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May it please the people of the known universe that the multi-monikered musical ensemble legally trading as Kay-Bee Funk Music Group are releasing what will alphabetically be their first album, ‘Access All Areas’. Created with Karate Boogaloo’s patented ‘Lovely Recording Technique’ these recordings let you know that everyone’s a VIP when you’re listening to KB. ‘Access’ was the one word maxim philosophically guiding The Old Kar-Boo’s this innings. If a tune became convoluted, to the bin it went. Only those that could be hummed by any and all were kept. This sieve was on hand throughout the whole process, arrangements and forms were kept watertight, bells and whistles to a minimum. If 2024’s ‘Hold Your Horses’ was an epic, ‘Access All Areas’ is a haiku. The band’s tried and true recording process was dutifully respected save for one wonderful addition, the magnificent ‘Sound Recordings’ helmed by its proprietor and engineer extraordinaire Alex Bennet. Steering the 4 track Ampex 440 off road when required and making sure the vibes were constantly correct, Alex is a bonafide Booger. Although it feels only a moment, the clock tells us it’s been nearly 20 years since Kay’s Bees first tried to play the songs of their musical heroes, The Meters, Booker T & The MG’s, and The JB’s to name but a few. Since then The Famous Flying Karate Boogaloo Brothers have put one foot in front of the other and distilled their own sound, one that respectfully acknowledges the history of instrumental Funk & Soul music, and reflects the time they’ve spent crafting their distinctive sound. As bright as each member shines individually, it is a special event when all four planets in the Booger System align. ‘Access All Areas’ is one such eclipse, it is an artistic expression of equal measure by each member and it casts a shadow unique to the occasion. Every second of music was composed and produced with all hands on deck, mixing was handled by Henry Jenkins, artwork by Hudson Whitlock and Callum Riley, and Darvid Thor did things you’d have to see to believe. Music is a team sport and there’s no I in Funk. Coming out on the two greatest record labels in the galaxy ‘Colemine Records’ from Loveland, USA, and College of Knowledge from Coburg, Australia, please listen to Karate Boogaloo’s new album ‘Access All Areas’.
May it please the people of the known universe that the multi-monikered musical ensemble legally trading as Kay-Bee Funk Music Group are releasing what will alphabetically be their first album, ‘Access All Areas’. Created with Karate Boogaloo’s patented ‘Lovely Recording Technique’ these recordings let you know that everyone’s a VIP when you’re listening to KB. ‘Access’ was the one word maxim philosophically guiding The Old Kar-Boo’s this innings. If a tune became convoluted, to the bin it went. Only those that could be hummed by any and all were kept. This sieve was on hand throughout the whole process, arrangements and forms were kept watertight, bells and whistles to a minimum. If 2024’s ‘Hold Your Horses’ was an epic, ‘Access All Areas’ is a haiku. The band’s tried and true recording process was dutifully respected save for one wonderful addition, the magnificent ‘Sound Recordings’ helmed by its proprietor and engineer extraordinaire Alex Bennet. Steering the 4 track Ampex 440 off road when required and making sure the vibes were constantly correct, Alex is a bonafide Booger. Although it feels only a moment, the clock tells us it’s been nearly 20 years since Kay’s Bees first tried to play the songs of their musical heroes, The Meters, Booker T & The MG’s, and The JB’s to name but a few. Since then The Famous Flying Karate Boogaloo Brothers have put one foot in front of the other and distilled their own sound, one that respectfully acknowledges the history of instrumental Funk & Soul music, and reflects the time they’ve spent crafting their distinctive sound. As bright as each member shines individually, it is a special event when all four planets in the Booger System align. ‘Access All Areas’ is one such eclipse, it is an artistic expression of equal measure by each member and it casts a shadow unique to the occasion. Every second of music was composed and produced with all hands on deck, mixing was handled by Henry Jenkins, artwork by Hudson Whitlock and Callum Riley, and Darvid Thor did things you’d have to see to believe. Music is a team sport and there’s no I in Funk. Coming out on the two greatest record labels in the galaxy ‘Colemine Records’ from Loveland, USA, and College of Knowledge from Coburg, Australia, please listen to Karate Boogaloo’s new album ‘Access All Areas’.
