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Este Disco lo compusimos en Xalapa y lo grabamos durante la neonormalidad. Es un album donde pusimos los sentimientos engendrados en una larga amistad y cuenta la historia de otra persona.
Una persona que se vuelve otra. Que se libera de sí.
"Hoy es un día cualquiera pero yo ya no soy yo"
Four digital dancehall scorchers with two accompanying 8-bit versions meticulously crafted with the soundsystem session in mind!
Tapes has been spreading wonky saturated riddim goodness since his ground breaking “Hissing Theatricals” EP in 2009. Now, after a brief hibernation in the northern spawning pools, he’s spinning up his reels once again to present a new killer set of amphibian friendly, nintendo-fied sound system depth charges!
The “Photos of My Frog EP” is croaking off with its oddly addictive namesake: a surefire pond party starter – Ribbit! Hopping along, the adorable but tuff “Cleat Skank” and its gameboy driven pollywog follow, swinging their 8bit melody lasso till the cows come home. Yeehaw!
“Ramp Up” on B is a dense and raw FM synth digi banger, sure to fry any nearby circuits, so best beware! “Back Cramp Riddim” then turns up the low end even more and swirls its drums and synths into the next delay vortex, warping into a pixelated 8bit conclusion.
Whatever your taste in insects there’s something on this record for any lover of vintage dancehall and amphibious wild life alike!
In 2023, k.d.b lived in a crumbling farmhouse on the edge of the River Maas. Each morning, he’d wake at 6:00 and walk along the river’s bank with his dogfriend Miemel, pausing at sunrise for a cup of coffee.
It’s 6:34, and a thick rug of mist rolls out across the river. It’s so dense that k.d.b can’t see the water beneath it. Then comes the sun: a single ray cutting through the mist like a tube of light, landing on Miemel’s face. In her mouth is a CD she’s picked up, and on the CD is the title Instrumental Romance.
'What is Instrumental Romance?' thinks k.d.b. 'Romantic instrumentals? Or a romance used instrumentally? As in, a romance used to get something—like love?'
Miemel drops the CD and turns her attention to a stray purple grape on the path. Grapes are poisonous to dogs, and as she bends toward it, k.d.b. shouts, “NO!” At that precise moment, a large fish rises from the mist. It launches into the air, mouth wide open, and hangs there above the clouds. His shout, having traveled across the river, bounces back towards k.d.b with a “NO,” and in perfect synchrony, it appears the fish is also shouting at Miemel. The timing is so perfect, they can’t be sure it isn’t.
The fish falls back down, entering its watery world with an eerie, splashless silence, leaving k.d.b and Miemel standing open-mouthed on the bank. Before they can register the perfection of this duet, another fish (or maybe the same one again) rises from the mist in the exact same spot and launches into the air. Without thinking, k.d.b shouts again. The word “ROMANCE” comes out. This time, however, he is slightly too late, and the word is too long, so “ROMANCE” lingers on after the fish has already fallen back down.
'What even is romance?' thinks k.d.b. 'The construction of mystery or excitement with dead red flowers and timing?'
A foghorn sounds behind him, and k.d.b turns 180 degrees to see a boat moving freight, right to left, along the River Maas. 'That’s strange', he thinks. 'If the river is there, then what’s that behind me, below the mist?'
Staring at the boat and its shipping containers as they float out of sight, k.d.b imagines a man. The man is standing at the bottom of a small valley, holding a fish. 'Who is this man, and what does he want?'
- Jacob Dwyer
Second Circle is very excited to announce ‘In Dream’, the eight-track debut album from Tokyo-born, Berlin-based producer and DJ Courtney Bailey.
Sonically, 'In Dream' unfolds as a rich, lush soundscape, woven together with expansive digital synth pads, Fairlight-esque stabs, and vibrant acid bass lines. At times the EP leans back horizontally to evoke the balearic spirit of Yello ('Burnt Moon'), at other times it leans more upright towards to dancefloor ('In Heaven'), but what remains throughout is a sense of intimacy, gracefully guided by Bailey’s whisper soft spoken vocals and gentle melodic vocal lines.
Building on an initial spark of inspiration that arose when listening to the work of Japanese artist Dream Dolphin aka Noriko Kodera, ‘In Dream' is Bailey’s direct creative response to new feelings, energy and emotions. Time spent in the outdoors, specifically in the natural landscapes of Australia also had a profound influence on the making of the record; opener ‘Kodou’ was directly inspired by a moment in Melbourne watching rainbow-colored parrots in a pink-flowering tree. Similarly, 'Burnt Moon' captures the essence of watching moonlight shimmer on ocean waters. At its core, 'In Dream' embraces a child-like wonder for the beauty of nature, an act which infuses the music with a radiant, luminous sense of positivity.
