NEW ARRIVALS

Parasymbiosis – the ability of two separate organisms to exist closely together I have long pondered the concept of connectedness in relation to life’s existence. The Dalai Lama teaches that destruction of one’s neighbour equates to destruction of oneself. In contrast, modern Western culture has placed the individual at the epicentre of existence – to the detriment of non-humans and humans alike. Ecological Memory influences present or future responses of a community; it is this shared memory that enables organisms, objects and the environment to connect to each other, and to the other. What happens when a community or ecological system loses this memory, this connection? The systems begin to break down; intergenerational memory evolves in rapid short steps, culture and connection becomes unrecognisable. Time speeds up. Yet with the naked eye, the universe reflects slow time. Its very distance provides a sense of stasis. Understanding the night sky could very well be the vastness of time we have forgotten through our ecological memory, our loss of the visible difference between the likes of night and day; non-referenceable and dictated by intangible rhythms that exist beyond the cyclic elements of nature. Through Parasymbiosis I imagined sounds of the inherent connection between the earth and the universe. Contemporary society has rendered invisible the heritage of the night sky and what it teaches us. The wonder and awe it inspires, in its pure, unadulterated form untouched by light pollution and modern satellite activity, has always informed non-human and human life cycles and human culture. In modern times, only 40% of human beings can still see the Milky Way. We have forgotten that the dark sky and the earth reflect each other – they are, as a metaphor, parasymbiotic. The Electric Cristal (EC) features strongly in Parasymbiosis. It is a microtonal, electro-acoustic instrument that has captured my imagination through its deep and fragile resonance created by touching glass rods encased in aluminium. Ceated by Dylan Crismani (AUS) in 2019, the EC conjures vast soundscapes. Electronics exploit the volatile vibrations and random frequencies that the instrument generates.

Following our 2024 self-titled release, Nick and I were compelled to make another record, expanding on the distinctive sound world we have found as the duo Driftwood. Grounded in the unique instrumentation of two microtonally re-tuned pump organs, alongside clarinets and guitars, the sonic landscape of Driftwood has become a welcoming place for us to inhabit together. The distinctive characteristics of these instruments, as well as the challenge of playing multiple instruments simultaneously, have become a frame we've leaned into more and more, trusting the vitality of their combined resonance to lead us further into uncharted paths of improvisation. For our second album, we wanted to incorporate additional elements from each of our solo practices into our sound: modular synth, effects pedals, electric guitar and contact mic’s (because playing two instruments at the same time wasn’t enough for us!) In ‘Maps’, electronics are subtly worked back into the original improvisations, saturating the live instrumentation with bass undertones and signal processing, pushing the sound into more otherworldly realms. Sometimes the pieces hint toward song-like forms, with repetitive guitar ostinatos lulling the music to the edge of familiarity, while other times the drones and harmonies blur, creating the ground from which glimpses of folk-like melodies surface, as if from a long-forgotten dream.

