PRE-ORDERS

Set sail with the third installment of Numero's ode to regional radio surveys. Broadcasting 44 minutes of uninterrupted yacht, easy-glide, AOR, and blue-eyed disco that'll rock your boat. These 13 selections are anchored in the deep blue waters of the American private press—a life preserver for any BBQ, birthday party, or bris. Let W3NG be the sonic wind at your back.

Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan (founding members ofSQÜRL) return with a sonic exploration of the cinematic works of Dadaist pioneer Man Ray, a captivating project that melds music and film. Over the past eight years, SQÜRL have been enchanting audiences with their live scores to Man Ray’s short films across sold-out shows in prestigious venues like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The culmination of their endeavor took place in the spring of 2023, on the 100th anniversary of Man Ray’s inaugural foray into filmmaking, when the newly restored Return to Reason premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Womanray (Marieke Tricoire) and Cinenovo (Julie Viez),Return to Reason unfolds as an anthology featuring four silent short films by Man Ray—Étoilede mer (1928), Emak bakia (1926), Le Retour á la Raison (1923), and Les Mysteres du Château de Dé. (1929)—each paired with an original score by SQÜRL. Jarmusch and Logan, two multidisciplinary artists known for their experimental prowess, approached these scores as a way to create an ecstatic state, a space between consciousness and unconsciousness, reality, and the surreal. The resulting album, Music for Man Ray, born out of a live recording at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in February of 2023, features distorted guitars, hypnotic feedback, loops and affected synthesizers. In the words of Logan, “It’s a journey we want to take the audience on, illuminating themes throughout these films. They are discrete, but there are also recurring echoes throughout the whole program.” Jim Jarmusch adds, “We feel very proud to be Man Ray’s backup band.” Now both the film Return to Reason and the resulting music in the form of Music for Man Ray are seeing the light of day—both stand as a testament to the creative synergy between Man Ray’s groundbreaking cinema and the innovative musical interpretation by SQÜRL.

There are certain occasions when you can truly feel the stars align. One of these is when the interstellar voyager of cosmic soul Jimi Tenor finally lands his spaceship at full force on a Timmion recording. In 2023, he will be serving us two spaced out album sessions recorded together with Cold Diamond & Mink. Jimi is no stranger in these space ways as he has operated behind the Timmion scenes for years, furnishing several of the label's artists with his flute and reeds artistry. The first album out is titled "Is There Love In Outer Space?", which begs the question with the force of five extended tracks that are guaranteed to blow your mind to the stratosphere. The pieces are loaded with whooshing and glistening synth noises and span from lofi space funk to cinematic soundscapes. The sweetly floating title track is like some of those galactic ballads that rare soul collectors are spending their pensions on. At the other side of the spectrum, album closer 'What Are You Doing?' sounds like Sun Ra sat down at a JBs session, and is straight up meant to get that booty moving.Combined with the raw soul prowess of CD&M, Jimi is able to refine new shades from his already impressive repertoire of talent. Even if you are a friend of his previous work you might not have heard him get down quite like this.

We're excited to bring you this collaboration between Spanish Producer Nueen and Manc vocalist / rapper Iceboy Violet, who has previously sprinkled their magic dust across Hyperdub releases from aya and Loraine James. The album traces the arc of a four year relationship, In Iceboy's words - 'fondly memorialising its highs and documenting its lows, trying to process and reflect positively and then ending with the ecstatic but ominous spark of new love.' Between them they've made an album that's magical, intimate and heartfelt, sometimes anguished but ultimately re-enchanting.

Iceboy and Nueen mutually admired their like-minded approach to making ambient music on recent solo releases and started swapping ideas for collaboration. Nueen sent beats at an almost overwhelming rate, which matched the speed and sharpness of Iceboy's emotions while they processed the end of the aforementioned relationship, creating songs which helped them process and navigate through the mental fog. The tracks were finished with Iceboy zooming in and chiselling the details, all finished in 3 months.

Nueen's music responds with foggy, but richly detailed grainy production. There are Smudgy, drill-laced beats contrasting with curdled, spiralling chords and at times he seems to isolate elements from Burial's palette and intensifies them, like SM FID's fire-like crackles. At other times, he draws out a malevolent ambience which feels elemental and troubling like on Cement Skin. Friends and collaborators switched up some of these songs, with artist Harriet Morley as the first voice on the album and Dawuna adding their rugged silky background vocals around Still's descriptions of black hair braiding and lives intimately intertwined. The album's final track, Kiss Me Again is blessed with young Manchester singer Bennettiscoming as a softening foil to Iceboy's coarse rapture.
You Said You'd Hold My Hand Through The Fire is an immensely affecting and lucid album, powerfully wrought and ultimately hopeful. 