Capturing the essence of stepping into the unknown and more importantly, doing it with curiosity and optimism, ‘In Dream’ paints a vibrant, multi-colour vision of life, with Bailey inviting us all to immerse ourselves in it’s wonders.
'In Dream’ will be released on October 30th on vinyl LP and digitally. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.
Psychotropic’s seminal 1990 12” Only for the Headstrong is reissued, reconnecting us with the raw energy of the early UK rave era. Emerging at the height of acid house, the track fused house, breakbeat and psych-pop into a euphoric anthem that still captivates today.
The duo of DJ Gavin Mills and cult psych-pop experimentalist Nick Nicely created the record in a single inspired South London studio session, using little more than an Akai S900 sampler, a Fostex 8-track and a Casio CZ-101. Its hypnotic loops, soaring keys and infectious groove captured both the chaos and innocence of the scene, while B-side ‘Out of Your Head’ added a funk-driven, Prince-style twist.
Beloved by DJs, collectors and ravers alike, Only for the Headstrong became an underground hit, topping London’s indie shop charts and cementing Psychotropic’s reputation for marrying psychedelic textures with club-ready beats. This reissue arrives with liner notes by Nicely, offering fresh context for a track that embodies the open-minded DIY spirit of late-80s warehouse culture.
Following up last year's acclaimed 'Heavy Glory' and collabs with Dean Blunt and Yung Lean, Iceage's Elias Rønnenfelt maxes on Yves Tumor-indebted hyper-sexual '90s indie-isms, trading sniffs 'n sneers with Erika de Casier, Fine and The Congos. RIYL Happy Mondays, Primal Scream or Bar Italia.
Rønnenfelt's always been good at predicting tidal shifts. Even when he was a teen fronting hardcore punk heroes Iceage he repeatedly bucked expectations, choosing to tour with fringe noise operatives like Helm and evolve the band's sound into something more like Spiritualized, augmenting chugging Britpop references with a full gospel choir on 2021's 'Seek Shelter'. So when his solo debut arrived last year, its peculiarity was almost a given; why wouldn't it be a set of country-tinted folk-rock jammers backed up with covers of Spacemen 3 and Townes Van Zandt? 'Speak Daggers', though, is a different beast altogether. Made in his bedroom between tours, it's a thicker, more confidently obstinate album than its predecessor that plays more like a continuation or evolution of 'Seek Shelter'. So after a smirking fake-out with the Nyman-esque 'Intro', 'Crush the Devil's Head' busses us to Manchester via Oxford, juxtaposing its cheeky melodica moans with Rønnenfelt's best Thom Yorke impression.
'Love How It Feels' sounds like Primal Scream reimagined by Yves Tumor, all thick sampled breaks, bolshy doomsaying and clammy glam undertones. There's an era-appropriate jaunt to Jamaica on 'Not Gonna Follow' that repurposes material Rønnenfelt recorded with The Congos and I-Jahbar when he was out in Jamaica a few years ago and sounds as if it could have fallen off the notorious '...Yes Please' sessions. And on 'Mona Lisa', he uses the Bobby Byrd 'Hot Pants' break that The Stone Roses famously twinned with Mani's enduring bassline on 'Fools Gold' - Rønnenfelt's tale of heartbreak isn't quite as toothsome, but it's a good indicator of where his head's at. A duet with Erika de Casier helps bolster highlight 'Blunt Force Trauma', and Rønnenfelt's Escho bandmate Fine - whose voice graces Two Shell's 'Home' - pitches in on 'Kill Your Neighbor', tapping into the seam between Denise Johnson and Hope Sandoval.
A meeting of two uncompromising sound artists, New Music fuses pulsating electronic rhythms, immersive drones, and abstract textures into a vivid, physical listening experience. Rising from the outer fringes where abstract techno, noise, and electro-acoustic composition converge, both artists channel their distinct sonic vocabularies into a shared space of tension and transformation. Giffoni’s deep synth drones collide with Nordwall’s ritualistic sense of structure and rhythmic, creating a sound that feels at once mechanical and organic, grounded and cosmic. Moving between dense rhythmic sequences and vast stretches of tonal drift, New Music unfolds like a continuous exploration of energy and decay - music that challenges the boundary between motion and stasis, chaos and control.
For listeners of forward-thinking electronics, this collaboration stands as a compelling testament to the power of sound and the unique chemistry that emerges when two creative worlds intersect. Nordwall explains: “Even though we spent a lot of time together, we never really talked about making music together. But when Carlos visited Sweden, I asked if he’d be into it, as I felt our recordings were starting to sound like they came from the same planet. He kindly agreed and sent me a batch of files to work on. That became New Music - our music, our shared sound.”