Dedicated to the memory of Sean Edward Stewart (6.2.81 - 18.3.10) Produced by HTRK Mixed by Nigel Yang Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Cover wave image by Trent Mitchell Polaroid by Eulalie Fumond Halperin-Katz, Paris 2009 Sleeve design by JCS Thanks: Mark, Gloria, Tia, Andrea, Conrad, Jeremy, Max, Julia, Andrew ℗ 2011 Blast First Petite (UK) | Mistletone (AU) | Ghostly International (US)
Geoff Farina’s Southern Records tenure was not just about Karate. His late-90s guitar-and-vocal solo output included the bedroom-recorded Usonian Dream Sequence that echoed The Secret Stars’ intimate lo-fi sentiments, Reverse Eclipse that rode the more delicate fringes of Unsolved-era Karate, and the single Steely Dan, a paean to a contemporaneous guilty pleasure. FFF collects all three long-out-of-print releases here on vinyl for the first time, fastidiously packaged and punctuated with Farina’s written reflections on their making.
Geoff Farina’s Southern Records tenure was not just about Karate. His late-90s guitar-and-vocal solo output included the bedroom-recorded Usonian Dream Sequence that echoed The Secret Stars’ intimate lo-fi sentiments, Reverse Eclipse that rode the more delicate fringes of Unsolved-era Karate, and the single Steely Dan, a paean to a contemporaneous guilty pleasure. FFF collects all three long-out-of-print releases here on vinyl for the first time, fastidiously packaged and punctuated with Farina’s written reflections on their making.
On Everything You Giveaway, Pablo’s Eye turn Richard Skinner’s seaside vignette into a drifting meditation on loss and camouflage, where a missing jade earring becomes a quiet parable about hiding what hurts in the very element that once held it. Everything You Giveaway feels like a record built around a single, small gesture: a woman sitting by the sea, unconsciously loosening one jade earring while the man beside her skims green pebbles into the waves. The moment passes almost unnoticed, but later, in bed, she discovers that one earring is gone. Instead of panic, she feels relief. In her mind’s eye, she sees it lying on the seabed, indistinguishable from the stones he threw. “The best place to hide a leaf is in a tree,” she thinks, echoing the logic at the heart of Richard Skinner’s poem “a remoteness from the centre” (from the light user scheme, Smokestack Books, 2013). That line – and the short narrative wrapped around it – becomes the emotional axis for Everything You Giveaway. In typical Pablo’s Eye fashion, the text is not treated as a literal script but as a set of images to be dissolved into sound. The waves breaking become slow, undulating pulses; the green pebbles, small percussive or melodic events that vanish almost as soon as they appear; the jade earrings, bright timbral flashes that suddenly go missing from the texture. The music hovers in a state of “remoteness from the centre,” circling around implied themes rather than landing on them. What matters is not the dramatic revelation of the loss, but the quiet, inward turn that follows – the sense that giving something away, or losing it, can sometimes feel like placing it more deeply inside the world, hidden in plain sight. The album’s title, Everything You Giveaway, makes Skinner’s line universal. It’s not just about earrings and pebbles, but about all the things we let slip – relationships, secrets, fears, versions of ourselves – and how they might be absorbed by the environments we move through. The seaside setting is both literal and metaphorical: a place at the edge, where solid ground meets shifting water, and where it’s easy to imagine objects sinking out of view, merging with their surroundings. Pablo’s Eye use this as a frame for their sound-world: a gentle, porous music where elements arrive, mingle and recede, and where the distinction between foreground and background is constantly eroded. This approach aligns with the group’s long-standing interest in spoken word, ambient drift and cinematic suggestion. Here, the poem’s final line operates almost like a compositional rule: hide things in their own element. Melodies surface only to dissolve back into textures that resemble them; voices appear briefly and then disappear into a murmur of similar frequencies; a motif is introduced, then later “lost” inside a denser arrangement. As listeners, we are invited to experience the same subtle shift the woman feels: the movement from anxiety to acceptance, from clinging to an object to recognising its place in a larger pattern. Everything You Giveaway thus becomes less a straightforward adaptation of Skinner’s poem than a kind of extended footnote to it. By dwelling on that moment by the sea – the waves breaking, the casual gestures, the delayed discovery – Pablo’s Eye offer a sonic meditation on how we hide, how we surrender, and how the world quietly absorbs everything we let go.