Recorded in a little bedroom studio out in Durham, North Carolina, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn's debut LP as Sylvan Esso arrived in 2014 at the juncture of pop and experimental. Even now, years later, the LP remains an urgent and fitting introduction to a push-and-pull that would go on to inform the duo's sound – a thoughtful headiness that also wants you to get out on the dance floor. A blend of analog and digital, Meath and Sanborn were two unexpected puzzle pieces fitting together with singular ease, producing a ten-track LP that was both minimalist and shimmering, with dark undulations rippling beneath the synthy-surface and crystalline quality of Meath's voice.Before all of the international touring and festival headlining and critical acclaim and Grammy nominations, Sylvan Esso was just a shot-in-the dark of musical chemistry gone right. The original album bio for the self-titled presciently sets the stage for the thesis that has gone on to guide Meath and Sanborn’s writing since then: "a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance" arriving as "a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don’t suffer the longstanding complications of that term." And so, even as the band continues to evolve and becomes amorphous, there’s still that argument about what pop can be at its core. This is just the beginning of that conversation captured on tape.In honor of the record's ten year anniversary, North Carolina-based indie label Psychic Hotline will release a deluxe reissue, complete with previously unreleased material. Featuring essential singles "Coffee", "Hey Mami,” and "H.S.K.T.", the expanded edition also includes remixes from J Rocc, Rick Wade, Helado Negro, Dntel, and more. The deluxe 2LP package sports an all-over foil inversion of the original album's iconic foil "SE" logo.

Recorded in sessions spanning eighteen months, Magnificent Little Dudes Vol.1 is full of obscure beats and samples, ethereal droning synth lines, and drumming that lifts and drive the record into new territory. The duo are also joined by Japanese guest vocal performer Hatis Noit (Erased Tapes) in the penultimate track “M4”, which his released today as the first single.

“M4” perfectly exemplifies the album’s atmospheric and subtly intricate makeup, combining

mellifluous guitar lines with memory-evoking, slaloming electronics, while Ishiwaka’s drums ruminate in the background of the track and Noit’s otherworldly vocals add an element of wistful drama.

Speaking on the recording process, Hatakeyama says “No overdubbing was done. I like the 70's style of recording and wanted to give it an old-time jazz feel.” Speaking about his influences when writing the album, he goes on to say “It may not sound like much, but it's free jazz, spiritual jazz. I love Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra. Conceptually, we didn’t prepare anything in advance, but chose to take inspiration from the place, the studio, the venue, the weather, the temperature of the day, and so on – the album is full of short improvisations. I love Les Rallizes Dénudés, Keiji Haino, and My Bloody Valentine as well, so that's where a lot the guitar-based influence comes from”

Spell Blanket comprises songs and sketches drawn from Trish's extensive archive of 4-track tapes and MiniDiscs. The recordings lay the groundwork for what would have been Broadcast’s fifth album, offering a window into Trish and James’ creative process during the post-Tender Buttons period from 2006-2009.

Distant Call is a collection of early demos that were worked into finished productions appearing on Haha Sound, Tender Buttons and The Future Crayon.

The album also includes two songs discovered by James after Trish’s passing: “Come Back To Me” and “Please Call To Book” which was her response to Broadcast's 2006 ‘Let’s Write A Song’ project, where fans were asked to submit lyrics on a postcard which would then be worked into a finished song.

Distant Call is a closing of the door on Broadcast and will be the last release from the band.

Listening to The Softies feels like peeking into a diary, with no personal detail spared. Holiday in Rhode Island, their third album, presents the most accessible means inside the humble honesty of the emotive universe of Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap, Gaze, Go Sailor) and Jen Sbragia (All Girl Summer Fun Band). The band lyrically documents a lovelorn heart in every manifestation, here hope is a bright silver lining adorning each of these new songs. The harmonies between Rose And Jen shimmer, brighter than ever before, benefiting from strong arrangements and production. Their two delicately jangling guitars and crystalline voices never needed anything else, their minimalist blueprint succeeds in filling every single space, but with maturity comes the security and confidence to explore, and that's just what The Softies do with these tunes.