Carlos Giffoni is a Venezuelan-born experimental musician and composer known for his visceral approach. A central figure in the 2000s New York noise and experimental scene, he founded No Fun Fest and has collaborated with artists such as Merzbow, Prurient and Jim O’Rourke.
Joachim Nordwall is a Swedish artist and musician exploring industrial, drone, and minimalist, repetitive electronics. As head of iDEAL Recordings and a member of projects like The Skull Defekts and Organ of Corti he remains a key force in Sweden’s experimental music landscape.
A bridge between generations of ambient exploration, this split release unites two artists connected through mood, texture, and introspection: Enno Velthuys, the late Dutch composer and visual artist whose melancholic ambient works defined a quiet corner of the 1980s cassette underground and Paul Riedl, best known as the creative force behind visionary metal band BLOOD INCANTATION, who here reveals a parallel world of deep ambient sound. Together, these recordings form a contemplative journey across aesthetics: a meeting of two artists who, though separated by time, share a commitment to sound as emotional architecture.
Velthuys’s contributions are drawn from the EXART vaults and carefully selected by Hessel Veldman to serve as an appetizer for an upcoming LP of more unreleased material on Stroom Records. Across four cassettes, Velthuys crafted a deeply personal sound - minimal, dreamlike and steeped in solitude - that would later come to be recognized as a cornerstone of European ambient music. The pieces presented here continue that fragile lineage: meditative, intimate and quietly transcendent.
Flipping over the record, melancholy turns into total darkness and time seems to stand still. Massive slabs of sound and tar-coated melodies emerge from the depths. In contrast yet in harmony, Riedl’s side of the album presents archival recordings that explore a fascination with cosmic sound and isolation. While known for exploring the outer reaches of metal, Riedl has long been devoted to ambient and experimental composition. His selections for this release, curated to complement the music of Velthuys, trace a dialogue between decades and sensibilities, blending analog warmth and deep atmospherics with a sense of timeless drift.
Roman Hiele (1991) is a Brussels-based musician and composer whose work explores the boundaries between improvisation and electronic composition. His music unfolds as a living system of shifting harmonies, fractured rhythms, and unexpected turns.
At the core of Hiele’s practice lies a deep fascination for contrast, where his soundscapes act as both anchor and disruption, sharpening the emotional depth of images and spaces, a sensibility that extends into his collaborations with filmmakers, visual artists, and designers.
His new album, Emo Inhaler, on Stroom is an emulsifying force, blending these threads into a single, fluid whole. The record condenses compositions born from improvisatory explorations and electro-acoustic experimentation. Recorded and concluded across various studios and train coupés, Emo Inhaler is expansive, yet tightly woven, creating a singular sonic identity that explores Hiele’s own world of musical off-key vignettes, balancing between light and sinister. With Emo Inhaler, Hiele reaffirms his place as one of Belgium’s most adventurous and distinctive contemporary voices.
Compiled by Richard Bishop from dozens of tapes, this archival 2xLP features the band's rare EP, most of the Majora LP and 11 previously unheard tracks.
"Difficult as it may be to imagine, there was a time when Sun City Girls did not exist. Prior to the Bishop brothers teaming up with drummer/shaman Charlie Gocher to form SCG's classic trio lineup, there were various ad-hoc assemblages of local Phoenix-area freaks and weirdos – groups which existed only long enough to play a single gig, open mic or house party before disbanding without a trace. Hatched from this milieu was Paris 1942, a short-lived band formed by guitarist Jesse Srogoncik that included Alan Bishop, Richard Bishop and former Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker.
"Paris 1942 would play only four shows in as many months, but between April and August of 1982, the band would gather several times a week in Tucker's living room, where the group feverishly wrote and rehearsed with a kind of quotidian discipline. While P42 didn't release anything during their brief tenure, a 7" EP and LP (both self-titled) surreptitiously surfaced on the Majora label in the mid to late '90s. Until now, those two titles – as well as an appearance on Placebo's Amuck comp in late '82 – would be the only documented evidence that this improbable, serendipitous and magnificent band ever existed.
"While those expecting P42's music to sound like a tantalizing combination of Sun City Girls' iconoclastic hoodoo havoc and the Velvets' primal drug-chug certainly won't be disappointed, Paris 1942 more often than not transcends even these nearly impossible expectations. Srogoncik's songs, in particular, are a revelation, displaying as much in common with the exuberant raunch of The Gun Club and the chapbook punk of Peter Laughner as they do any of the more obvious touchstones.