cobs, an essential figure of avant-garde cinema, and I had over-a-decade-long collaboration. We first performed fo his Nervous Magic Lantern project at the Argos Festival in Brussels in 2007. Before flying to Europe, Ken invited me to the top-floor loft on Chambers Street in TriBeCa, where Ken and his wife, Flo, have lived and worked since 1965, to experience a private screening. He turned on the apparatus and the image flashed onto the screen: geometric patterns — something of a Rorschach inkblot — rotated as if in a whirlpool, and three-dimensional imagery pulsed with strong flicker. What was weird was that the images did not adhere to the surface of the screen. They stood out, almost floating, like holograms. Then, my eyes started catching physical shapes in the depth of the abstract patterns such as faces, hands, the surface of an oil spill, and they appeared and disappeared like ghosts or doppelgängers. “How does Nervous Magic Lantern work?” I asked Ken. The inventor's answer was something unexpected: "I don't know! I dreamed it and found it through experimentations then stuck to it. I'm not that technical." Well, he is an artist who creates a phantasmagoria of mystery; let the neuroscientists explain the mechanism. The self-made apparatus contains a spinning shutter, a light source, and lenses set in a wooden frame. Ken inserts his hand-painted circular slides between the light and lenses and moved them gently with his hands. The lenses enlarged a tiny portion on the slide, while the spinning shutter gave the flicker effect. Compared to Ken's other works, which are often filled with unflinching political criticism, the imagery of Nervous Magic Lantern is patently abstract, and it examines how our brain regulates our perceptions. In Jonas Mekas' Movie Journal, Ken once said, “We’re stepping towards a deeper incline, something challenging our notion of the way things are. Something impossible.” Elsewhere he stated, “Eisenstein said the power of film was to be found between shots. Peter Kubelka seeks it between film frames. I want to get between the eyes, contest the separate halves of the brain. A whole new play of appearances is possible here.” Nervous Magic Lantern offers up this sort of play in stunning hallucinations, strange visions dancing on the screen. Ken's request for my music was to play “sounds of daily life.” He explained that the project “is an escape,” and that he felt “guilty not having any messages or reflecting the real world. By using environmental sounds to surround us,” he continued, “I'd like to be rooted in the real world." Around 2014, I noticed that Ken had a sizable collection of cassette field recordings he had amassed over the last several decades. Street noises in Chinatown, conversations with friends, or any sort of uncategorizable sound around him. I was fascinated and decided to use them as a springboard for composing. One of the unique aspects of Nervous Magic Lantern is that the visual stays abstract while the sound is able to adopt meanings or a narrative sense derived from the quotidian sounds. I wanted to emphasize that point and add almost a sense of documentary. More than that, I simply loved the aural depictions of Ken and Flo’s life. Those also trigger my memories with them. Over the years, during summer time, Ken, Flo, and my wife, Makiko, made a habit of going to their favorite restaurant in Chinatown. Other times, Ken and I had morning coffee at a Puerto Rican restaurant just below their loft. Life and art are inseparable, breaking into one another incessantly. Ken is an artist who always envisioned the impossible. I wanted to see if it's possible to present that vision as something universal, something whole, something running through everyone’s life. A soundtrack for life in the depth of illusion. That is perhaps what this album is. This album was recorded as a soundtrack for Ken Jacobs' Nervous Magic Lantern at Spiral Hall, organized by Sound Live Tokyo, on November 3, 2015. It was probably one of our best performances. Before the performance, Ken explained to me the selected slides he uses and the ordering he employs, so that I would better understand the flow. Some slides are black-and-white and some color. For a given performance, Ken selects 10 slides or so. However, he might play with just one slide for the entire show or change the order — there was plenty of room to improvise. On my side, I also had a structure and the order of tapes, quite independent from Ken's visual. But I made the system easy to extend or shorten, duration-wise, in order to respond to Ken's ordering and mood. Lastly, I wanted to mention Flo's role, as she is deeply involved in Ken's creative process; as he says: “This is a mom-and-pop business.” From the first day of working together, she was always there with us and took care of all practical matters. Ken is a dreamer and thinks and works intuitively. But Flo — an exceptionally beautiful woman in and out — is rooted in the real world. Not just a pragmatist, however, Flo advises Ken on artistic decisions. Ken always asks to hear her thoughts, as I did as well. As film critic and their decades-long friend Amy Taubin once described it, "Florence Jacobs is nothing less than a producer of Ken Jacobs' cinema." What a perfect couple, and it was an extremely joyous journey with them!

Arranged, produced, mixed and mastered by Ivan Dubious (April, 2024) __________________________________ A - Ivan Dubious "Flamboyant" AA - Wilbur "Impassive" __________________________________ (c)+(p) Ivan Antezza 2024 __________________________________ nunkirec.bandcamp.com

Swiss powerhouse The 18th Parallel presents another slice of fine modern roots reggae! All Fruits Ripe is a heavyweight showcase album rooted in the foundations of reggae while firmly anchored in the present. Recorded between 2015 and 2025, the project brings together a powerful lineup of Jamaican vocalists — Micah Shemaiah, Keith Rowe (from rocksteady duet Keith & Tex), Rod Taylor, Var (Inna De Yard, Pentateuch), Hezron, and Itral Ites — each representing a different generation of conscious reggae music. The album features six vocal cuts and five dub versions, highlighting both lyrical strength and sound system culture. Carefully mixed by master engineer Roberto Sánchez, All Fruits Ripe stands as a transnational reggae statement: Jamaican voices carried by a European band deeply connected to the roots with a profound respect for the culture that gave birth to reggae and dub. It features legendary guest Jamaican musicians Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, Scully Simms, Dalton Browne, or Errol ‘Blacksteel’ Nicholson. A mature and carefully crafted release where every track feels essential — like fruit finally ready to be harvested.

