NEW ARRIVALS

Mike Ladd never stopped making music; over the years he's popped up on all sorts of unexpected collaborations, soundtracked a Netflix series, and worked with visual artists in settings like the Pantheon in Paris. Still, Ladd's last solo album was more than ten years ago, and his magnum opus Welcome to the Afterfuture dropped in early 2000. Nonechosen is a granite testament to the fact that the artist has evolved and grown, but maintains the same gravitas that made his name what it is. Nonechosen is a solo album, but Ladd worked with old friends: No Surrender and Tom Degeeter collaborated on respective tracks. Once Mike got the record 95% there with his own production, he passed it on to Preservation, who, with a few well-placed tweaks, elevated the project to new heights. Backwoodz Studioz is honored to be part of Ladd's comet-like return, introducing this seminal artist to a new generation of hip-hop fans.

A few years ago, the saxophonist, keyboardist, synthesist and musical polymath Josh Johnson was still a fairly well-kept secret in the music world. He was constantly showing up alongside Jeff Parker, Marquis Hill, Jamire Williams, Carlos Niño, Makaya McCraven and others, but often in the shadows, always supporting.

Lately Johnson has been harder to miss. He has helped shape the sound of Parker’s renowned ETA IVtet; served as the producer of Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-winning album, The Omnichord Real Book (2023); co-leads all-star creative ensembles like SML, the Openness Trio and a collective with Sam Wilkes and Gregory Uhlmann; and this year, as the producer of Flea’s Honora and the musical director of his band, appeared on The Tonight Show and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Still, Johnson has yet to bring his solo work fully into the spotlight.

On October 23, Animative, Johnson’s third album under his own name and his first for International Anthem/Nonesuch, arrives to turn up the wattage on his artistry. More than any release to date, Animative shows why musicians and a growing community of listeners know this Chicago native and longtime L.A. resident to be one of the most imaginative electroacoustic musicians today, not to mention one of the most stunningly versatile. On Animative, the harmonically rich, loops-inflected sound Johnson has been developing — first with a full band on 2020’s Freedom Exercise, then on 2024’s immersive solo album, Unusual Object — comes together in a life-affirming LP of lowkey improvised brilliance and technological ambition.

Animative erases any distinction between being a jazz record led by a saxophone player and an experimental electronics record by a solo artist. Effects and digital overlays are at work in more ways than the ear can track, even when what you hear first is an unaltered saxophone sound. Meanwhile, undiluted improvised brilliance on the saxophone seeps in at unexpected moments. Johnson puts sophisticated technologies to work on nearly every track, often using the saxophone to control a sampler or a drum machine, triggering changes in a loop or an effect. But it’s always in service of a feeling — working to escape the trap of mastery. “I'm looking to make it feel more human,” Johnson says.

When running his alto sax through a harmonizer, Johnson is often varying and altering the intervals as he goes, so that the harmonies don’t just move in parallel lines or a single key, but curl and swarm. He also sometimes adjusts the effects on individual notes within the harmonized sound. Listeners to the recent, effects-laden, overdubbed saxophone experiments of Sam Gendel, another Los Angeles saxophonist-producer (including with Wilkes), will note the distinctiveness of Johnson’s approach. Fans of Lea Bertucci, Travis Laplante, and other experimental reed players pushing the structures of solo work will find a similarly rich complement in Johnson’s blend of looping, effects and sax improvisation.

Johnson’s reserved and thoughtful nature made the album’s title something of a puzzler to his friends. “I said the name to a few people, and they were like, ‘Animated is not how I would describe you,’” he laughs. “But I'm really thinking about it from the perspective of causing animation, giving spirit, or connecting with spirit.” He thinks often of the lessons of Wayne Shorter, one of his teachers, who instilled in him a sense of reverence for the mystical, and emphasized the musician’s duty to “conjure and transport.” And as he put together Animative, Johnson also had in mind the West African philosopher Maladoma Somay’s writings, and the “non-Western ways of thinking about time and being” they propose. He was inspired too by Italo Calvino’s inventive, often-dreamlike short fiction. “The way he uses the vehicle of short story is so gorgeous,” Johnson said. “It influences the way I write.”

Animative’s first track, “Idiophone,” which he’d been workshopping through multiple versions in concerts leading up to the recording session, fundamentally reimagines the saxophone’s musical identity. “I’m really interested in putting the saxophone in a different role besides soloist,” Johnson says. “The saxophone is also the drum. ‘Idiophone’ is me wanting to access the feeling of a percussion ensemble.”