"The group's foresight to document and capture this meeting of musical minds – a meeting as unlikely as it was short-lived – provides a missing link between the Velvets and the Voidoids, between the Dead Boys and the Dead C, between ESP-Disk' and DNA. Far more than a historical curiosity, Paris 1942 provides a fresh perspective on an embryonic and sadly vanishing US underground. It is music that blinks at the past and anticipates a thousand possible futures."
A band that played so loud their entire fan base went deaf and never spoke of them again. Formed in 1993 in the go-nowhere exurb of San Jose, California, Super Static Fever played only a handful of gigs in their brief two year existence, punishing spectators with a tinnitus-inducing wah-wah wall of Marshall-stacked distortion. Their sound was a mix of Melvins-esque sludge, Swervedriver’s melodic crunch, and latter-day Black Flag’s penchant for volume, as heard from the stock stereo of a hot-boxed 1985 Ford Econoline. Unfinished tapes from two ear-bleeding sessions are all that survived the ensuing 25 years since their indifferent break-up, mixed by the exacting Steve Albini as the band’s one condition for reissue. The package reeks of the ’90s computer-crippled D.I.Y. aesthetic, with VHS blur and opaque white screened on chipboard. A record that just barely does, and probably should not, exist.
1970s Mutated Mistletoe-Finessed Funk. Take cover from this deadly Xmas-funk album cut by cruel crooner Jimmy Jules, devastating diva Jackie Spencer, and backed by the venomous Nuclear Soul System. Released on Jules' Jim Gem label in 1977, the record vanished in disco's mushroom cloud, achieving grail status and inspiring a Sharon Jones' holiday album in the fall out. Silent night? Soulful fright!
Super Tip! Kali Malone and Drew McDowall have orbited each other's work for over a decade, their individual explorations of sustained tones and harmonic space suggesting an inevitable collaboration. When they finally entered McDowall's Brooklyn studio together, what emerged on Magnetism transcends mere musical compatibility. Malone has spent recent years extending the legacy of Éliane Radigue, redefining what electronic minimalism can accomplish through pipe organ and synthesizer. Her compositions stretch single chords into cathedral-sized architectures of sound, tracing harmonic territories that Radigue first mapped in her pioneering electronic works. McDowall brings a different lineage: as a veteran of Coil, he approaches synthesis with the patience of an alchemist, crafting electronic textures that breathe with unsettling life. Magnetism resolves this apparent contradiction through sonic diplomacy. Malone's melodic sensibilities—those long, searching lines that seem to trace the curvature of space itself—find new expression through McDowall's textural arsenal. Where Malone typically builds with mathematical precision inherited from the Radigue tradition, McDowall introduces the controlled chaos he perfected with Coil: digital distortion that pulses like organic matter, synthesis algorithms that decay at the speed of memory. The album's foundation reveals their shared fascination with the spaces between notes. Karplus-Strong synthesis becomes their primary tool, combined with just intonation tuning systems that allow Magnetism to inhabit frequencies conventional instruments cannot reach. But technique serves expression here, not the reverse. Across four extended movements, repetition becomes meditation, saturation a means of transcendence. There's something ritualistic about how these pieces unfold, their harmonic cycles suggesting ancient ceremonies filtered through electronic consciousness. This is music that operates on geological time while pulsing with digital immediacy. The collaboration marks significant evolution for both artists. Malone embraces the productive friction of working with another creative mind, while McDowall discovers in her melodic clarity a redemptive light reminiscent of Coil's more transcendent moments. Together, they've created something that feels both ancient and urgently contemporary—proof that experimental music's most profound statements emerge when distinct artistic visions recognize themselves in each other.
