and just tried to do my thing, like everybody else in the entertainment biz. My occupation, my passport you know says entertainer. Wishing a t’ing, yunno.”

Third release for Parallel Line comes from Aberystwyth-born, Berlin-based Severin Black. He works closely with woodwind, electronics, low-end and feedback, runs his own label Archaic Vaults, and has played everywhere from the ICA to a 460-year-old church with a giant pipe organ. The last album, Country Music, featuring Pavel Milyakov and Vanessa Bedoret, showed how far his Celtic-rooted improv style has reached across the experimental dub community. The EP opens up with a flute loop leading the eerie track "Brandy", not quite like anything else. "Yarmouth" goes darker and more ritualistic, with haunted stepper vibes. Then the B-side is nine minutes of "Cautious (Dub)", a stretched-out live take that takes you on a slow, dreaded journey.