Originally released in June 2009, The Ecstatic stands as a defining artistic statement from Mos Def (now known as yasiin bey) — a richly textured return to form that reaffirmed his status as one of hip-hop’s most adventurous and intellectually engaged voices. Arriving a decade after his celebrated debut Black on Both Sides, the album was widely regarded as his strongest work in years, earning near-universal praise for its lyrical breadth, eclectic production, and thematic ambition. Musically, The Ecstatic weaves a global sonic tapestry shaped by an array of forward-thinking producers including Madlib, J Dilla, Oh No, Preservation, Mr. Flash, Chad Hugo (of The Neptunes), and Georgia Anne Muldrow. The resulting soundscape is both rooted in hip-hop tradition and unbound by genre, integrating elements of jazz, soul, Middle-Eastern inflection, and experimental sample work. Tracks like “Supermagic” and “Twilite Speedball” establish a vibrant, restless energy that mirrors the album’s expansive creative scope. Lyrically, yasiin bey traverses personal, political, and philosophical terrain with characteristic incisiveness, confronting social inequality, Western imperialism, and questions of cultural identity with poetic urgency. Embracing risk and complexity rather than nostalgia, The Ecstatic remains a mature, deeply felt body of work whose ambition, depth, and enduring resonance have solidified its place as a standout entry in Mos Def’s catalog and in modern hip-hop history.
Netherlands-based artists Tomo Katsurada (Ex-Kikagaku Moyo / Future Days Radio) and Jonny Nash (Melody As Truth) combine forces for an exploration into the sonic potential of the guitar duo, rooted in their experiences performing together over the last 12 months. Friends and admirers of each other’s work for a decade, their musical collaboration began in 2024 with Katsurada asking Nash to contribute guitar to his debut EP ‘Dream Of The Egg’. Sensing the need to explore this further, they spent the following year performing together in different configurations, with Nash joining Katsurada’s trio and Katsurada in turn playing with Nash as a duo, across a wide spectrum of spaces, from churches and temples to concert halls, theatres and outdoor festivals. With new ideas developing organically out of these performances, recording new material became the next logical step. A short period of three days was set aside with a clear goal: to capture the essence of their fluid, intertwining melodies and guitar playing in a way that felt as direct and unfiltered as possible. Working from a handful of pre-existing sketches, they left ample room for experimentation to unfold within the process. The results are presented on ‘At The Emerald Pool’, a collection of ten pieces that offer the listener a full immersion into the pair’s sound. With guitar as the primary instrument for both artists, it is no surprise that the core of the album lies here, specifically in the fluid interplay between the two players. Layers of gentle, delay-soaked fingerpicking often make it almost impossible to distinguish where one player ends and the other begins. As soloists, both Katsurada and Nash have a gift for crafting melodic lines that feel open and ascending, expressive and hopeful without becoming saccharine. Longer, more abstract pieces are counterbalanced by a series of shorter songs, with five vocal tracks appearing across the album. The decision to share vocal duties lends the record a unique quality and a strong sense of variation, bringing a wide expressive range out of a deliberately focused musical framework. ‘At The Emerald Pool’ represents the first chapter in an ongoing musical dialogue, an attempt to capture a moment of connection, openness and discovery, laying the foundation for what continues to unfold.
Finally! The sixth studio album Dinosaur Jr. have recorded in the 20 years since their triumphal rebirth. There have been several live and/or closet cleaning collections to keep us punters sated for the five years since Sweep It Into Space, but there is nothing quite like having a full slab of new Dino tunes to fry your ears. And There Near has all knobs set to Extra Crispy. Created in short, intense bursts over the course of a year at Amherst's Bisquiteen Studio, There Near was recorded almost entirely by Dino's core trio -- king of the thunder tubs, Murph, human tornado Lou Barlow on bass/vocals and the inimitable J Mascis on guitar/vocals -- with a bit of piano and organ work by local master musician, Ken Mauri. And the album roars from start to finish. Trying to define the essence of Dino's sound is never easy. It's an instantly recognizable blend of loose vocals, sharp guitars and an animalistic rhythm section, but these parts combine into a whole far more magical and exciting than its components. In strict rock-write terms, you might call the approach “post-core power balladeering,” but what use is that? Dinosaur Jr. invented their formula for noise/pop jiggering around the same time Husker Dü were trying out some of the same ideas, all of which got made popular by a band they inspired called Nirvana. But that's an old and much-told tale. J's guitar tone throughout There Near is even more animalistic than usual, perhaps owing partly