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter shall release their first new album since 2011’s Marble Son, and the band’s fifth album since 2002. Forever, I’ve Been Being Born arrives on the 28th November on LP/CD/DL via Ideologic Organ in Europe/UK/Asia/South America. Southern Lord to release the album in North America and Australasia. Forever, I've Been Being Born is a suite of masterful, emotive songs from an open heart, dwelling in a brightness yet deep in the ethereal and melancholic, steeped in themes of magical thinking, emotional dislocation, death and transformation. In the making for ten years, the album centres around the power of Jesse's transcendent voice, which has never been more beautiful, evocative, and hauntingly intimate. Guitarist Phil Wandscher's playing masterfully frames these songs with classic and fractured tones, a duet of vulnerability and strength frequently on the edge. The album also features exquisite contributions from Marissa Nadler, who can be heard on the lead single, “Gentle Chaperone.” “O my gentle chaperone, this is where I stay, but this is not my home”—- J.Sykes This album is our attempt to create elegant folk and sometimes ragged, cosmic, heart rendered songs full of eulogies and laments. Our sound is still familiar enough, but unrecognisable at times—we’ve gotten older and wearier, the music more fragile… …When we started recording this album, I remember saying, “Play the songs as if the edge of a butterfly wing was brushing against your cheek in the dark while you’re holding a small child.” I wanted to connote tenderness and a state of grace in the wake of resolution—paying homage to the creeping knowledge of an emerging, menacing undertone forming in our collective psyche. In hindsight, the delay in releasing this record has been a bit of a blessing, as the lyrics seem more poignant now, transcending our own internal voices and psyches. As the world shares its collective crisis, so we too, share our songs. - J. Sykes On Forever, I’ve Been Being Born, Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter have crafted a work which feels “very much like a eulogy”, a collection of tracks which see Sykes exploring the idea of mortality with a calm acceptance. Whilst Sykes’ voice has already acted as a guiding light through dark times for others, for Jesse herself, that presence is felt in the form of a chaperone on this record. More specifically, Jesse’s childhood babysitter inspired a motif on the record, “She truly was the person who taught me love,” muses Jesse, “When I think of the moment of death, I often think that it would just be going to her” Recording a new album was delayed for years, in the wake of two band members unexpectedly leaving after Marble Son. “Losing our rhythm section was heartbreaking,” she reflects. “ It sounds cliche, but we had to grieve that loss, and in doing so, we had to separate ourselves from making music for a while, because dare I say, music was painful at the time. It reminded us of what we’d lost. Bands are like family and I’d lost my family. So yes, I had to give up music in order to fall in love with music again.” The album title, Forever I’ve Been Being Born, hints towards this sense of cyclical surrender - “I’ve felt I’m constantly being born and constantly having to die. Or constantly dying in order to be reborn.” We live in a time of collective mourning, and to Jesse, “the lyrics make more sense now than when I was writing them. I think there was some kind of premonition going on… juxtaposed to what’s happening in the country, the emotional climate - this music speaks to the times we are living through.” The emotional feeling of the record can be summed up in a single line from the title track - “Eternities, they will crumble.” A quiet sense of acceptance runs through the record like a stream meandering towards the sea. It is with great pleasure and humility that we bring you, Forever, I’ve Been Being Born. Listen in the dark. “It’s that ancient light that wanders, Rapt in the splendor of your form, And to this I will surrender, Forever, I’ve been being born, Beneath an overarching, Melody, so forlorn.”
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter shall release their first new album since 2011’s Marble Son, and the band’s fifth album since 2002. Forever, I’ve Been Being Born arrives on the 28th November on LP/CD/DL via Ideologic Organ in Europe/UK/Asia/South America. Southern Lord to release the album in North America and Australasia. Forever, I've Been Being Born is a suite of masterful, emotive songs from an open heart, dwelling in a brightness yet deep in the ethereal and melancholic, steeped in themes of magical thinking, emotional dislocation, death and transformation. In the making for ten years, the album centres around the power of Jesse's transcendent voice, which has never been more beautiful, evocative, and hauntingly intimate. Guitarist Phil Wandscher's playing masterfully frames these songs with classic and fractured tones, a duet of vulnerability and strength frequently on the edge. The album also features exquisite contributions from Marissa Nadler, who can be heard on the lead single, “Gentle Chaperone.” “O my gentle chaperone, this is where I stay, but this is not my home”—- J.Sykes This album is our attempt to create elegant folk and sometimes ragged, cosmic, heart rendered songs full of eulogies and laments. Our sound is still familiar enough, but unrecognisable at times—we’ve gotten older and wearier, the music more fragile… …When we started recording this album, I remember saying, “Play the songs as if the edge of a butterfly wing was brushing against your cheek in the dark while you’re holding a small child.” I wanted to connote tenderness and a state of grace in the wake of resolution—paying homage to the creeping knowledge of an emerging, menacing undertone forming in our collective psyche. In hindsight, the delay in releasing this record has been a bit of a blessing, as the lyrics seem more poignant now, transcending our own internal voices and psyches. As the world shares its collective crisis, so we too, share our songs. - J. Sykes On Forever, I’ve Been Being Born, Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter have crafted a work which feels “very much like a eulogy”, a collection of tracks which see Sykes exploring the idea of mortality with a calm acceptance. Whilst Sykes’ voice has already acted as a guiding light through dark times for others, for Jesse herself, that presence is felt in the form of a chaperone on this record. More specifically, Jesse’s childhood babysitter inspired a motif on the record, “She truly was the person who taught me love,” muses Jesse, “When I think of the moment of death, I often think that it would just be going to her” Recording a new album was delayed for years, in the wake of two band members unexpectedly leaving after Marble Son. “Losing our rhythm section was heartbreaking,” she reflects. “ It sounds cliche, but we had to grieve that loss, and in doing so, we had to separate ourselves from making music for a while, because dare I say, music was painful at the time. It reminded us of what we’d lost. Bands are like family and I’d lost my family. So yes, I had to give up music in order to fall in love with music again.” The album title, Forever I’ve Been Being Born, hints towards this sense of cyclical surrender - “I’ve felt I’m constantly being born and constantly having to die. Or constantly dying in order to be reborn.” We live in a time of collective mourning, and to Jesse, “the lyrics make more sense now than when I was writing them. I think there was some kind of premonition going on… juxtaposed to what’s happening in the country, the emotional climate - this music speaks to the times we are living through.” The emotional feeling of the record can be summed up in a single line from the title track - “Eternities, they will crumble.” A quiet sense of acceptance runs through the record like a stream meandering towards the sea. It is with great pleasure and humility that we bring you, Forever, I’ve Been Being Born. Listen in the dark. “It’s that ancient light that wanders, Rapt in the splendor of your form, And to this I will surrender, Forever, I’ve been being born, Beneath an overarching, Melody, so forlorn.”