5月24日発売予定。知られざる奇跡的邂逅が蘇る−−今から遡ること四半世紀前の1998年8月27日、ブライアン・イーノ、CANのホルガー・シューカイ、J・ペーター・シュヴァルムが繰り広げたインプロヴィゼーション・ライヴがこのたび、発掘音源『Sushi. Roti. Reibekuchen』としてリリースされる運びとなった。

1990年代といえばブライアン・イーノが「歓迎されないジャズ（Unwelcome Jazz）」と呼んだ「新種の音楽」としての独自のジャズにアプローチしていた時期でもある。その成果は名称を変えて1997年のアルバム『The Drop』にまとめられることになるのだが、翌1998年に彼はまさに自身がアプローチしていたジャズに近しい音楽と運命的な出会いを果たすことになる。それがJ・ペーター・シュヴァルムによるバンド・プロジェクト、スロップ・ショップのデビュー・アルバム『Makrodelia』（1998年）だった。意気投合した両者はコラボレーションを開始し、2000年に伶楽舎とディスクを分担した2枚組『music for 陰陽師』を、2001年にはCANのホルガー・シューカイを含む多数のミュージシャンを交えた『Drawn from Life』を完成させる−−のだが実はそこには前日譚があった。

イーノがシュヴァルムと知り合って間もない頃、3回目に会ったのがこのたびの発掘音源のリハーサルだそうである。そしてそこにはスロップ・ショップのベーシストであるラウル・ウォルトンおよびドラマーであるイェルン・アタイのほか、シュヴァルムが初めて対面する、カンの創設メンバーでありベーシストとしても知られるホルガー・シューカイがいた。イーノとシューカイはすでに『Cluster and Eno』（1977年）および『After The Heat』（1978年）で共同作業していたが、いずれもシューカイが参加したのは1曲のみ、かつベーシストとしての客演だった。しかし発掘音源に収められたイーノおよびシュヴァルムとのセッションでは、シューカイが「ラジオ・ペインティング」と呼ぶような、短波ラジオとテープを用いたサンプリング／コラージュを行っている。ともかく、三者が揃ってライヴを披露するのは初めてのことだった。しかもウォルトン、アタイを含む5人のメンバーが揃って演奏を行う機会はその後ついに訪れなかった。奇跡的な邂逅と言っていいだろう。

ブライアン・イーノが当時ライヴを行うこと自体も珍しかった。だがこの発掘音源の元となった「Sushi! Roti! Reibekuchen!」なるイベントはやや特殊なものだった。食べ物をタイトルに掲げているように、主役は料理人なのである。というのも、ドイツ・ボンの美術展示館で開催されたイーノによるインスタレーション展のオープニング・パーティーとして野外で行われたイベントだったのだが、字義通りパーティーであり、会場では大勢の来場者に料理人たちが食べ物を振る舞っていた。そうした中、用意されたステージでドローンが鳴り始め、そして5人のミュージシャンが即興で演奏を行った。イーノによればこのイベントにおけるパフォーマーは料理人たちであり、自分たちが作っているのはバックグラウンド・ミュージック。つまり音楽のパフォーマンスではなく、バックグラウンド・ミュージック付きの料理のパフォーマンスなのだという。イーノらしいコンセプトだと思うが、しかし、ステージで魅せる音楽は少なくない観衆の耳を釘付けにした。イーノとシュヴァルムが作り出すミニマルでアンビエント／ドローンなサウンドに、ホルガー・シューカイのサンプリング／コラージュが色を添え、そしてラウル・ウォルトンとイェルン・アタイは時に人力ドラムンベースのごとく怒涛のグルーヴを生み出していく。演奏は2セット、計3時間にもおよび、最後は警察に電源を切られて強制終了させられたという逸話さえ残っている。

発掘音源『Sushi. Roti. Reibekuchen』に収められているのは、そのような計3時間のライヴから抜粋された5つのトラックである。「料理のパフォーマンス」に付随するバックグラウンド・ミュージックとして構想されたライヴは、こうして音源化されることで新たに主役の座に躍り出る。そこから聴こえてくるサウンドは、ブライアン・イーノ、ホルガー・シューカイ、J・ペーター・シュヴァルムという三者の一期一会の本格的なインプロヴィゼーションであるとともに、ただ貴重な記録というだけに留まらず、アンビエント経由の「歓迎されないジャズ」に類する音楽が生演奏で収められた作品として、四半世紀経った2024年現在も実に興味深く思えるのである。

Text by 細田成嗣

6月26日発売。和物ダブ最高峰！カルト・ジャパニーズ・コズミック・ジャズ・レゲエ。Sly & RobbieにAugustus Pablo、吉田美奈子、大村憲司、松岡直也などが参加という超豪華編成の80年激レア和ダブ傑作「Pecker Power」がなんと37年ぶりのリイシュー。オリジナルは清水靖晃の「案山子」や坂本龍一をリリースしていた名レーベル、Better Daysからの発表。Jah PelikahoやBob Marleyら作曲の楽曲群を演奏し、オーガスタス･パブロ、リコ･ロドリゲス、マーシャ･グリフィス、ジュディ･モワット、ロビー･シェイクスピア、スライ･ダンバー等をフィーチャーした超本格派ジャマイカサウンド満載な中南米風味のエキゾが炸裂。堂々のジャパニーズ・ダブ大名盤にして金字塔。