to the fact he's playing through a recently acquired 70's Mesa Boogie MK 1 amp. “I bought the same amp that Chris Dixon had when we made our first album,” J says. “Chris recorded us at his house with his amp. It has a real interesting sound I haven't gotten for a while. And it's something I was trying to get back to on this album. The Stones started using Mesa Boogies in the '70s after they heard Santana playing through them. Then The Clash copied The Stones, etc. As the years went on into the MK 2 and so on, the Boogie got more metal sounding. But the MK 1 has a souped-up Fender sound. You always hear how Rick Rubin always makes bands he's producing sit down and listen to their first album and say let's get back to that sound. So I just gave myself his advice." Asked about the philosophical opacity of his lyrical approach, J says. “I'm not always sure what a song is 'about' when I'm writing it. I guess the meaning will present itself at some point. I'll use whatever words work. And a lot of it will be influenced by whatever esoteric mumbo jumbo I'm reading at the time. I try not to think too hard about any of it. I think it's a drag that Spotify shows all the lyrics to a song. What's the fun of that? Japanese labels always wanted us to give them lyrics to print. I wouldn't hand them over so they'd just have to try and figure them out. It has always been better to make up your own version of lyrics to songs by the Stones or R.E.M. or whoever. I mean, R.E.M.'s whole thing was about mumbling. I never understood why they caved to pressure and started enunciating." “Someone suggested this album sounds more upbeat, but I guess that's to do with my delivery, because lyrics like 'No Friends' might make you think otherwise. But I usually write in the third person. It's all just make believe.” While it's true There Near does present a slightly softer lyrical edge on some of J's songs, even a relatively gorgeous ballad like “Put It Down” eventually explodes in a shower of fiery guitar distentions. It's just what happens. Meanwhile the two tunes provided by Lou -- “Blowin' Up” and “No One's Ready” -- may have less frenzied musical settings, but their lyrics sound like pointed and timely attacks on our current regime. As is so often the case, Lou's melodic constructions have a friendly mien, but his lyrics cut like knives. There Near continues Dinosaur Jr.'s string of classic albums. The new songs are sure to sound amazing with their monstrous riffs blaring from live stages amidst their historical brethren. Can't wait to catch them live, but in the meantime There Near will be a constant companion. The nearer the better. --Byron Coley
Finally! The sixth studio album Dinosaur Jr. have recorded in the 20 years since their triumphal rebirth. There have been several live and/or closet cleaning collections to keep us punters sated for the five years since Sweep It Into Space, but there is nothing quite like having a full slab of new Dino tunes to fry your ears. And There Near has all knobs set to Extra Crispy. Created in short, intense bursts over the course of a year at Amherst's Bisquiteen Studio, There Near was recorded almost entirely by Dino's core trio -- king of the thunder tubs, Murph, human tornado Lou Barlow on bass/vocals and the inimitable J Mascis on guitar/vocals -- with a bit of piano and organ work by local master musician, Ken Mauri. And the album roars from start to finish. Trying to define the essence of Dino's sound is never easy. It's an instantly recognizable blend of loose vocals, sharp guitars and an animalistic rhythm section, but these parts combine into a whole far more magical and exciting than its components. In strict rock-write terms, you might call the approach “post-core power balladeering,” but what use is that? Dinosaur Jr. invented their formula for noise/pop jiggering around the same time Husker Dü were trying out some of the same ideas, all of which got made popular by a band they inspired called Nirvana. But that's an old and much-told tale. J's guitar tone throughout There Near is even more animalistic than usual, perhaps owing partly to the fact he's playing through a recently acquired 70's Mesa Boogie MK 1 amp. “I bought the same amp that Chris Dixon had when we made our first album,” J says. “Chris recorded us at his house with his amp. It has a real interesting sound I haven't gotten for a while. And it's something I was trying to get back to on this album. The Stones started using Mesa Boogies in the '70s after they heard Santana playing through them. Then The Clash copied The Stones, etc. As the years went on into the MK 2 and so on, the Boogie got more metal sounding. But the MK 1 has a souped-up Fender sound. You always hear how Rick Rubin always makes bands he's producing sit down and listen to their first album and say let's get back to that sound. So I just gave myself his advice." Asked about the philosophical opacity of his lyrical approach, J says. “I'm not always sure what a song is 'about' when I'm writing it. I guess the meaning will present itself at some point. I'll use whatever words work. And a lot of it will be influenced by whatever esoteric mumbo jumbo I'm reading at the time. I try not to think too hard about any of it. I think it's a drag