On “Aughts Hymnal,” he manipulates the horn to sound more like an organ. On “Strays,” extending the influence of Billy Strayhorn in a futuristic direction, he allows some of the harmonies felt by the listener to remain unplayed. “If you were to go in and analyze it, all those pieces aren’t fully there. But your ear is filling it in, because the feeling is there,” he says. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how, if I want them to be felt, that might mean making them less legible in a certain way, which actually puts the feeling first.”

While he has become deeply affiliated with the burgeoning L.A. jazz scene, Johnson still finds powerful inspiration in the legacy of his Chicago hometown. Of particular importance is the example set by Eddie Harris, who precedes him not only in the city’s saxophone lineage but also as a multi-instrumentalist, composer and 360-degree artistic thinker. “I’m inspired by him as a conceptualist, and somebody who navigates a lot of different spaces,” Johnson says. Among pianists, his pantheon is topped by another brilliant eccentric: Mal Waldron. “In music that is so often centering virtuosity,” Johnson says, Waldron demonstrated “a different way of existing.”

Like Harris, Johnson always leads with a strong musical concept, but he relies upon a collaborative community to execute it. The album’s personnel include Ben Lumsdaine on drums, Macie Stewart on violin, Marquis Hill on trumpet, and Paul Bryan on bass and co-producing the album with Johnson.

While working on “High Step,” a slightly churchy, slightly off-kilter groover, Johnson felt Meshell Ndegeocello’s bass would be a perfect fit. She performs as a guest on the track, occupying the bass chair — a supporting role she rarely plays.

“Mill” is a quieter tune that seems designed to warm up the memory banks—reminiscent of Aphex Twin or Joe Zawinul balladry, or more recently the work of Johnson’s frequent collaborator Jamire Williams—as a clean saxophone sound pairs with subtly processed lines in a mix of unison and harmony. Finally, the last note molders into silence.

/ / / /

Johnson spent his earliest years in Maryland before his family moved to the Chicago suburbs when he was young. He didn’t take to his piano lessons, finding that he was happier teaching himself. It was only after starting to play the saxophone at age eleven that he fell completely in love with music. Soon after, his parents bought him a stack of jazz records; the sound that caught his attention most was the saxophone of Lester Young.

“I was like, ‘This dude is talking to me,’” Johnson says. “That's what it felt like.” He was as fascinated by the intellect and swagger he heard inside Young’s playing as he was by the “vocal qualities” of the saxophone. “It can whisper, it can scream, it can be really textured. I was still playing piano and keyboards, but the saxophone was what captured me,” he says.

Johnson went on to earn a bachelor’s in music from Indiana University, making the nearly eight-hour round trip from Bloomington to Chicago on weekends to participate in his hometown jazz scene. After graduating, he spent a couple of years living and working in Chicago before attending grad school at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) in Los Angeles, studying under Shorter and Hancock.

He found himself surrounded by an L.A. jazz scene that was in bloom creatively and culturally. While Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin’s careers filled the foreground, a vast network of musicians was intermingling jazz, ambient, dance music, hip-hop, minimalism, and more at venues around town. Before long, Johnson was near the center of nearly all of it. He was energized by the exchange between different music scenes and artistic disciplines in those years, particularly on gigs he played with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Mark de Clive-Lowe, and Jamire Williams.

“There was a lot going on, and a lot of places to play, and a lot of cross-pollination all coming about very organically,” he remembered. “I think that really encouraged me, because there were all these people just finding different ways to combine a lot of their interests. There was room to make a path.” Originally expecting to return to Chicago or head to New York after the Monk Institute, Johnson chose to stay put. “Part of what kept me in L.A. is that I felt like, ‘I'm interested in all these different things. If I was to move to New York right now, I might need to spend a long time just following this one path of the saxophone lineage.’”

One of L.A.’s headiest spaces in those years was ETA, the Highland Park bar where Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet—which includes Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose—played weekly. “I guess it's like any sort of long-running gig in that it sort of takes on a life of its own,” Johnson says. “In those early days, there were a lot of different people who would come in there: other musicians, but also visual artists and painters, dancers, skateboarders from the various tributaries of Jeff’s world, stuff like that. There was this beautiful kind of overlap.”

In the past decade-plus, Johnson has become an essential collaborator to Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Louis Cole, aja monet, Gregory Uhlmann, Anna Butterss, Matthew Stevens, and Sam Wilkes, among others.