日本初のサルサ・バンド、オルケスタ・デル・ソルを作ったパーカッショニスト、ペッカーが1980年に制作した日本最初のダブ・アルバム『ペッカー・パワー』。ボブ・マーリーのスタジオ「TUFF GONG」でのザ・ウェイラーズとのセッションと、「CHANNEL ONE」でのスライ＆ロビーとのセッションから生まれたこの無国籍なダブ・サウンドは『21st Century Dub』というタイトルで1987年にアメリカで流通し、以降世界中に知られる作品となった数奇な名盤。

Marewrew (pronounced: Ma-leoo-leoo) is a female vocal group that sings traditional Ainu songs. The music of the long-suppressed people from northern Japan has been a particular focus of the Pingipung output in recent years. Following various re-releases by Umeko Ando, the late grande dame of traditional Ainu music, the spotlight is now on the a cappella music of Marewrew, which by the way means ‘butterfly’ in Ainu. Attentive listeners will recognise the voices, as some of the band have already performed as backing singers on recordings by Umeko Ando. Their a cappella versions of traditional Ainu music shed a whole new light on the fascinating songs that have been passed down through generations exclusively through song. 'Ukouk' means 'round singing', which refers to the form in which Marewrew perform and record. Many of the songs are set as tightly interwoven canons: one starts, the others join in, but slightly out of phase: Almost like dub echoes, except that they are sung and not created in post-production. The short songs sometimes unfold into a wondrous trance ('Sikata Kuykuy', 'Honkaya') that seems to spin round and round - if singing can actually dance, then this is how. Nature sounds and woodpeckers can be heard ('Hawsa’), and there is a funny miniature in which the ladies imitate birdsong ('Takuro'). Things get hypnotic with an evocative song about stranded whales ('Hunpe Yan Na’) or an ode to the Orca as ‘Little Sea God’ (‘Pon Repun Kamuy’). The album culminates in unexpected pop ('Yaykatekara') or cumbia moments ('Kanerenren') with a band line-up including percussions and Oki Kano on the famous Tonkori harp. Marewrew are Rekpo, Hisae and Mayunkiki. Rim-Rim was a member of the group until 2022. Oki Kano is responsible for recording and production. Mayunkiki reflects on the ambivalence of performing traditional music as a contemporary band: "When we first started performing, we all thought we had to perform in an Ainu way. But over time we have become more and more open to new ways of singing. I think if our way of singing is seen as the only, correct way of our tradition, then it won't spread, it's not alive. We like it when it's traditional, but it changes, just like our voices have changed over time.” (Quote from the film 'Marewrew's Voice' by Eiko Soga (2021)) 'Ukouk' is a selection of Marewrew's work from the last 13 years, compiled from CD releases by Pingipung's Andi Otto. Oki Kano has contributed unreleased material and added new versions of the songs which had only been released in Japan. The album has been remastered by Kassian Troyer and is now available on LP for the first time.

Glass Beams have announced their highly anticipated EP ‘Mahal’, out on March 22nd on their new label home Ninja Tune. Released alongside the news is the EP’s titular track “Mahal”.

The genesis for the Melbourne-based trio, which formed around founding member Rajan Silva, was through the rekindling of childhood memories relating to his father, who emigrated to Melbourne from India in the late 1970's. Silva recalled watching a DVD on repeat with his father; ‘Concert for George’, a star-studded tribute to late Beatles member George Harrison performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2002, featuring legendary Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar with daughter Anoushka, alongside Western icons Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and ELO’s Jeff Lynne. This intersection of musical styles was reflected in the record collection of Silva's father, where the sounds of iconic Bollywood vocalists Asha Bhosle and the Mangeshkar lineage sat alongside music from blues legends like B.B. King and Muddy Waters. In particular, Silva was drawn to the fusion of Western musical styles and traditional Indian music; a concept pioneered by Indian artists like R.D. Burman, Ananda Shankar, and fraternal duo Kalyanji-Anandji.

This cross-pollination of East and West, of old and new, is a sentiment that the band have sought to capture in their self produced works. Across their output, Glass Beams presents a timeless fusion of cultures and sounds beamed through a prism of live instrumentation and DIY electronica, all wrapped up inside a mesmerizing and mystical visual world of their own making.

Their debut EP ‘Mirage’, released in 2021 catapulted them into the collective consciousness of new followers who came to discover their serpentine, psychedelic-tinged tracks through social media, streaming services and word of mouth, with the vinyl copies selling-out as quickly as it could be pressed via grassroots record store support.

In the wake of the unexpected success of their debut release and an abundance of festival invitations, Glass Beams were amplified around the globe performing hypnotic renditions of the 'Mirage' EP alongside an additional 20 minutes of unreleased music. Early clips of these “unreleased tracks” quickly began circulating online garnering millions of views and a fast-growing and ever-hungry following. As 2023 drew to a close and the dust settled after a whirlwind of touring, Glass Beams retreated to their home studio to record this much anticipated 20 minutes of music. They have named the record 'Mahal'. 