Live At Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali sees Grischa Lichtenberger transfigure a forty-minute set into a tactile, visual, and kinetic experience. Industrial clangor, mechanical pulses, and fleeting ambience merge, sculpted with rigor. Issued by Hermit Records as a collector’s vinyl, it stands at the edge between noise, rhythm, and abstraction With Live At Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali, Grischa Lichtenberger distills the art of sound into forty minutes of fiercely organized chaos. Recorded in the unique space of the Pino Pascali Museum in Polignano a Mare and released by Hermit Records, the album is a study in constructive friction—mechanical pulses and ferrous textures recurring, splintering, and coalescing in real time. Lichtenberger's palette draws from the imaginary of Russolo and Brinkmann, yet forges its own path: rhythm and abstraction in an endless handshake, frequency as sculpture, and every crackle a gesture or a mark. This release, limited to a black vinyl edition and including original music and artwork conceived over more than a decade, is purposefully an object as well as a document. No digital footprints, just a testimony pressed in the grooves—an encounter with matter, with noise, with control. Here, listening is not passive; it is as much a process as the performance itself, alive with tension and raw poetics. [Soundohm] An abstract painting with expressionist hues and futurist echoes, a mix between action painting and informal art: this is the first impression from Grischa Lichtenberger's live performance recorded at the Pino Pascali Museum in Polignano a Mare. The artist, based in Berlin, makes the rhythms creak, cuts them with a laser, weaves imaginative harmonic coils, smoothes with electric razors and draws figures with echoes and industrial clangs. Then he uses ferrous materials that, with a precision lathe, are abraded and cause sparks. Suddenly steel springs fall to the ground, generating a cascade effect. In the distance, you can hear the roar of speeding cars and the ringing of bells. Lichtenberger pulps, compresses, dilates, mixes, electrifies, heats up, liquefies: he does all this in just less than forty minutes, treating the sound material with violence, transforming it from time to time, shaping it and succeeding in the arduous task of controlling its effects. It is as if Luigi Russolo, Alva Noto and Thomas Brinkmann were closed in a workshop on the edge of a highway, parodying the famous definition of techno.

Great little record here from Brisbane based Drew Id. "Intersteller Dub" on the A-side is a real corker that combines the driving bass weight of steppers with the spacey atmospherics of dub techno, all tied together with some spectacular Tubby-esque mixing desk prowess. Then flip it over for the the more meditative delights of "Aphid Steppa" which slows the pace and brings in some dreamy guitar and melodic melodies.

Emerging from the European roots scene, conscious singer Congo Lion delivers his long‑awaited full‑length album Silver Dragon. Having moved to Africa in his teens and drawing deep inspiration from legends like Burning Spear and Peter Tosh, he channels sharp social commentary through a classic roots reggae framework. Produced by Karigan, the album blends warm, vintage‑style analog textures with a clean, modern sound. From the title track “Silver Dragon” to songs confronting colonial legacies and cycles of violence, the record is rich in message and spirit, with dub versions on the B‑side adding further depth. A standout contemporary roots release for 2026.

Undisputed grime heavyweight and sublow architect Jon E Cash is spotlighted on an overdue retrospective hustling rare plates back on vinyl for 1st time in decades - utterly essential tackle for UK ‘nuum fiends on the line from jungle to UKG, grime and dubstep. A serious VIP for Sneaker Social Club and the grime scene at large, ’SUBLOW’ scrolls back a quarter century to grime’s earliest days - before it even had a name - when artists such as Jon E Cash, Jammer, and Wiley were reshaping prevailing UKG styles and patterns in their own image, coming out with something rudely altered in translation - or by their technical limitations. While the latter melded Jamaican sound system inspirations of dancehall and jungle into their grimy prototypes, Jon E Cash would bring a ruggeder swerve, carried over from his early ‘90s days as part of the pivotal Britcore hip hop sound with Construction, and prevailing traces of later ’90s R&B and D&B, to his take on the 140bpm framework, with the exaggerated bass levels of his productions, and their bashy drums, bestowing the sound its mantle, SUBLOW, and soon recognised as a whole subgenre in its own right. These are sacred plates for grime, a key part of its DNA, and Sneaker Social Club are doing the Lord’s work by saving you a month’s rent in Zone 3 if you were to pick them up individually. All from the fascinating interzone 2000-2004, when the sound was shaped as an ecology of pirate radio, white labels, and raves, it’s burstign at the seams with legendary gear from the murky steez of ‘Hoods Up’ thru the NSFW intro of his absolute steamer ‘Kettle’, brukking out the digi-dub style horns on ‘War’ and ‘Battle’, or ramping R&B with speedy G pressure on ‘All About the Sex’, not to mention his Timba-turned-horny Terminator turn ’Spanish Fly (V.I.P.).’ If you ask us, it’s one of the hardest reissues/compilations of 2025, bar none, and a strong example of how much perceptions of grime have changed over the decades, from outlaw genre to something to be fetishised, archived, admired as distinguished cultural artefact, rather than feared and legislated against.