Wyoming-born troubadour Jeb Loy Nichols returns to Timmion Records with This House is Empty Without You, a timeless collection of soul-rooted songs that radiate warmth, wisdom, and quiet intensity. Backed once again by Timmion’s house band Cold Diamond and Mink, Jeb delivers a full-length that sits comfortably among the label’s finest – steeped in southern soul traditions, but carried by his unmistakable voice and lyrical touch. From the gently loping opener “First Night Away from Home” to the closer “Time On My Hands,” the album unfolds like a good summer book, best enjoyed with a warm breeze on your face. Nichols has a way of making things sound effortless – like he’s singing just for you, from the porch or the back room – but listen closely and you’ll find songwriting full of depth, subtly arranged with organ swells, snapping drums, and deep-pocket grooves. Alongside the breezy mid-tempo romantics of “Here With You,” other standout moments include the rootsy southern shuffle of “Good Morning Monday,” the heart-tugging “Coming Home Love,” and “Step In,” a mellow groove about rediscovery and reunion. As always, Cold Diamond and Mink provide the perfect analog foundation – all soul and no filler. Together with Nichols – and Emilia Sisco, whose gospel-drenched background harmonies grace several tracks – they’ve crafted a record that draws from classic influences but sounds unmistakably personal and present. A masterclass in understated soul, This House is Empty Without You proves that Jeb Loy Nichols isn’t just still here – he’s still growing, glowing, and finding new ways to tell the truth.
Wyoming-born troubadour Jeb Loy Nichols returns to Timmion Records with This House is Empty Without You, a timeless collection of soul-rooted songs that radiate warmth, wisdom, and quiet intensity. Backed once again by Timmion’s house band Cold Diamond and Mink, Jeb delivers a full-length that sits comfortably among the label’s finest – steeped in southern soul traditions, but carried by his unmistakable voice and lyrical touch. From the gently loping opener “First Night Away from Home” to the closer “Time On My Hands,” the album unfolds like a good summer book, best enjoyed with a warm breeze on your face. Nichols has a way of making things sound effortless – like he’s singing just for you, from the porch or the back room – but listen closely and you’ll find songwriting full of depth, subtly arranged with organ swells, snapping drums, and deep-pocket grooves. Alongside the breezy mid-tempo romantics of “Here With You,” other standout moments include the rootsy southern shuffle of “Good Morning Monday,” the heart-tugging “Coming Home Love,” and “Step In,” a mellow groove about rediscovery and reunion. As always, Cold Diamond and Mink provide the perfect analog foundation – all soul and no filler. Together with Nichols – and Emilia Sisco, whose gospel-drenched background harmonies grace several tracks – they’ve crafted a record that draws from classic influences but sounds unmistakably personal and present. A masterclass in understated soul, This House is Empty Without You proves that Jeb Loy Nichols isn’t just still here – he’s still growing, glowing, and finding new ways to tell the truth.