The feeling that Anastasia Coope's music transmits seems to emanate from a precipice beyond the material world, like a void or memory pressing up against the veil. It’s exacting and enveloping, but unmoored in space and time: ghostly, spectral, far-out folk. Darning Woman, her debut album, feels like a dispatch from another past. Akin to lullabies or nursery rhymes, its minimal folk instrumentation contorts into something staccato and strange led by Coope's expressive, stratified vocals. In spite of the suggestion of antiquity that runs through Darning Woman, 21-year-old, Brooklyn-based Coope is very much a contemporary artist. Born to an English father and American mother (whose original Martin acoustic she uses to compose), she was raised in the New York village of Cold Spring. The lonely landscapes and small towns of the Hudson Valley populate her songwriting, setting wintry backdrops against the acrobatics of her voice. Her experience making this record was a largely insular one, too; she began recording music while staying at a relative’s empty home in Beacon, NY, experimenting with recording software in an empty living room, singing directly into the open space. Until that point, Coope had only thought of herself as a visual artist, not a musician– but it felt right immediately. Throughout the next year, she worked to invent the lush, sweeping universe conveyed here. Her voice is the core of this work - emotive, oscillating between shadowy effervescence and something more guttural, building atop itself. Coope spent months teaching herself to sing in a new way, through hocketing and layering her voice, constructing choirs of herself. These songs often start from a chorus or phrase that gets stuck in Coope’s head and bloom into chaotic, fractured earworms. There’s a slew of past cultural touchstones that inform her approach to music making – the avant-garde art rock of the ‘80s; Trish Keenan or Su Tissue or Brigitte Fontaine; medieval choruses; church choirs; contemporary folk; romantic close harmonies groups of the ‘50s; Meara O'Reilly’s Hockets for Two Voices. But rather than the sonics of those works, Coope was instead moved by the ephemera surrounding them, their songs’ abilities to conjure whole worlds. Here, the lush, romantic opener “He Is On His Way Home, We Don’t Live Together” is the portal into Coope’s universe. It teeters in, disquieted, a choral slowburn building into something between hysteria and euphoria, with a slinking piano and a jarring electric guitar line closing out the din. On later songs, like “Sounds of a Giddy Woman,” the auditory illusions became tactile as she composed: “I was able to envision a room of things happening, rather than me just building something,” Coope says. “The record was me starting to think spatially about music.” Coope’s songwriting revolves around intuition and aesthetics, rather than precise lyrical storytelling; she has a striking ability to invoke a sense of movement with her makeshift mantras. The word “woman” appears repeatedly throughout the album’s song titles, but for Coope, that was an unconscious motif. “The word ‘woman’ was having a physical idea of what my songs were trying to represent through this idea of a muse or an idol or an icon,” she says. “It was a mix of the idea of being maternal, of housekeeping, and then also the idea of a character, a star.” The title track serves as a skeleton key for the entire record; “Darning Woman” is a hyperphysical sing-song, a literal instruction to darn and repair, the wane and waxing repetitions that make up a life. It’s the umbrella under which the rest of the songs live. Decisive in its fervor, it loops around nesting: mending, cleaning, housework – collecting, building, and decorating – the hands-on, tangible aspects of at-home life. These songs are built from that, and mantras plucked from the ether or poems and fragments of overheard conversations jotted down, transformed into an entity unknown. Like Coope’s paintings, drawings, and mixed media artworks, which occasionally feature among the imagery in her album and single materials, her songwriting yields an esoteric distance. It’s the feeling of the work pushing back on you, holding you at arms’ length. It invites you to see, to feel, rather than know – but for all that’s arcane here, Darning Woman is rooted deeply in the things we can touch. --Libby Webster