Gabber Eleganza’s Never Sleep serve a prime slice of ’94 house in effect: an hour and a half of soulful, strutting, haughty party momentum captured live at Cocoricò; a legendary club housed in a glass pyramid outside Rimini, Italy, with Matteo Sorbellini on the mic. “Never Sleep charity tape series breaks towards Riviera Romagnola with an early 90s live recording from the most revered. Insula Romana activist DJ Ralf segues generational bliss with a masterclass of Balearic, Hi-NRG, Ballroom and Disco. A literal lesson in how to command a DJ set and hosted by Matteo Sorbellini. Omitting a sumptuous as Culatello di Zibello technique, hypnotic, deeply human and showboating the longest of blends. Utilising all vinyl rotary magicianship, pulsating drums and flawlessly complex acapella fades . Ralf tears the dancefloor up with shapeshifting vocal arrangements, quantified maximalist piano harmonies and late night / early morning "pick me up" textural rapture. Recorded at the world famous Cocoricò club in the heyday of 1994 this audio document showcases the hedonistic sounds of the era. DJ Ralf is known for his community work, political activism and DJ work across the globe."

First chapter of a futuristic dub experiment series by The 18th Parallel. Geneva based collective invites engineer extraordinaire Roberto Sánchez to revisit 10 scorcher riddims from the Fruits Records vault to craft this inventive modern classic. Reminiscent of the greatest dub albums by King Tubby, Scientist, Prince Jammy, or Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.

Fruits Records presents the first volume of a series of dub albums by Swiss collective The 18th Parallel. Following in the tradition of Jamaican producers who revisited their catalogues in dub versions, such as Bunny Lee and his Aggrovators with King Tubby, Junjo Lawes or Linval Thompson teaming up with Roots Radics and Scientist, or Joe Gibbs and his Professionals with Errol Thompson, Fruits Records is launching a series of dub albums produced by the label's studio band, The 18th Parallel, which will invite different sound engineers to (re)mix the tracks throughout the albums: DUB AVALANCHE. This first volume offers a deep dive into the label's catalogue through ten classic or unreleased riddims revisited by Fruits Records' long-time partner, Spanish sound engineer extraordinaire Roberto Sánchez. The instrumentals are brilliantly performed by The 18th Parallel and punctuated by the voices of legendary artists such as The Viceroys, Lone Ranger, Cornell Campbell, and Dennis Walks, who appear fleetingly before disappearing into clouds of echo. Roberto Sánchez performs ten explosive, creative sound deconstructions, playing with stylistic codes to stimulate our memory and offer a timeless sensory experience.

Like the classics of the genre, the cover art evokes a quirky retro-futuristic imaginary space where, breaking with convention, the talent of Mexican artist Melissa Santamaría is expressed through a striking metaphor of a sonic avalanche.

DUB AVALANCHE VOL. 1 is already establishing itself as a future must-have for fans of uncompromising reggae and dub!

Yokota's most upbeat and playful release on the Skintone label.

Will heralded a disarming, groove-based return to deep house. A wild melange of bumping beats, freestyle samples and esoteric goodness. Recorded over the same period as Grinning Cat this anomaly within the Skintone catalogue was seen as a way to circumvent the swirling politics of his club-oriented releases elsewhere.

In itself Will was a reminder of Yokota’s ability to deliver a complex array of sounds within a more recognisable format.

The Boy and the Tree was composed after a visit to Yakushima Island, an outstandingly beautiful world heritage site off the southern tip of Japan, scored by a deep, lush and ancient ravine, home of the ancient 7000-year old ‘Jōmon Sugi’. Tree. Also the inspiration for Miyazaki's epic anime Princess Mononoke, a conflict between the rampant greed and destructive force of humanity, and the stoic, mysterious fragility of nature. This fleeting immersion in nature lent the album a profound introspection and mystery, and the its twelve tracks unfold in dream sequence, each drifting seamlessly into the next while still managing to steer the listener in myriad directions, from eerie butoh atmospheres, to ebullient raga, to desolate, cavernous chanson. The Boy And The Tree is definitely one of, if not the most, visually evocative and cinematic Yokota releases.