Beijing’s Gong Gong Gong and Taipei’s Mong Tong are like-minded duos known for cinematic and raw sounds, merging transglobal melodies with undeniable grooves. On Mongkok Duel, the bands join forces to create an imagined soundtrack for a lost kung-fu film. These are the sonic accompaniments, no doubt, to a supernatural tale of honour, intrigue, and (of course) revenge. Progressing from Gong Gong Gong’s long-standing Rhythm n’ Drone collaborative series, Mongkok Duel showcases the distinctive aesthetics of both groups, building a shared language of cyclical motorik rhythms, evolving drones, textural sound effects, snarling guitar and growling bass hooks. Written and recorded live at the legendary President Piano Co. rehearsal rooms in Mongkok, Hong Kong, the bands played the studios’ own instruments and amplifiers, which date back to President Piano Co.’s foundation in 1978. The studio’s recording setup is a unique system designed and set up by owner Mr. Lee King Yat, giving the album its distinct vintage sound while maintaining impressive clarity.
Wanda Felicia’s stunning debut album on Timmion Records, Now Is The Time…, delivers a dynamic selection of soul that feels both timeless and refreshingly present. Backed by the analog grooves of Cold Diamond & Mink, Felicia brings forth a suite of stories sunk in vintage grooves but made just right for any time.
With roots in New York’s house and acid jazz scenes – and after spending decades away from the spotlight – Wanda resurfaces with a seasoned voice and spirit, ready to impress anybody with a beating heart. Each track on Now Is The Time… feels lived-in: from the shuffling bounce of “Stuck On You” to the blooming optimism of “Flowers in the Garden” and the introspective funky poetics of “Reflections of Love.”
Throughout the album, Felicia’s delivery is effortless, elevated by Cold Diamond & Mink’s rich but tightly knit palette of rhythm section and horn riffs. Together they create a rootsy soundscape that channels late 1960s to early 1970s soul with a modern touch. Whether you’re drawn in by the beat balladry of “All in the Game” or the southern soul of “Until You’re Mine,” this album creates its own space beyond trends – celebrating craft, emotion, and timeless groove.
Wanda Felicia’s stunning debut album on Timmion Records, Now Is The Time…, delivers a dynamic selection of soul that feels both timeless and refreshingly present. Backed by the analog grooves of Cold Diamond & Mink, Felicia brings forth a suite of stories sunk in vintage grooves but made just right for any time.
With roots in New York’s house and acid jazz scenes – and after spending decades away from the spotlight – Wanda resurfaces with a seasoned voice and spirit, ready to impress anybody with a beating heart. Each track on Now Is The Time… feels lived-in: from the shuffling bounce of “Stuck On You” to the blooming optimism of “Flowers in the Garden” and the introspective funky poetics of “Reflections of Love.”
Throughout the album, Felicia’s delivery is effortless, elevated by Cold Diamond & Mink’s rich but tightly knit palette of rhythm section and horn riffs. Together they create a rootsy soundscape that channels late 1960s to early 1970s soul with a modern touch. Whether you’re drawn in by the beat balladry of “All in the Game” or the southern soul of “Until You’re Mine,” this album creates its own space beyond trends – celebrating craft, emotion, and timeless groove.
Kunsthaus Bregenz presents Wish You Were Gay, a major exhibition by Anne Imhof that gathers new sculpture, painting, sound and six video works never before shown. The show reflects on the artist’s formative years while extending themes that have defined her practice from the beginning.
Imhof revisits early recordings from 2001–03, a period when her life and work overlapped to the point of being inseparable. Using handheld camcorders – then a new technology that allowed the screen to flip – she performed directly to the lens, testing gestures, movements, and songs with guitars, amps, and her close circle of friends and collaborators. These raw documents, urgent and improvised, form the foundation of her later explorations of presence, absence, chance, and fate.
Across the exhibition, Imhof transforms this material into a language of repetition, doubling, and variation, situating the body as a central medium. Figures slow into moments of suspended tension, or erupt with sudden force, echoing her distinctive performance works. Biographical in tone and steeped in the realities of queer community and chosen family, Wish You Were Gay is both intimate and expansive, drawing threads from past to present in a charged meditation on life, art, and endurance.