“It’s time. Africa, it’s time. It’s time that Africa changes. It’s time our leaders change. Everything that happens in Africa is extraordinary. We have everything: water, earth, sun, fields of oil, gas. We have all this in Africa, but Africa is still poor. It’s time we change our way of thinking. It’s time for Africans to take their destiny into their own hands. If not, others will take it.” This is the message instrumental guitarist Tidiane Thiam hopes to convey with his new solo album, Africa Yontii, a Pulaar title that translates to “Africa, It's Time.” To a casual listener, Thiam’s bold statement starkly contrasts with his melodic playing. But a closer listen to Thiam’s expressive playing reveals a thoughtful voice that stands out from the crop of contemporary guitarists. “What I should be singing (with words) I’m instead saying with my guitar,” he says. Hailing from the sleepy fishing Senegalese fishing town of Podor, home of the great Baaba Maal, Thiam taught himself guitar by playing along to late-night radio broadcasts of Manding music. He soon developed his style, often reworking Pulaar folk themes into his compositions. On Africa Yontii, Thiam’s third album for Sahel Sounds, he teamed up with hip-hop beat maker Ndiaye Moctar from studio M.N. Records to provide accompaniment, integrating unexpected elements such as field recordings and electronic sounds. In the liner notes for Africa Yontii, Thiam voices his concerns about the lack of opportunities for Africa’s youth and the lonely road that can come with leaving behind loved ones in the hope of a better life. He also sprinkles in a philosophical query about the eroding state of the world alongside two more hopeful, traditional offerings in the form of wedding and river songs. Despite the sometimes heavy subject matter, Thiam’s love for his homeland and heritage shines through. Tidiane Thiam's Africa Yontii reclaims the maligned “world music” genre within a sonic space that has long been dominated by others telling the story. As the title suggests - It’s time!

FUJI||||||||||TA returns to Hallow Ground with his second full-length for the label after we had released his international breakthrough album »iki« in early 2020. Active since 2006, the Japanese composer and sound artist has become prolific since the release of »iki,« releasing a slew of records while also touring the world. His new album »MMM« is Yosuke Fujita’s most complex so far. Changing the set-up of his pipe organ by switching to an electric air pump allowed him to activate new sonic and compositional potentials of the instrument, while he also expanded upon his experiments with his own voice. »MMM« is a masterpiece of conceptual and formal rigour—a testament to how multi-layered and versatile the music of FUJI||||||||||TA can be. Previous releases had already showcased Fujita's interest in working with the rhythmic potentials of the organ he built himself in 2009. Replacing its hand-operated air pump with an electric one allowed him to work with it more freely and simultaneously record its sounds. This marked the starting point for the opener »M-1,« for which he recorded the pipes by waving a gun microphone close to it, thus creating shifting rhythmic patterns. The piece engages in a perpetual play of repetition and difference, balancing sonic intensity with compositional dramaturgy. For »M-2,« the artist uses his voice and works with a singing technique he has developed over more than a decade: constantly exhaling and inhaling, he puts a strain on his internal organs in order to create what he calls a »third voice.« The resulting piece is built on a throbbing rhythmic foundation topped by wordless melodies. »M-3« closes the album as a synthesis of these two pieces, but is far more than the mere sum of its parts. The subtle tonal shifts of the organ take on a more subdued role this time, and Fujita’s scat growling and singing reappears in processed form. »M-3« combines the rhythms and melodies of the previous pieces to let something entirely new emerge out of them, much like the album is based on perpetual changes and recombinatory strategies. In fact, Fujita explains, the acronymic title can be read in many ways: this album is minimalistic, but freely mixes and mingles different materials in magical and even metaphorical ways while also paying its dues to his wife and daughter—M. and M. Just like its title can mean a lot of different things, »MMM« itself is ever-evolving, traversing different moods and opening itself up to a plethora of interpretations at each of its many turns.

Elevating, uplifting and beautifully arranged. Jasmine Myra's sophomore album Rising builds on the success of her breakthrough album Horizons to deliver a major statement from one of UK Jazz's rising stars. Produced by Matthew Halsall and mixed by Greg Freeman (Hania Rani, Matthew Halsall, Portico Quartet), Rising delivers a confident and vibrant follow up that joins the musical dots between Myra’s influences Kenny Wheeler, Bonobo and Shabaka Hutchings while delivering something unique, beautiful and profound. "Much like my first album, Rising is a reflection of a period of my life. It is a continuation from Horizons, which was all about my experience during lockdown, and entailed overcoming my struggles with mental health. Following on from that experience, I set out to continue building my self-confidence". Rising features the same core of musicians as Myra’s debut album Horizons with guitarist Ben Haskins, drummer George Hall pianist Jasper Green, harpist Alice Roberts (who both also perform with Matthew Halsall) and bassist Sam Quintana who collectively bring a deft understating of the subtle textures of Myra’s music and perform with a collective empathy and drive that really pushes the music on a radiant journey. And a string quartet add gently elevating textures to Still Waters, Knowingness, From Embers and How Tall The Mountains.