Laputa, a title taken from the fantastical floating island of Gulliver's Travels is aptly named as 'The album that never landed' for, apart from a limited touchdown in Japan, Laputa was never released. This mystical world is a summation of Yokota's journey so far, a complex and at times challenging work but immeasurably rewarding. Beguiling and bewitching in equal measure. Over fifteen undulating sonic fugue states, he guides listeners round a liminal world, made up of familiar materials but formed in a way defying all laws of perspective and physics. Background murmurings give way to almost uncomfortably foregrounded chattering, and one perceived soundstage segues into another impossible tableau of sonic apparitions, some recognisable in form, but all boldly decontextualised and arranged in expertly cluttered amalgams. Laputa's obscurity was a prime reason Lo Recordings decided on the Skintone retrospective. Falling as it did between The Boy and the Tree on The Leaf Label and our own debut of Symbol. It was something of an audio crime that the album had never been properly explored and discovered. Lo Recordings hope Laputa can now ascend to its rightful place... hovering above us.

Electrifying heavy sessions recorded in 1997 featuring the classic Mainliner + Musica Transonic lineup of Nanjo Asahito (High Rise), Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mother) and Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins) driving into new divergently fried terrain(s). Here, Nanjo and co. are on a quest to find new directions, and while the sessions were for an abandoned Mainliner album, a good portion of Solid Static hews more closely to the moment-to-moment deconstructions of Musica Transonic. The propulsive ten-minute opening title track is a lost gem in the canon of Japanese psychedelia and rock and roll -- beginning with one of Mainliner's bludgeoning motor-psycho riffs, it veers off into auratic space, Kawabata's snake-charming guitar weaving around Nanjo's buzz-fire bass and Yoshida's multi-limbed drumming. Musica Transonic's improvised and jazz-informed take on psychedelic rock is writ across the distended rhythms and arcing bass and guitar lines that scrawl across "Prosecutor" and "Topsy Turvy," or the slurry of distorted tone that rolls through "Rot Way." Available for the first time on LP or any physical form aside from a clutch of CDR's sold at a few live dates in the late '90s. Housed in a custom die-cut, "Uni-Pak" style gatefold with metallic ink, spot finishes and matching La Musica inner sleeve.

2026 repress. "Sister Nancy's 'Bam Bam' on the Stallag Riddim is arguably the most licensed dancehall track for advertising and film backgrounds with multiple uses since 2000. The song has also displayed amazing lasting power for club DJs, with its instantly recognizable hooks. This album, originally released in 1982, showcased Sister Nancy for the world on the heels of a hit that has only gotten bigger over the decades. This is the first legitimate re-issue of the album, since the death of producer and techniques label founder, Winston Riley. Demand will be strong for this rare gem."

Drummer-composer and multi-instrumentalist Valentina Magaletti’s explorative percussions join Afro-Portuguese artist Nídia’s singular beat-making for an exciting new collaboration in dance music. From the first beat, listeners are drawn into a world where rhythm reigns supreme and movement is inevitable. The album explores a diverse yet universal musical language through syncopated drum patterns, pulsating marimba lines, and melodic interludes.

Another massive offering from the one and only Mick Harris, continuing on in his Culvert Dubs Sessions experimentations with a new 2xlp. Once again Mick delves deep into the shadow realm of slow beat, psychedelic heavily textured, grinding dub techno. Eight tracks of absolute industrialized, delay swept, full pressure, sound system shaking murk ridden, dark water dubs. Top form work when Mick lets loose in this wild style, just the right balance of beauty, restraint and brutality. Total heavy weight music!