that Spotify shows all the lyrics to a song. What's the fun of that? Japanese labels always wanted us to give them lyrics to print. I wouldn't hand them over so they'd just have to try and figure them out. It has always been better to make up your own version of lyrics to songs by the Stones or R.E.M. or whoever. I mean, R.E.M.'s whole thing was about mumbling. I never understood why they caved to pressure and started enunciating." “Someone suggested this album sounds more upbeat, but I guess that's to do with my delivery, because lyrics like 'No Friends' might make you think otherwise. But I usually write in the third person. It's all just make believe.” While it's true There Near does present a slightly softer lyrical edge on some of J's songs, even a relatively gorgeous ballad like “Put It Down” eventually explodes in a shower of fiery guitar distentions. It's just what happens. Meanwhile the two tunes provided by Lou -- “Blowin' Up” and “No One's Ready” -- may have less frenzied musical settings, but their lyrics sound like pointed and timely attacks on our current regime. As is so often the case, Lou's melodic constructions have a friendly mien, but his lyrics cut like knives. There Near continues Dinosaur Jr.'s string of classic albums. The new songs are sure to sound amazing with their monstrous riffs blaring from live stages amidst their historical brethren. Can't wait to catch them live, but in the meantime There Near will be a constant companion. The nearer the better. --Byron Coley
The 1993 split point between pop punk and emo is no better illustrated than by Garden Variety's self-titled debut. While Billy and Bivouac flirted with the mainstream, this Long Island trio proposed at the post-hardcore prom. Muscular octave guitar chug with a side of late night zine work at the local diner. Backbeat heartbreak, hold the FX. Thank Charles Maggio for your favorite record next time you see him at the Paramus mall.
The 1993 split point between pop punk and emo is no better illustrated than by Garden Variety's self-titled debut. While Billy and Bivouac flirted with the mainstream, this Long Island trio proposed at the post-hardcore prom. Muscular octave guitar chug with a side of late night zine work at the local diner. Backbeat heartbreak, hold the FX. Thank Charles Maggio for your favorite record next time you see him at the Paramus mall.
From his early releases as Lusine onward, Jeff McIlwain’s electronic explorations make up one of the more diverse discographies of the past decade and a half. Effortlessly blurring the lines between techno, electro-pop and experimental composition, the Texas-raised/Seattle-based producer’s arrangements are meticulously constructed, but also filled with emotion and soul. With an introspective turn that’s hinted at in the record title, Lusine’s fourth album for Ghostly sees McIlwain diffusing the pop-leanings of 2013’s The Waiting Room with opaque, brush-stroked melodies washing over these new buoyant productions. “I suppose the concept behind Sensorimotor pulls from a special kind of double meaning of the word,” McIlwain reveals. “The literal, to me, is the integration of your senses with actions, like with birds and how they move so fluidly in flocks. It’s just fascinating how their brains are able to comprehend such quick actions collectively at once.” “The symbolic is a bit harder to put into words,” he adds. “I guess it’s just the concept of figuring out how much control you have over your artistic output—what types of restrictions you should place on it versus how much of it just involves instinct and intuitiveness.” Indeed, Sensorimotor is a visceral album, with gorgeous opener “Canopy” slowly building into an empyrean cloud of music box chimes and an amorphous thrum. The following “Ticking Hands” is just as beguiling yet also more formed, with the processed melancholy vocals of McIlwain and his wife Sarah filtered into a chilling lament that unfolds over the song’s light skitters and Kraftwerkian pulse. “Sarah and I wrote this song (“Ticking Hands”) as a kind of catharsis for the time we spend apart when I’m touring,” McIlwain explains. “It’s about the idea of being somewhere and wishing your other half was there to experience those moments.” Sensorimotor finds other past Lusine collaborators returning as well, with longtime friend Benoît Pioulard’s narcotic croon looped into a swirling arpeggio during “Witness.” Vilja Larjosto also makes two appearances, with her sun-kissed vocal melodies spliced and splayed across the steady pulsing bass and fluorescent synth pads of “Just a Cloud,” and later on “Won’t Forget,” delivering a breathy processed melody atop a jaunty shuffle of cut-up woodwind instruments and keys. Working with an arsenal that includes an MPC1000, a borrowed Prophet 5, hand percussion, glockenspiel, as well as field recordings and samples of live instruments, McIlwain’s productions often merge the digital world with the real world. Yet from the fluttering Terry Riley-esque samples of woodwinds in “Chatter” to the epic, widescreen synths of “The Lift,” Sensorimotor is surprisingly cohesive throughout. Its ebb and flow forms a musical narrative that’s as much a Lusine album as it is a soundtrack for the listener’s own imagination.