When not playing in a group led by someone else, Johnson has often gravitated toward co-led ensembles like SML (with Butterss, Uhlmann, Jeremiah Chiu, and Booker Stardrum), the Openness Trio (with Mercereau and Niño), or his collaborative trio with Uhlmann and Wilkes.

Meanwhile, he also maintains a connection to the leading Chicago musicians of his generation, continuing to play in bands led by Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, and Joel Ross.

In addition to his jazz bona fides, Johnson’s musical versatility has been informed by an impressive resume of pop music work, including with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, Chris Cohen, and Ezra Furman. Johnson served as musical director for Leon Bridges from 2018 to 2022, in which time he directed a performance with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he arranged fourteen of Bridges’ songs.

For Johnson, every collaboration is a chance to connect and extend his practice. Much of the spirit of Animative has been informed by lessons he gleaned from recent work with Ndegeocello in particular. “We all have certain assumptions that we come into writing or making music with. Working with her, some of those things were broken down for me immediately,” Johnson says. “It opened me up to not just consider more of what’s coming in externally, but to also let more of the variety that's inside of me come out.”

“dm studies 000 - 004” is the first official music release by Daito Manabe, a visual artist, programmer, and composer who has continued to push the boundaries of music, technology, and visual expression. Originally released exclusively at the venue of the new festival “Future Frequencies Festival,” which Manabe co-organized in 2026, the CD is now available to the general public. Comprising five tracks, *dm studies 000 - 004* is an avant-garde electronic music work created around themes of contrasting concepts such as “chaos and order” and “humanity and process.” It explores the intersection of classical mathematical principles, beautifully and intricately constructed kinetic sound design, and club music, presenting Daito Manabe’s unique and cutting-edge musical universe.

Previously dubplate only, serious heavyweight soundsystem business. Produced by TNT ROOTS, can't miss

Beautiful, ephemeral ectronica from Berlin’s OCA, presented by the ace Metrón label behind Meitei’s japanese ghost stories and a deep ambient dive by Georgia. Lucidly influenced by Japanese environmental ambient styles, OCA’s ‘Aging’ follows from the duo’s 2018 tape ‘Preset Music’ for Constellation Tatsu with a longing exploration of decaying melodies and blushing harmonics structures sure to light up the pleasure centres of anyone following new, Jap-inspired ambient innovations from the likes of Nozomu Matsumoto or Kenji Yamamoto to Visible Cloaks and Yamaneko, or even the breezy dimensions of Gas. Thru 10 vignette-like prisms OCA radiate pure light and good vibes from every pore, treading the finest line between introspection and nostalgic reverie in a way that acknowledges a sort of shared dream or waking life experience common to many listeners. Hailing from Bavaria, the duo’s Yo van Lenz and Florian T M Zeisig operate at a strolling pace and state of mind that almost feels like a lighter take on Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas or Love Inc. creations, had he had a headful of inspiration from anime soundtracks and japanese ambient rather than Wagner and the likes of Prefab Sprout’s soft rock. As the album title implies, this is maybe a central issue of ‘Aging’, as where Voigt looks to the romantic pop and classical inspiration of his youth, OCA take theirs from a shared but slightly different pool of ‘80s cues; clear to hear between the languorous swoon of ‘I Believe In You’, the piquant strings and grin-inducing choral percolations of ‘Time With Your Dog’ (what a title!), the spirit-easing relief of ‘Making The last Train’, and shared-memory-jogging beauties such as ‘Baby’s First Blade of Grass’.

Unclassifiable music from Jolie Gentiane - Autotuned/vocoderized vocals, 4th world, kitsch sax, psychedelic arpeggios, acoustic guitar, techno etc. RIYL FELT, Accidental Meetings, Scenic Route. "The duo Jolie Gentiane come to us straight from a wild and unpredictable mountain peak, a perched place far from civilization, where the beauty and cruelty of mother nature reign but harmonize the elements. They walk the high, steep paths, looking down on the chaotic and industrial world. This increasingly smoky world, which, from the top of the mountains, looks metamorphosing dangeroulsy, but would only need a few changes to make it less crazy. Or perhaps infinitely more so. Jolie Gentiane is a skilful concoction of sound and daring. Unclassifiable, impalpable, the contemporary embracing the tradition and the acoustic swinging with the electronics. The story told by Jolie Gentiane on this album is rich and complete. Nature, love, celebration, struggle, work. Yes, even work. Because the energy deployed to create this album was surreal, patient, extremely methodical, and the abnegation of the protagonists has been vertiginous: the cliff of the highest peak is finally climbed. This album is like an ode to the earth, to the respect we owe it, an ode also to music in its purest essence, that which does not confine itself to borders, but shout for federation, dance and uprising."