Strut presents the second studio album from Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express and a firm favourite with Auger aficionados, the “little known masterpiece” A Better Land from 1971. Marking a clear evolution from their more jazz-rock leaning debut, the band shifts into a mellower direction on these tracks, echoing the feel of Befour released in the Trinity's later years. A Better Land embraces warmer, more melodic and understated compositions, primarily written by guitarist Jim Mullen. With its languid and spacious approach, the album brings an grounded message to make the most of the simple pleasures in life with a hopeful, but wary, eye to the future. Musically, Auger brings acoustic guitars, country rock melodies and three-part vocal harmonies into his musical palette. Key tracks include the groove-driven title track ‘A Better Land’, the sparse ‘Dawn of Another Day,’ (sampled by Air and Black Milk among others) while ‘Fill Your Head With Laughter’ returns to Auger's trademark driving Hammond-led sound, akin to early Traffic. The record features the Brian Auger’s unique sound on organ and electric piano, joined by Jim Mullen on guitar, Barry Dean on bass and Robbie McIntosh on drums and percussion, with Auger, Mullen and Dean all contributing vocals. Mullen co-wrote seven of the album’s nine tracks, with additional contributions from Alan Gorrie (later of Average White Band). These songwriters should take immense pride in their work as Auger’s favourite singer of all time, Sarah Vaughan, recognised the quality of these compositions by covering three of them; ‘Trouble’, ‘On “Thinking It Over’, and ‘Tomorrow City’ for her 1972 album A Time in My Life. This new official Strut reissue is curated by Greg Boraman of Impressive Collective in collaboration with Brian and Karma Auger. Fully remastered by Cosmic Audio, it is presented as a high-quality single LP replica edition.

"Four Corners" is a compilation that showcases the various facets of American West Coast minimalist composer Jeff Bruner, with pieces from the 1970s to the 2020s displaying a cohesive set of aesthetic concerns. Bruner has a kinship with the composers Harold Budd and Daniel Lentz, the latter being a mentor to Bruner, and one can hear a relationship with the music of other minimal/post-minimal composers such as John Adams and Terry Riley. 1979’s “Magic Mbira”, a key piece in this collection, particularly highlights a Riley-esque element, and with its skillful use of tape delays reminiscent of Lenz's "cascading echo system." Bruner and his mbira piece also have musical affinities with Roland P. Young and his classic Isophonic Boogie Woogie, in their shared melodic and structural concerns, as well as a desire to perform their compositions in a wider range of performance spaces, away from traditional recital halls. Another side of Bruner is revealed in the funhouse-mirror “Reggae Foes”, a deconstructionist calypso-reggae tune and skewed Black Ark filtered through Cunningham/Toop’s General Strike. The remaining two pieces are melancholy beauties of solo instrumentation: “Cold Rain and Snow” is a fretless gut-string banjo re-imagining of an American folk song; “Remembrance in a Pale Room” is a lovely piano piece dedicated to Lentz. Bruner has built upon a tradition, altering and adding to it with his individual vision, giving us this collection of intriguing and beautiful music. Available on CD/Vinyl/Digital, and the physical version includes E/J liner notes by Jeff Bruner, rare photos & the score for "Magic Mbira”. ----------------------------------------- "I first came across Jeff’s mysterious "Reggae Foes" 45 in the mid-2000s at the legendary Logos book/record store in Santa Cruz, California (RIP) - the kind of generic sleeve and label that gives you nothing more than a font and some scant shards of text to go by (luckily this text was “A Flying Saucer Came Down and Burnt My Baby's Neck”). What I heard upon bringing it home felt like some kind of alternate-timeline post punk calypso, unknowingly adjacent to the deconstructions occurring at the Black Ark or in David Cunningham’s early productions. When I finally talked to Jeff many years later, I was even more surprised to learn that he was also entrenched in southern California’s post-minimalist composer scene in the 1970s alongside many of my compositional heroes, work which this compilation presents for the first time. Couldn’t think of a better place for it to be transmitted from than EM!" (Spencer Doran/Visible Cloaks)