On White Morning, Fumio Miyashita distils his healing‑ambient language into two near‑half‑hour reveries: soft synths and gentle acoustic colours held in a discovered stillness that treats music as a space for rest, focus and quiet presence. White Morning, recorded in 1989 at Biwa Studio, captures Fumio Miyashita at the point where his music becomes less a sequence of notes and more a sustained state of being. Active through the late 1980s and early 1990s as a composer, arranger and multi‑instrumentalist, Miyashita carved out a singular niche between healing music, environmental sound and meditative ambient. While many contemporaries busied themselves mapping forests, cities and weather systems in tone, Miyashita turned inward. His pieces were designed explicitly for the body as much as the ear: music for rest, focus, presence, created to support breathing, posture and attention rather than to decorate a room. White Morning distils that vision into its purest form. The album consists of two extended works, 目覚め (See The Light) and 朝の祈り (Morning Prayer), each close to twenty‑five minutes in length. Built from soft synthesizer layers and delicate acoustic textures, they move with a slowness that feels less composed than discovered, as if Miyashita had patiently tuned himself to a particular inner frequency and simply stayed there. Harmonic changes are subtle, almost subliminal; motifs appear and dissolve without insisting on themselves. This is music that refuses to impose – no sharp edges, no dramatic arcs, just a gentle continuity of tone that invites the listener to sink, breathe and notice. In 目覚め (See The Light), bright but gauzy synth overtones suggest the first wash of morning illumination, a cautious opening of the eyes. Underneath, quieter figures pulse with the regularity of a resting heartbeat. The piece doesn’t build toward a climax; instead, it slightly increases its luminosity over time, like a room gradually filling with daylight. 朝の祈り (Morning Prayer) feels even more interior. Here, acoustic colours – faint chimes, possible string or flute traces – thread through the electronic bed, offering points of focus within the ongoing drone. The atmosphere is devotional without belonging to a specific faith: a sense of quietly held intention, of gratitude or petition expressed in sustained tone rather than in words. Originally released on CD in 1991, White Morning circulated quietly among devotees of kankyo ongaku and Japanese new age, passed hand to hand and mentioned in hushed tones alongside favourites by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa or Klaus Wiese. Unlike many environmental records designed explicitly around place – gardens, galleries, corporate lobbies – Miyashita’s work seems to address the interior “room” of the listener: the nervous system, the breath, the mind’s tendency to wander. That inward focus gives White Morning a particular intimacy. Even at low volume, you sense it re‑tuning the background; at higher levels, it can feel like stepping into a bath of sound. For its third release, Ambient Sans turns to this quietly beloved cornerstone of Japanese ambient, finally bringing White Morning to vinyl after decades of digital and CD‑only existence. The format shift underscores the album’s status as more than functional audio. As a physical object – a record you handle, place on a turntable, flip between sides of dawn and prayer – it becomes a ritual artefact, a tool for framing time at the beginning of a day or at any moment when the listener needs to withdraw without closing off. Essential for anyone drawn to Yoshimura’s environmental lightness, Ashikawa’s meditative depth or Wiese’s healing drones, White Morning stands as one of Miyashita’s most resonant offerings: music that stays, gently, until you’re ready to carry its stillness back into the rest of your life.
This album is created over the past years with my brother Alfred. This period has been spiritually transformative for me. It reflects the playfulness and authenticity that comes out of releasing deep traumas and healing wounds. This music comes from a deep place of joy and connection with my brother and with the essense of being a child. being filter free and in contact with the most uncomplicated and loving parts of ourselves, still emphasizing magic and mystery, like childhood does without asking for permission or confirmation.
it took me a while to actually see the music as an interconnected piece. I have been taking in and out material, re mixing, removing, rearranging, re producing and regretting all along the way. but suddenly when we mastered this selection on a cassette tape recorder, the meaning started to reveal itself and drawing threads back in time.
bivabippalukka is playfulness, intuition, transition and myths. the page of cups. the ideas rising, the energy flowing, flowers, stars and jumping creatures on the verge of dimensions. fortune telling, magic cards, secret caves and things that disappear right in front of you.
many talented guests playing with me and my visions on the album.
bossa nova is the most comforting genre for me. and we need comfort in these times. we need comfort to heal and feel joy to be able to keep dreaming and manifesting - and transmuting the world.
i am not gonna play this music live in the form it appears. i will still continue playing spiritual ambient music. this work is something else. it is pocket of joy, a cup with a fish. it is a step on the journey, like everything else.