After the space-time experience and the translation into music of the Bible of Japanese civilization, the Fulukotofumi, the following year, in 1973, Hiromasa Suzuki pushes his research and experimentation beyond the borders of his own country by venturing, with the usual companions of adventure (Kunimitsu Inaba, Hideo Sekine, etc.), along the lights and shadows of the Silk Road. A backward journey in search of the musical and cultural sources of mainland Asia, from the gates of India to the roots of China. If the Biwa lute characterized the previous chapter dedicated to the profound ancestral of Japan, here, the sitar, the Asian instrument par excellence, becomes a new narrator; Suzuki plans and manages the interventions by juxtaposing it with an opera that, like the previous one, always remains strongly jazz and rock, at times very similar to Ian Carr's Nucleus. A precious find in the endless and seminal musical archeology of modern Japanese music. Gatefold cover with insert.

The Fulukotofumi is the most important and ancient historical chronicle of Japan. The content of this work becomes an inspiration for the creation of a sound transposition of the legends and myths that most marked the spirit and inspiration of Hiromasa Suzuki, as a musician and as a high-level composer. The music that is concentrated between these grooves is a representation of the best that moved in the early seventies in the jazz-rock orbit at an international level; in addition, very strong infiltrations of tradition, characterized above all by the extremely calibrated and perfectly ad hoc interventions of the Biwa (lute of the Japanese tradition once used by blind monks to recite poems) and the Wadaiko drum. From its entirety, a highly evocative and magical sketch in nine suites emerges, a viaticum towards the most ancestral past of Japan, but at the same time also immersed in the modernity and expressive relevance of the land of the rising sun. A masterpiece that, buried for too long in the archives, is finally back reissued on vinyl with original graphics on its gatefold cover and enriched by an insert with the translations of the precious introductory essay contained in its original edition. Accompanying Suzuki's acoustic and electric piano is the crème of Japanese jazz that gives free rein to one's primordial instincts. Some passages come close to progressive, especially thanks to Kiyoshi Sugimoto's Allan Holdsworth style guitar.

That sought-after collab between New York producer Eden Aurelius and Ben Paulson of Purelink, operating here as Ring, originally issued as a lathe cut 10" dubplate, this is a limited run 12" edition runs at 2 tracks, 23 minutes of the good stuff, new from Chicago's Dub Techno specialists Kino Disk. Smeared to a gauzy bliss, ‘Rotation’ operates at the horizontal axis for 25 mins of knackered goodness where the most expansive post-rock terrain meets ambient electronica and dub as method. ‘Rotation 1’ teases the simplest gestures of warm, harmonised chords and sunken percussion into forms describing the motion and translucence of jellyfish, before the B-side subtly firms up the shape around moonlit, hash burp figures and subs that slosh around the ankles, while percussion clanks like mast rigging in the harbour.

For Sweet People From Sweet Charles (1974) by the American bassist Charles "Sweet" Emanuel Sherrell is a deep, groove-heavy funk record rooted in the early-70s James Brown school of rhythm-driven soul. Indeed, Sherrell himself was a longtime James Brown collaborator. Built around tight basslines, the album emphasizes raw funk grooves, syncopated rhythms, and stripped-down arrangements rather than polished production or pop structure. Vocals are loose and soulful, often secondary to the rhythm section’s drive. Overall, it’s a cult funk album: gritty, bass-forward, and closer to extended groove jams than conventional songwriting, capturing the transition from classic soul into harder-edged 1970s funk. This new vinyl edition is the first after 10 years.