"Four Corners" is a compilation that showcases the various facets of American West Coast minimalist composer Jeff Bruner, with pieces from the 1970s to the 2020s displaying a cohesive set of aesthetic concerns. Bruner has a kinship with the composers Harold Budd and Daniel Lentz, the latter being a mentor to Bruner, and one can hear a relationship with the music of other minimal/post-minimal composers such as John Adams and Terry Riley. 1979’s “Magic Mbira”, a key piece in this collection, particularly highlights a Riley-esque element, and with its skillful use of tape delays reminiscent of Lenz's "cascading echo system." Bruner and his mbira piece also have musical affinities with Roland P. Young and his classic Isophonic Boogie Woogie, in their shared melodic and structural concerns, as well as a desire to perform their compositions in a wider range of performance spaces, away from traditional recital halls. Another side of Bruner is revealed in the funhouse-mirror “Reggae Foes”, a deconstructionist calypso-reggae tune and skewed Black Ark filtered through Cunningham/Toop’s General Strike. The remaining two pieces are melancholy beauties of solo instrumentation: “Cold Rain and Snow” is a fretless gut-string banjo re-imagining of an American folk song; “Remembrance in a Pale Room” is a lovely piano piece dedicated to Lentz. Bruner has built upon a tradition, altering and adding to it with his individual vision, giving us this collection of intriguing and beautiful music. Available on CD/Vinyl/Digital, and the physical version includes E/J liner notes by Jeff Bruner, rare photos & the score for "Magic Mbira”. ----------------------------------------- "I first came across Jeff’s mysterious "Reggae Foes" 45 in the mid-2000s at the legendary Logos book/record store in Santa Cruz, California (RIP) - the kind of generic sleeve and label that gives you nothing more than a font and some scant shards of text to go by (luckily this text was “A Flying Saucer Came Down and Burnt My Baby's Neck”). What I heard upon bringing it home felt like some kind of alternate-timeline post punk calypso, unknowingly adjacent to the deconstructions occurring at the Black Ark or in David Cunningham’s early productions. When I finally talked to Jeff many years later, I was even more surprised to learn that he was also entrenched in southern California’s post-minimalist composer scene in the 1970s alongside many of my compositional heroes, work which this compilation presents for the first time. Couldn’t think of a better place for it to be transmitted from than EM!" (Spencer Doran/Visible Cloaks)

EM Records is proud to present the first repress of the dancehall dub classic "Aftershock Dubs" (2014) in 12 years from Australia's Sheriff Lindo, dubmaster of the Southern Hemisphere. His "Ten Dubs That Shook the World" [EM1219CD/LP], released in 1988, has been growing in stature and became a classic since its release, supported by its rerelease on EM Records, and in the meantime the Sheriff has been working steadily, deep-local style, honing his skills with the Australian sound systems Firehouse Sound and Earthlink Sound. The tracks on "Aftershock Dubs," recorded between 1990 and 2005, while never officially released, have been played as dub plates at sound system parties, proved movers, tested in the heat of action. Recorded at Lindo's 4/5 Studios, these specials were chosen by Japanese sound system savants Takuto Kuratani (Ruv Bytes) and Atsushi Muneshige (Touch the Sky/Corner Stone Music) from a cornucopia of goodness supplied by Sheriff Lindo, mastered by Kuratani for maximum impact. EM Records' first-ever Dancehall release is now available again on vinyl, digital and CD, with two bonus tracks on the CD. One track features the vocals of Ras Roni; all tracks feature the experience-forged Dub sense of the Sheriff. More than a quarter-century of love, knowledge and soul-science has been distilled here. Don't miss it.

A split LP by two bands with truly singular musical identities: OOIOO, the Japanese experimental rock group led by YoshimiO of BOREDOMS, and Lightning Bolt, the noise‑rock duo from Rhode Island, USA.

Chaz Prymek and Matthew Sage are old friends; after a spate of duo releases in the late 2010s and early 2020s, this is their first proper full length duo release in six years. Those six years have been busy for both artists; they are the primary songwriters in their project Fuubutsushi with Patrick Shiroishi and Chris Jusell, Prymek is busy with his Lake Mary project, along with being a curator and organizer in Salt Lake, Sage has had a string of albums on RVNG, as well as juggling being a professor, a parent, a gardener, and an artist in Northern Colorado. They both spent part of that time wandering the Midwest, but both share deep roots in the Mountain West, in Colorado and Utah. Shelter sees the duo settling back into the wide landscapes of where they come from, and also where they are going. These were the first recordings made in the pole barn studio Sage set up in rural Colorado in 2022. Slowly and gently layered with sparse overdubs – yearning slide guitar, accordion, clarinet, recorder, delicate synthesizers – and sateen production treatments, the core of the album is a series of first take live improvisations with Prymek on electric guitar and Sage on piano. The album feels like sitting on a porch with an old friend and a warm cup of coffee while you catch up and talk about the good and the bad with a smile. Gentle and hymn-like, deeply melodious and patient. Channeling a humble spirit looking out on a majestic scene, things feel airy and pastoral, spacious and patient but a little tousled, windblown, chapped. Prymek and Sage have a long and wide catalog together, but something about Shelter feels like a new chapter and a benchmark for both of their practices containing the influence of years of sonic and artistic explorations, immense life changes, cross country moves, and all the warmth a sunbeam can bring along the way.