"Después de llover” is about musical conversations between two people who have only recently met; they come from very different places, do not speak the same languages, and perhaps have little in common other than the resonance of their instruments. This encounter leads them to explore an imaginary world where they share sounds to build a place where they can go and play with the moisture of the plants growing in the water, listen to the pudus playing with the herons, rest on the floripondios, and perhaps stay there waiting for the rain to return. These pieces were recorded on a summer day in 2025 in Indrė’s home with kanklės, txompe, and violin. ------- “ Después de llover ” son conversaciones sonoras de dos personas que se conocen desde hace poco tiempo, vienen de lugares muy diferentes, no hablan las mismas lenguas y tal vez no tienen tanto en común más que la resonancia de sus instrumentos. Este encuentro les lleva a explorar un mundo imaginario donde comparten sonidos para construir un lugar donde poder ir a jugar con la humedad de las plantas que crecen en el agua, ir a escuchar a los pudus jugar con las garzas, ir a descansar sobre los floripondios y tal vez quedarse ahí a esperar a que regrese la lluvia. Estas piezas fueron grabadas en el verano de 2025 en la casa de Indre con kanklės, txompe y violín.
Kevin Drumm’s The Mild Temper gathers over six hours of work shaped by gradual change, fine detail and sustained tones. Across six discs, he explores density, resonance and space through small, deliberate shifts rather than overt movement. Sounds emerge, recede and recombine, holding a careful balance between stillness and motion. There’s no narrative push here—just close attention to texture, duration and the physical presence of sound. The result is a cohesive, absorbing body of work that reflects the precision and focus of Drumm’s long-standing practice.
Julia Holter always knew there were multiple forms her song “Materia” could take. The tune’s dynamic, Hildegard von Bingen-inspired melody and dense modal chords stood on their own without a complex arrangement on her wondrous 2024 album Something in the Room She Moves, but she felt a lingering desire to expand the texture and stretch out the harmony. Though she could hear the potential orchestration in her head, Something was already abundant with layers of sound by the time she finished it. She stuck with the original form of “Materia,” then, her cresting voice and blue Wurlitzer hosting games of harmonic hide-and-seek above subtle electronics. But on the new Materia, a kind of companion LP or sequel to Something, Holter has realized not one but two distinct versions of the song. “Materia 2” is a hallucinatory dream of drum machine, fretless bass, and clarinet, Holter’s voice spiraling through the ether alongside that of Jessika Kenney. She reconsiders the lyrics, too, novel fragments of surrealistic images reinforcing the original’s link between spirit and body, between love and blood. And on “Materia 3,” Holter literally slows down the take from Something. (It’s intended to be experienced as a “bonus track” in an homage to the CD era of her youth.) The change not only emphasizes the unpredictable glory of the harmonies within but also reiterates the song’s emotional sophistication, the sense that it’s about learning how to live. Materia is only seven tracks long, but Holter works in nearly that many modes here. There is the slowed “Materia” and the version reimagined for two voices, of course, but there are also two tracks that spooled out of the DAW project files and full band she built for Something. There are two astounding improvisations: one where she manipulates her voice so that each word seems to contain a symphony and another that is one of Materia’s most spellbinding and emotional pieces, “My Twin,” from which Holter lifted a riff to build the song “Fantasy.” These seven songs show that Holter is among her generation’s most open writers of art-pop, moving among ideas and idioms with exploratory aplomb. Materia is a kind of playground for Holter, where each distinct scene steadily coheres into a moving whole.
YHWH Nailgun, a New York-based four-piece band that, despite being virtually unknown, left a strong impression on Japanese audiences with their performance at Fuji Rock Festival 2025, has released *Magazine*, their debut album on the prestigious 4AD label.
YHWH Nailgun formed in 2020 around Zach Bolzon (vocals) and Sam Picard (drums). Sagiv Rosenstock (guitar) and Jack Tobias (keyboards) later joined, completing the current four-piece lineup.