12th Isle keep up an ace 10th anniversary streak with their best in recent memory; Igaxx’s suite of deep-diving ambient pearls, swimming from beatdown electronica to 4th world and new age ambient, via sleepwalking dream dancers. FFO Move D’s ‘Kunststoff’, Terre Thaemlitz, early CS + Kreme EPs, Ramzi, Eden Aurelius... Modern ambient’s Scottish pie(eye)d pipers invite Tokyo’s Igaxx to take the reins on ‘New Lights’, where he follows a string of self-released gems on his Ladybug label, and the likes of Macadam Mambo and Paesaggi Records, with an effortlessly absorbing 40 mins of breezy downbeat heat. This guy patently knows how to froth up a damn strong beatdown groove throughout ‘New Lights’, paying equal attention to atmospheric pressure and rhythm programming discipline with a sexy sensuality that pushes all the right buttons for late night listening needs (late night meaning literally anytime in Glasgow). Glowing with a vintage sodium orange candescence, rather than dimmer LED’s, ‘New Lights’ shimmies between shadows of classic and contemporary beatdown with a really classy élan. ’Something Like Astral’ sets the tone with lustrous subs harnessed to distant snare crackshots and acid contrails in a floating architecture, where ‘Zutto Mae’ follows with elegant play of 4th world light like Ramzi meets Spencer Clarke. He hits a high water mark of pensile early ‘90s ambient on the chef’s kiss of ‘Atmosphere’, and steers that sound along natural vectors into gently heart-in-mouth suspension of ‘Motion’, and balmy downbeats shades away from Wally Baradrou in ‘Air to Spare’. The ticklish 808 frisson of the title piece and beat-less armchair AI thought bubble/hash burp of ‘Cosmic Being’ is the ideal way to see off this wee gem.

A sublime secret portal to ‘90s ambient bliss is re-opened with a first vinyl reissue of Jon Tye (Seahawks, Lo Recordings) & Pete Smith’s (The Hypnotist) maiden voyage as MLO, distilling their shared love for Satie, Debussy and Cage thru to Soft Machine, Incredible String Band and Eno in gorgeous, air-spun forms. Re-upped to sighs of relief from those who balk at steep 2nd hand prices for a decent copy, ‘Io’ represents ‘90s UK ambient at its rose-tinted, dreamy and pastoral best, hence the cult status of its original Rising High pressing for those in the know. One of three LPs produced by the duo around mid-decade, it endures for modern needs on the basis of its elusive, perfumed waft and a quietly suggestive carousel of motifs that melt on mind with rare tactility. Start to finish they most beautifully read the room’s need for this type of glacially slow burn sound-bathing, effectively colouring the eyelid-flickering dreams of post-club ravers with richly synaesthetic tones and iridescent shimmers that, 32 years later, still conjure a late stage pill belly effect to our sensibilities on a sober Tuesday afternoon. Residual gurns and tingly frissons should be expected in passage from the gossamer soft arps and cosmic awn of ‘Wimborne’ thru the panoramic 17 min poise of ‘Lagoon / Moon Over Lagos’, and spectral sublime of ‘Ghost’, to a two-part finale that leaves the sensation on tip of tongue. Really a no brainer. Don’t fight the feeling.

A sublime secret portal to ‘90s ambient bliss is re-opened with a first vinyl reissue of Jon Tye (Seahawks, Lo Recordings) & Pete Smith’s (The Hypnotist) maiden voyage as MLO, distilling their shared love for Satie, Debussy and Cage thru to Soft Machine, Incredible String Band and Eno in gorgeous, air-spun forms. Re-upped to sighs of relief from those who balk at steep 2nd hand prices for a decent copy, ‘Io’ represents ‘90s UK ambient at its rose-tinted, dreamy and pastoral best, hence the cult status of its original Rising High pressing for those in the know. One of three LPs produced by the duo around mid-decade, it endures for modern needs on the basis of its elusive, perfumed waft and a quietly suggestive carousel of motifs that melt on mind with rare tactility. Start to finish they most beautifully read the room’s need for this type of glacially slow burn sound-bathing, effectively colouring the eyelid-flickering dreams of post-club ravers with richly synaesthetic tones and iridescent shimmers that, 32 years later, still conjure a late stage pill belly effect to our sensibilities on a sober Tuesday afternoon. Residual gurns and tingly frissons should be expected in passage from the gossamer soft arps and cosmic awn of ‘Wimborne’ thru the panoramic 17 min poise of ‘Lagoon / Moon Over Lagos’, and spectral sublime of ‘Ghost’, to a two-part finale that leaves the sensation on tip of tongue. Really a no brainer. Don’t fight the feeling.