Cape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out May 5th 2023. Gamedze’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dialectic Soul was released at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Around the release of that record, with friend and writer Teju Adeleye he organized and participated in a joint online discussion “Poesis,” with historian Robin D.G. Kelley and others. One of the notable comments made in this session was by the poet and scholar Fred Moten, who described Gamedze’s drumming as an “amazing interplay between turbulence and pulse. Pulse is supposed to regulate and also be regular, but the turbulence underneath it and on top of it, it’s just extraordinary.” Moten added that this concept is a fundamental element of the percussive approach in Black music more broadly. Turbulence and Pulse takes its title from this moment of synchronicities. Inspired by this description, Gamedze developed the metaphor further, expanding the concept of turbulence and pulse through the lens of history. “Time in music is a metaphor for thinking about time in history and how time moves,” he says. “The way we’re taught history is generally in a way that robs people of agency in imagining themselves as part of history and how it unfolds. It is something that happens to us. I think there's a productive metaphor in that because the sense of time in music is created by musicians playing together. If we can use that to think about history and time in history, you can see that, actually, history is created by people in a whole range of ways. At the heart of it, historical motion is created by people organized and acting together, whether for progressive or reactionary ends.” For Gamedze, the underlying message of Turbulence and Pulse is “to claim a form of historical agency and realize that the future is not a foregone conclusion. As people we can organize, to transform our world in small and big ways.” This concept comes out of Gamedze’s involvement in radical cultural work and political organizing. He adds: “One of the ideas that I've had for a long time is to unsettle the way that people think about culture as something static or as something fixed. There’s this tension in Africa, because of the way that the colonists have constructed visions of African culture, where people speak about this need to conserve culture and document it. I think that's important, but you also have to understand that these things are moving. And we are the people who have to participate in that movement.” For the album artwork, Gamedze extends the visual aesthetic of his previous release with a hand-drawn illustration. “I feel like my drawings represent the inside of my mind. It’s very free and improvisational,” he says. Friend and designer Naadira Patel worked with Gamedze to design the final cover layout, which includes liner notes penned by his sister, writer and artist Thuli Gamedze. Turbulence and Pulse comes via the partnership of Chicago-based International Anthem and Johannesburg-based Mushroom Hour Half Hour, as the first collaborative release by the two labels.

Although perhaps not a household name like Sergio Mendes, Marcos Valle or Flora Purim, Bororó is considered to be one of the most important and talented Brazilian musicians of his time. Taking his moniker from the indigenous people of his country, who live in the state of Mato Grosso, Bororó steadily built his career for well over a quarter of a century, along the way performing live and in the studio with such legends as Gal Costa, Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso. Born Dimerval Felipe da Silva in 1953 in the central Brazilian city of Goiânia, the capital of Goiás, this composer, singer, arranger, producer and multi- instrumentalist first took an interest in his father’s guitar at the tender age of twelve. This was closely followed by his second love, the drums, as Bororó found himself onthe sticks with a local dance combo called The Mad. Much of his early professional life was spent deeply involved and inspired by the burgeoning music scene of Rio de Janeiro and the emerging Clubs Da Esquina movement, and his abilities on a plethora of stringed instruments, as well as his natural talent as a drummer, would later make him a popular figure among artists as diverse as superstar musician and producer Peter Gabriel and Brazilian samba queen Beth Carvalho, bothof whom he worked with extensively during the late m1980s and early 1990s. One of his most significant moments came in 1979 though, when Bororó made his debut with the Orquestra Sinfônica De Goiânia, conducted by Maestro Braz Pompeu de Pina, and made plans to use members of the orchestra on his first four-song release that same year. The resulting EP was written by four collaborators - Carlos Ribeiro, Gustavo, Nasr Fayad Chaul and Lilian. Despite a lack of budget, and using Bororó’s connections with the owner of the legendary Araguaia Studio, the collective managed to record the EP on four tracks, using limited resources and a budget cobbled together from their work making commercial jingles in the very same studio. The EP’s opener is the sublime and evocative title track, A Tempo e a Gosto. Written by Fernando Perillo, it was one of the young musician’s first recordings and features him dueting vocally with Bororo who also provides acoustic guitar and bass, with Gringo on drums and Napa on keys.

At once a hazy relic and a digital snapshot of the human experience, Your Day Will Come is the debut album from Chanel Beads, arriving April 19 via Jagjaguwar. The remarkable project announces the arrival of New York-based musician Shane Lavers as a new force in experimental music. After his 2022 singles “Ef” and “True Altruism” marked his breakout on corners of the internet, Your Day Will Come sees Lavers evolving his uncanny and dreamlike sound which he achieves through layering synthetic and real instruments. His songs feel like a memory in which you can’t distinguish between what actually happened or what was a false reproduction in your mind—although the burning emotion remains intact. Your Day Will Come sees Lavers capturing the many contradictions of modern existence and the strange infiniteness of the digital world, as he searches for truth and faith amid competing realities. Though he incorporates the scrappy sonics of post-punk, the gripping sentimentality of pop tunes, and the spectral artifice of electronic music, he blurs lines through unconventional song structures that build into transcendental climaxes. As he intentionally prints his songs down to embed fried artifacts and ghostly remains, the resulting songs have a time-collapsing quality, both transitory and timeless. Lavers first started writing Your Day Will Come during a period of reflection in November 2022. Stuck quarantining in his Brooklyn apartment, he found himself wanting to dig down into the core of who he truly was, apart from fleeting trends or rebounding cultural moments. So during that strange time between winter holidays, he started to write songs that wrestled with an early loss that had rippled throughout his life, foundational to the way he sees himself and the way he relates to others. Many of the lyrics that remained were in response to both internal and external conflicts. They were words that he had to speak aloud to uncover the reality of the situation. Throughout, Lavers weaves in contributions from his live bandmates, singer-songwriter Maya McGrory (Colle) and experimental instrumentalist Zachary Paul, who offer their own layers of feeling that add to the huge emotionality of the album. Accustomed to performing in various bands when he lived in Seattle, Shane began to strip everything back when he started playing shows around NYC, working to locate what felt worthy for him to perform. That mindset informed the writing of the record, in which Lavers forced himself to only keep what felt the most necessary to say. “There was a filter to this record,” Lavers says. “If it didn’t move me while performing, then I couldn’t make it into a song. As much as I wanted to make something that was cool to the touch, I had to make something that made me feel something.” Now, his live shows see all three performers weaving together in absolute cathar