During the last half-decade Joe Westerlund became engrossed in studying the clave, the metric pattern that first defined so much Afro-Cuban and Latin music and then drifted into almost every corner of jazz and rock. What did it mean for an idea to be so flexible, for it to fit so many forms while retaining its own essence? The result is aleap into the unknown for Westerlund: Curiosities from the Shift, a 12-track playground of endlessly interwoven beats and melodies, where Westerlund’s clave enthusiasm collides with his textural experimentalism, where his rhythmic symphony of one shakes hands with friends decorating this space alongside him. The three-piece suite that holds Curiosities’ first half begins with the junkyard percussion and delightful bass splashes that frame “Tem” and ends with the surrealistic boom-bap of thumb pianos and shakers on “Can Tangle.” There is a hard-won joy to these numbers, as if Westerlund is delighting in real time in spotting a potential dead end but finding his own way forward, anyway. Those songs became a kind of working roadmap for the terrain that Westerlund explores across Curiosities, from the call-and-response glory of opener “Nu Male Uno” to the uncanny amorphousness of closer “Felt Like Floating.” All of these songs are defined by an identifiable rhythm, like the loping strut at the center of “Midpoint” and the head-nodding pulse that winds through “Persurverance,” winkingly misspelled to suit his North Carolina-via-Wisconsin pronunciation. But those are springboards for other textures, moods, and notions, like the New Age references—shimmering metallophones, chattering birds, retiring flutes—that circle through “Midpoint” or the dub-indebted delays and gamelan hymns that bubble up through “Persurverance.” This is deeply multivalent music, each number’s propulsive core counterbalanced by a series of surprising choices. Bittersweetness and joy, grief and liberation, sighs and smiles: It all exists here, tangling toward infinity. In the months after the initial sessions were done, Westerlund reached out to friends—Califone’s Tim Rutilli, saxophonist Sam Gendel, trumpeter Trever Hagen, and violinists Libby Rodenbough and Chris Jusell among them. These were his most thoroughly composed and precisely built works ever, but he wanted to hear what happened when his pals responded in real time. They delivered grace, depth, and feeling, with their parts pulling back curtains on hidden recesses of rhythmic worlds. Westerlund readily admits he is surprised by the album’s insistence on groove and meter rather than drifting abstraction. Having lived and worked so long with bands, he assumed he was done functioning within basic meter. These 12 songs fuse so many of Westerlund’s loves into pieces that are endlessly fascinating, using familiar elements to render his adventures into the unknown. Playful but tender, wistful but wondrous, driven by beats but not bound by them, this is Westerlund’s definitive statement so far, the solo drummer record that opens wide to reveal a musical and emotional landscape richer than perhaps even he imagined he might find.
Jon Porras possesses a rare acuity for locating the pulse of a sonic landscape and carving out its emotional core. His work has long drawn from the friction of organic forms and electronic processing, but Achlys finds him moving further into texture, erosion, and weight. This is music steeped in collapse—not as spectacle, but as slow process. These pieces do not unfold, they gather. Guitar, sub-bass, modular synthesis, and processed noise accumulate like sediment, layering into compositions that move more like weather systems than traditional songs. Framed around the language of filmmaking, Achlys invokes overlapping frames, blurred edits, and disjunctive pacing. Porras cites the textural depth of the film 'El Mar La Mar' as a key influence, particularly its use of layered sound to evoke emotional density. The album navigates a sequence of fractured sonic vignettes: crumbling environments, monumental silence, and landscapes both real and internal. Structure becomes permeable. Each piece gestures toward both presence and disappearance. Central to the record is a tension between form and formlessness. Fingerpicked guitar compositions were written, recorded, and then pushed through modular processing chains, where their original structure became blurred or buried. Often, multiple pieces were written in isolation and layered without synchronization, allowing intentional dissonance to guide the resulting textures. The approach favors drift and friction, with melodies ghosting through blurred intervals, creating tension between memory and distortion. The album begins with "Fields," where faint guitar phrases are immersed in hollow, resonant tones that feel more remembered than played. Warmth flickers at the edges, filtered and remote, like light pushing through soot. On "Holodiscus," elegiac lines drift across a soft undercurrent of dissonance, quietly resisting the pull toward collapse. The title track slips between clarity and distortion, turning harmonic fragments into a shimmering lattice of decay. Throughout the album, sustained tones stretch time into a blur, while processed guitar gestures emerge and recede like echoes from adjoining rooms. Each piece carries an emotional imprint without insisting on direction, leaving behind textures that feel both tactile and unsettled. Much of Achlys was composed during violet mountain storms. Living in a forested elevation high above sea level, Porras describes listening to trees sway under pressure, their movements generating both deep, low-end resonance and fragile, intricate patterns of creaks and rustles. This duality of scale—immense and minute—filters into the record's sonic palette. On "Sea Storm," the low end churns and pulls downward, scattering guitar fragments in its wake. "Before the Rite" swells with abrasive density and distorted harmonics—a moment of near-overwhelm held right at the edge. The sounds remain suspended, refusing to resolve. Achlys moves through a territory of shifting thresholds—where light and shadow, structure and erosion exist side by side without dissolving into opposition. Rather than aiming for clarity of conclusion, the album offers a cyclical form of emergence and erosion. It is sonically dense yet spacious, emotionally resonant but untethered from narrative. Nothing here is fixed. Everything carries the trace of having been something else. While some fragments fade and others linger, all of them shape the atmosphere.