Verdad Y Error (2026) resides in the tension between the thrashing of external noise and beating centred internal calm. Gibrana Cervantes is known for her work across experimental music and contemporary performance, a practice with focussed intensity and surging physicality, often pushing the limits of endurance, presence, and embodiment. A central axis of her performance practice is her ongoing collaboration with acclaimed choreographer Florentina Holzinger, including composing the music for SEA WORLD (2026), Florentina Holzinger’s critically acclaimed installation for the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Alongside this she is a core member of the experimental ensemble Amor Muere ( Mabe Fratti, Concepción Huerta, and Camille Mandoki). Cervantes maintains an active recording practice that directly informs her live output including her collaboration Memoria (2025), with Colombian Drone Mafia (Nyksan) for Ambie-Tón (Tratratrax). Verdad y Error is a record of her artistic approach which expands her body and the violin’s horizon of possibility to near breaking point. Cervantes uses a register closely associated with Metal, yet buried deep in the alchemy of these pieces are motifs which hark back to her classical background. Across these pieces the violin is used as an instrument with a fragmented and shifting voice — blurred, repeated, and reshaped through distortion. “Many of these pieces come from images, memories, and sensations that have stayed with me for years. I'm interested in the blurring of what actually happened and what time transforms.” The recordings are built with layers of violin tones which oscillate between recognisable, processed, stretched and shifted, and lay embedded in a frequency stratum of volatile static and noise. “The violin on this album doesn't appear as a clean instrument. I process it, repeat it, distort it, and multiply it until it begins to feel more like memory than melody. Something blurry, shifting, difficult to grasp.” The origins of the album were born at a time when Cervantes was seeking inner calm amidst a relentless external noise, questioning the validity or possibility of memory and its radically changing perception in relation to experience. Subsequent reflection on this contemplative moment allowed her to develop a relational music which moves through memory, erosion, repetition, and emotional ambiguity, creating a space that feels both intimate and unstable, mercurial with the patina of lived imperfection. Akin to the unreliable narrator and linguistic instability, each piece functions as an emotional landscape suspended between clarity and confusion. An album which balances melody, brutality, fragility and noise throughout its sprawling recordings and artwork, which operates as an analogue to the music. The visual world of the album developed in collaboration with Mauro Ventura was compiled across various media with a mix of handwritten texts, burned typography, metallic textures, and fragile physical materials. “I wanted the record to feel tactile and imperfect — something emotionally direct but physically worn.” says Cervantes. More than offering explanations, verdad y error exists as a conversation between memory and disappearance, noise and stillness, truth and error.

An album by a little-known guitar duo released in 1999. Their songs—composed solely of guitars and making heavy use of harmonics—are beautiful pieces that evoke an ambient-like tranquility; during their live performances at the time, they even collaborated with 8mm film projections. However, while the album received high praise from a select few, the overall response was very limited. At the time, the indie scene had not yet re-evaluated ambient sounds, and there were virtually no other groups performing such simple instrumental music live. I believe this made the music extremely difficult to categorize and left it in a precarious position. However, once Japanese ambient music began to be re-evaluated globally in the 2010s, this album was rediscovered, and the remaining stock of CDs sold out instantly. Amid calls for a reissue, we’d like to unleash this music anew with this first-ever vinyl release. KENKEN—now known as URBAN VOLCANO SOUNDS—also makes a guest appearance. Whether you want to take your time exploring this little-known hidden gem or use it as everyday background music, this acoustic guitar instrumental album creates beautiful moments that seep into the very air around you.

Homer Steinweiss, the Brooklyn based soul/funk drummer, always had a soft spot for folk music. Paul Spring, a young idealist folk singer traveling the country with his guitar, always had a beautiful falsetto in his back pocket. A family introduction would lead to Homer producing a few solo records of Paul’s, which would eventually lead to the creation of Holy Hive. The two enlisted Joe Harrison on bass and started out recording their first tunes as a group. A tour with soul legend Lee Fields would turn out to have an unexpected effect on their sound as they played their material to crowds of soul fanatics looking to dance. It was this realization that forced the next step in their evolution and gave birth to a sound unique to Holy Hive, a sound that walks a line so perfectly it necessitated a new genre, Folk Soul. Homer has been drumming professionally since 2000 and has provided the back beat to records by Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, The Jonas Brothers, and Lady Gaga to name a few. He has toured the world over with soul acts like Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and The Arcs. With all of that under his belt, Holy Hive is the first band that is truly his own and you can hear that it is close to his heart. Paul is from a small town in Minnesota where he spent his formative years studying Ancient Greek mythology and practicing classical guitar. He toured the states for years with only the company of his guitar, playing solo shows to make ends meet and occasional library gigs promoting his self released children’s record, Home Of Song. Listening to their debut album, their different experiences and influences have all shown up. From the heavy downbeat of the lead single “Broom” to their intimate cover of Honeybus’ “Be Thou By My Side,” Float Back To You showcases their songwriting prowess as well as their impeccable musicianship. Spring’s fondness for ancient mythology shows up in a few places on the album as well adding another level to their work. They adapt the Greek poet Sappho’s “Fragment 31” to music on “Embers To Ash” and completely rework the Irish folk tune “Red Is The Rose” into a modern day two stepper. Another standout track is the already classic “Oh I Miss Her So,” which first showed up on their 2018 Harping EP and features accomplished harpist Mary Lattimore and trumpet by Dave Guy of The Roots. The symbiotic relationship of Homer and Paul has been likened to that of an oxpecker and a black rhino. Paul’s delicate falsetto and fluttering guitar rests atop Homer’s brawny drums in perfect harmony. There are many levels to Holy Hive, some of them show up on the surface, but some of them are like the album’s title track; you listen to a gorgeous love song only to find out later it is about coming home to your cat. This is perhaps the most telling of Holy Hive, they are easy to like on first listen but spending time with their music will reveal a much deeper experience.