Their music is often described using terms like noise, punk, free jazz, industrial, and experimental. However, they do not fully belong to any of these genres. Their sound features violently clashing rhythms, searing guitars, synthesizers that exude an eerie presence, and Zack Bolzon’s vocals, which sound like both a beast’s roar and a prayer. Rather than being a genre-spanning band, YHWH Nailgun has garnered attention as an entity that rejects any attempt to define music itself.
Their debut album, *45 Pounds*, released in 2025, earned high praise from media outlets worldwide for its overwhelming tension and destructive power. It established them as one of the most important new acts in the New York underground scene. Now, with their signing to 4AD—the label home to Cocteau Twins, the Pixies, Bon Iver, and Big Thief—their career is entering a new phase.
*Magazine* is an unusual work: though it contains 10 tracks, its total running time is a mere 11 minutes. However, this 11-minute duration is not merely an experimental idea. The album begins with a fade-in on the opening track, “Ghost of Love,” creating the sensation of having accidentally captured a fragment of sound that seems to be playing continuously somewhere. The band views this work not as a conventional album with a beginning and an end, but rather as a part of an endless musical world.
Their sound is even more refined than on their previous work. Sam Picard’s stripped-down drumming, Sagiv Rosenstock’s raw production, and Jack Tobias’s synthesizers, reminiscent of air raid sirens. And most striking of all is that Zach Bolzon’s vocals—previously hidden behind layers of reverb and delay—are now pushed to the forefront with unprecedented clarity.
The lyrics, filled with religious and symbolic imagery—blood, snakes, gods, and demons—exude a more vivid presence than ever before. The band name YHWH itself derives from the proper name for God in Hebrew, and this mystical worldview is explored even more deeply in *Magazine*.
YHWH Nailgun does not view their music as a reaction against or a counter to anything. Neither pandering to nor rejecting trends, they simply pursue the fleeting flashes of inspiration born of intuition and improvisation. What they are building is not a genre, but an autonomous world in and of itself. *Magazine* is a work that further sharpens this unique creative world and is sure to leave a lasting impression on many listeners.
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.
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.
This is the debut album as bandleader by Ryo Kawasaki, a jazz and fusion guitarist whose talent was recognized by Gil Evans and who has made a name for himself internationally. The album showcases a cool, cosmic sound, featuring tracks such as “Agana,” which features breathtaking guitar playing set against a backdrop of fast-paced percussion, and “Phil,” a dazzling jazz-funk number.
On revelations of divine love, jason calhoun’s fifth release for Dear Life Records, Calhoun has assembled an especially potent album of work that whirrs, hums, and glows. Unlike his recent output centered around extended, hypnotic compositions, the fourteen tracks here immediately request your attention and curiosity. Their concision only underscores one of his greatest strengths: the ability to capture an evaporating, fleeting moment, and hold it close. The title is a nod to British Anchoress Julian of Norwich, whose collected writing of the same title is the earliest of any woman written in English. Here it serves as a unifying theme for Calhoun's particular palette of restless textures and tentative melodies. This is personal music, to be sure, but it also feels tactile, almost taffy-like in its presentation—and with such a potent combination, it is hard to resist a smile while listening. Like when the insistent pulse grounding 'last one' suddenly changes color as yawning tones reveal themselves, or how 'eye dilation' tiptoes into the room with each note sounding like a carefully chosen step. Though never precious or fussy, the album remains resolutely intimate. Calhoun puts it plainly: “Julian of Norwich says “‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’. These days, I’ve been having my doubts that this is true. As no solution to the issue at hand, I look for the revelations of divine love in my life, and I find them--in my partner asleep on the floor in our studio, my survival of a social interaction with a stranger, being bad at chess. Don't ask me what they mean-I'm still figuring that out myself. Maybe we can figure it out together.” It is from this place of doubt, searching, and openness that the album finds its footing. When asked about the origin of the album's cover art, Calhoun explained, "I see this spot all the time on my commute home from work". A true statement of how the mundane and meaningful are interwoven, from someone who celebrates that union better than most. Unlike Julian of Norwich, Calhoun is no hermetic mystic himself-but in his daily life he works at an oncology center, doing routine but necessary work to provide treatment for those in need of it. While he might resist any analogizing, it is sincerely easy to say that Calhoun's body of work, which is only fortified by revelations of divine love, also offers care and company.