Glass Beams have announced their highly anticipated EP ‘Mahal’, out on March 22nd on their new label home Ninja Tune. Released alongside the news is the EP’s titular track “Mahal”.

The genesis for the Melbourne-based trio, which formed around founding member Rajan Silva, was through the rekindling of childhood memories relating to his father, who emigrated to Melbourne from India in the late 1970's. Silva recalled watching a DVD on repeat with his father; ‘Concert for George’, a star-studded tribute to late Beatles member George Harrison performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2002, featuring legendary Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar with daughter Anoushka, alongside Western icons Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and ELO’s Jeff Lynne. This intersection of musical styles was reflected in the record collection of Silva's father, where the sounds of iconic Bollywood vocalists Asha Bhosle and the Mangeshkar lineage sat alongside music from blues legends like B.B. King and Muddy Waters. In particular, Silva was drawn to the fusion of Western musical styles and traditional Indian music; a concept pioneered by Indian artists like R.D. Burman, Ananda Shankar, and fraternal duo Kalyanji-Anandji.

This cross-pollination of East and West, of old and new, is a sentiment that the band have sought to capture in their self produced works. Across their output, Glass Beams presents a timeless fusion of cultures and sounds beamed through a prism of live instrumentation and DIY electronica, all wrapped up inside a mesmerizing and mystical visual world of their own making.

Their debut EP ‘Mirage’, released in 2021 catapulted them into the collective consciousness of new followers who came to discover their serpentine, psychedelic-tinged tracks through social media, streaming services and word of mouth, with the vinyl copies selling-out as quickly as it could be pressed via grassroots record store support.

In the wake of the unexpected success of their debut release and an abundance of festival invitations, Glass Beams were amplified around the globe performing hypnotic renditions of the 'Mirage' EP alongside an additional 20 minutes of unreleased music. Early clips of these “unreleased tracks” quickly began circulating online garnering millions of views and a fast-growing and ever-hungry following. As 2023 drew to a close and the dust settled after a whirlwind of touring, Glass Beams retreated to their home studio to record this much anticipated 20 minutes of music. They have named the record 'Mahal'. 

Sounds like a daydream, pale performances and beautiful singing voices. A faint and ephemeral album, as if Bill Evans met acid pop. The disc guide book "Bound for Everywhere" published in 2003 was a book that introduced basic records, but there was a CD-only chapter at the end, where I introduced this masterpiece "Ninth Elegy". And the impact of this album was so great that I had vocalist Fuminosuke participate in my album and live performances. Even now, the impact remains the same. In the age of fast fashion, this kind of discourse may not suit you, but I believe that good things will still be great no matter how many years pass, and they will definitely be recognized somewhere. Finally, finally analog. I will send it to everyone, including those who have been waiting for it, and those who are new to me. Pale acoustics, performances and arrangements with as few notes as possible, androgynous vocals, psychedelic, acid and alternative pops. I listened to it carefully for the mastering after a long time, but it was a wonderful album that transcended time as usual. In order not to make it too nostalgic, I gave the mastering a little bit of modern feeling. -- First on Vinyl Label Curator, Calm

A key document of the late ’70s experimental music scene in Kansai, Japan, R.N.A. Organism’s R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O (first released by legendary Osaka label Vanity Records in 1980) is a hallucinatory trip of dubby bass, churning guitars, sputtering rhythm boxes, twisted vocals and unidentifiable sound effects. With the vinyl out of print for decades now, Mesh-Key is honored to present this deluxe, fully authorized reissue, sourced from the miraculously well-preserved, original reel-to-reel tapes. Carefully remastered by Stephan Mathieu, this album has never sounded better.