11月中旬再入荷。坂本龍一とのコラボレーション3曲収録。Lee BannonとしてもNinja Tuneなどで活躍する北カルフォルニアのプロデューサー、Fred Welton Warmsley IIIによる真打ちである、インダストリアル・ミュージックをノイズやポスト・アンビエント、モダン・クラシカルといった現代的かつ先鋭的なアプローチで革新する一大プロジェクト、Dedekind Cutの8年振りとなる待望の新作！
Dedekind Cutによる〈DED〉トリロジーの最終章『Dede-K-Tion』。長い時間をかけて構想・制作されてきたシリーズの集大成となる作品で、これまでの〈DED〉シリーズで展開されてきた音響的探究をさらに拡張し、微細でスピチリュアルな電子音響とミニマリズムが交錯する世界を形成。坂本龍一特有の洗練された静謐さも相まって、Dedekind Cutの新たな領域へ到達した重要作。

A pairing of two live recordings of one of their signature songs, each featuring a different arrangement. An essential release offering a fresh perspective on the singular appeal of Maher Shalal Hash Baz!

Formed in 1984 and led by Tori Kudo, Japanese experimental music project Maher Shalal Hash Baz have created a uniquely distinctive musical universe, moving freely between folk, jazz, brass, classical music, and improvisation. Their signature song “Unknown Happiness” stands as a perfect embodiment of this singular approach. Its simple, heartfelt melody has continued to resonate with indie and experimental music enthusiasts around the world. Now, one of the most evocative live renditions of this beloved song finally receives a long-awaited 7-inch release! The A-side captures the spontaneous atmosphere of a live performance, along with the beautifully imperfect ensemble playing that is so characteristic of Maher Shalal Hash Baz. The B-side features a special live arrangement centered around piano, revealing another, equally captivating dimension of the song.

Gloorp is the experimental electronic project of Philadelphia percussionist and producer Garrett Burke. Burke previously played drums with art-rock groups Of Montreal and Mothers, before releasing his self-titled debut as Gloorp in 2023. It was his second album, Gloorp 'Em Up, that really broke through. Nina Protocol called it a "Polyrhythmic electronic frenzy," while Pitchfork followed with a glowing review. Sessions on NTS Radio and dublab, plus shows with Ulrika Spacek, Photay, and Xen Model, kept the momentum building. That run of live dates helped shape Gloorp Life. Blending footwork, bass, and club with Burke's standout drumming, it is forward-thinking, textural electronic music with a playful rhythmic edge. The album follows the acclaimed 2025 dance tape Gloorp 'Em Up, which Pitchfork called "a daisy-chained string of mulching beats that's casual, light, and fun as hell."

Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch’s Bocca di Lupo and Mouth of the Wolf were recorded in July 2025 in Bologna, Italy. The recording sessions took place just after several live dates in New York and Chicago, and a week before they began a short European tour which included Paris, London, Ghent, Porto, and a first date in Bologna. Below are notes from Jozef and Jim directly.“With thanks to Gian Luca Farinelli and Rosanna Mordini from the extraordinary Cineteca di Bologna, we were able to secure recording days in the very cool Fonoprint Studios — located on Via Bocca di Lupo in Bologna, hence the titles of these two LPs. (“In bocca al lupo” — in the mouth of the wolf — is the Italian idiom for wishing one good luck; equivalent to “break a leg” in English.)Bocca di Lupo starts with a new version of our own “Only Lovers Left Alive,” and “Apology” is a new version of a pre-existing piece by Jozef. All other tracks are new originals. We were honored to have guest duet vocals from the iconic Courtney Barnett on “Never Like You Said.” The lyrics of the song arrived spontaneously in a single take in the studio. It’s not directed at a specific person, but more an emotional response to several disingenuous, deceitful people — a closing of the door on their toxic behavior. And a casually recorded conversation (concerning the haunted auras of particular pieces of vintage women’s clothing) between Adriana Coppi and Veronica Mayrr (from Deux Femmes) is woven as a background into the track titled “Pour Deux Femmes.” “Black Roses” is an original poem written in Bologna, and recited from within its own musical setting. All other tracks are instrumentals. Mouth of the Wolf, the second LP, consists of two longer, darkly ecstatic instrumental studio tracks — “In A” and “Massa Damnata.” Both were created with two electric guitars, and derived from our live performances. We consider it to be a musically separate album, and is therefore presented in its own sleeve and with its own artwork.Our music has many inspirations — everything from our friends in Sunn O))) and Swans to Terry Riley and Morton Feldman; from Hildegard Von Bingen and WIlliam Lawes to Psychic Ills and Spacemen 3; from Les Rallizes Dénudés and NEU! to Nadja and Glenn Branca; from Ian Svenonius and Dead Skeletons to Son House and Gwenifer Raymond…from sunset to sunrise…full moon to new moon…”

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

Rizan Said is a musical ambassador from Syria's analog era. For generations, the Jazeera — a culturally rich borderland of Kurdish, Arab, Syriac, and Armenian communities — has been alive with a distinctive sonic tradition: hand drums and reed flutes, weddings that lasted days, dabke rooted in a long musical tradition before electro and disco arrived to name it, and before orientalism arrived to explain it. Rizan was the boy wonder of that scene, a prodigy on percussion and reed instruments who became the region's master synthesist, at the forefront of the shift as electronic keyboards transformed the music. His instrument is the factory preset, bent past recognition. Across three decades — first on the cassette circuit that ran through Hassake, Deir Ez Zor, and Qamishli, then on stages from Le Guess Who to Iceland Airwaves — Said has programmed Korgs to emulate zurna, saz, tanbura, and buzuq, collapsing an entire traditional ensemble into a single pair of hands moving at lightning speed. It is the sound that carried Omar Souleyman's voice out of the Jazeera and around the world, and for nearly two decades Said was the one building it, night after night, wedding after wedding. Ma Waraa Al-Shaabi is his third solo album, following King of Keyboard (Annihaya, 2015) and Saz Û Dilan (Akuphone, 2019) and his most far-reaching, carrying cosmic, electronic dabke toward its next destination. Recorded at Sundlaugin in May 2026 and produced by Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Panos Cosmatos) with co-production by Mark Gergis (Syrian Cassette Archives, Sublime Frequencies) and engineering and additional production by Úlfur Hansson, the record takes the heat and velocity of the cassette circuit and opens it out into something wider, stranger, and more alive than ever. Seven pieces, cut across four sides. The record is also a reunion. In 2011, Dunn and Gergis worked closely with Said and Souleyman on The Crystalline Series — the three Omar Souleyman versions of Björk's "Crystalline," "Tesla," and "Mawal," made around Biophilia and built on Said's keyboards. Fifteen years later the same circle reconvenes at Sundlaugin, this time with Said at the center of it. "This album is not a new beginning for me. It's a continuation of a long musical journey," Said says. "When Randall Dunn, Mark Gergis, Charmaine Lee and I began working on this record together, we weren't attempting to recreate what I'd done before. We simply let the music lead us. Recording in Iceland gave us a unique and immersive space to experiment, to listen closely, and allow each piece to reach its natural form."

ロックステディの女王の異名をとるPhyllis Dillonが、名門〈Treasure Isle〉に残した音源を一堂に会したベスト・アルバム『Rocksteady』。

Rare dub reggae emerges from the vaults in the shape of this late-1970s set produced by one of Jamaica's lesser-known talents, Ossie Hibbert. Hibbert, who was primarily an engineer and keyboardist, favors a drum-heavy mix (courtesy of the legendary Sly Dunbar) laced with horns. Seen as the dub companion to Gregory’s classic ‘Mr Isaacs’ album it boasts six mind-expanding Cool Ruler dub treatments plus four further speaker-shakers to showcase the Revolutionaries in full-effect. He incorporates a few of the sonic eccentricities, like wailing babies and train whistles, popular with better-known figures like Lee Perry on a variety of vintage rhythms, notably Gregory Isaacs' "I'm All Right" and Dillinger's "Take a Dip." Casually elegant, Hibbert provides a naturalistic soundstage against which the ace session band the Revolutionaries skank their stuff, smooth and easy.