"Never Been" is the first collaborative release by Loradeniz and Interstellar Funk, who produced the EP at a Volkshotel artist residency in Amsterdam in 2021. The record examines the interplay of synthetic melodies and Loradeniz’s vocals, which are underpinned by meticulously crafted rhythms. Steeped in melancholy, many of the tracks on "Never Been" evoke the essence of departure, complex emotions and fading memories.

"Freefall" - which has already been caned by DJs last summer - opens with a solid bassline and crystalline melodies. An urgent kick and racing hi-hats intensify the composition, while the dominant topline brings to mind a rapturous dance at twilight. An allegory of communication, "Hidden Tongue" has Loradeniz pronouncing splintered vowels, like a malfunctioning public service recording, over a reverberated snare, deep kick and repeating glockenspiel figure.

"Fly Me In" begins with an arpeggiated melody, before slowly combining multiple electric accents and delicate vocals with spoken word passages exploring notions of escape. The heroic overtones of "Situational Lullaby" develop subtly with layers of synths reminiscent of mid-90s soundtracks, while "Lurking Orange" closes the release with its listless refrain and snake-like percussion.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Brilliantly inventive and evocative synthscapes; considered song writing with a futuristic sheen. Original whilst also highly listenable. If Interstellar Funk & Loradeniz weren't on your radar yet - they should be now!

TRACK LISTING

Fly Me In
Freefall
Hidden Tongue
Situational Lullaby
Lurking Orange

As 'Portrait With Firewood' is Felix’s most personal body of work to date, the product of an emotionally turbulent 2017, capturing the range of feelings and emotions he went through in vivid sonic beauty. By putting aside his previous sampladelic approach he returned to his childhood instrument of the piano as a core starting point.

"It's a confessional record… I realise that's a word mostly used to describe singer/songwriter rather than (largely) instrumental music, but I think it's apt. There's a sort of emotional candour.”

Felix is classically trained in the jazz tradition and influenced by the likes of Keith Jarrett and Alice Coltrane. Previously he was shy at the prospect of fans hearing his piano playing, but determined to overcome this fear he has brought forward a new honesty to his work.

"Finding the confidence to work with my own piano improvisations was a big part of that. Once I had figured out how I was going to make the music, it actually fell in to place rather quickly.”

Felix's goal was to create something "overwhelmingly beautiful", but also to capture the "inherent melancholy in beauty in all it's impermanance and fragility". He took inspiration and solace from performance artist Marina Abramovic.

"She has an incredibly deep understanding of the human condition, and expresses it in such a poetic way. Many of the themes of her work had particular resonance for me over the course of 2017 as I worked on the album. I was moved to tears on several occasions watching her videos or reading about her work.”

Felix collaborated with cellist Zosia Jagodzinska and vocalist Lola Empire. Jagodzinska recorded several takes of improvisations over the track 'Creature' which Felix would chop, pitch and layer into new melodic lines and seed throughout the album.

Felix's new approach expanded to experimentation with field recording, contact micing his beloved piano and purchasing his first hardware synth, all in service of enriching the personal, humane quality of the record.

"Music helps me to communicate the sorts of things that I find almost impossible to put in to words. I think the process for this album has helped me create a more rich and emotionally complex body of work than I have managed before.”

TRACK LISTING

A1. Unblocked
A2. Waters Rising
A3. Creature Pt.1

B1. Creature Pt.2
B2. Sex

C1. Blue Violet
C2. Sparrows

D1. Showreel Pt.3
D2. Blood In My Mouth

Kavinsky (1968 - 1986)

Rest in peace.

Kavinsky died in 1986 in a car accident, at the wheel of his Testarossa. He reappeared in the skin of a zombie in 2005, for the release of his first EP " Teddy boy " on Record Makers.

Teddy Boy marks the entry of Kavinsky on the French electronic stage. "Testarossa Autodrive" makes the unanimity and forges the artistic print of the artist, Mr Oizo / Quentin Dupieux will make a remix. It follows this EP which Kavinsky will enter into the "French Touch" and will begin to be known, in particular with the amateurs of the worlds.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Testarossa Autodrive
A2. Mr Oizo Autodrive T42
A3. Transistor
B1. The Crash
B2. Testarossa Nightdrive
B3. Arpanet Nightdrive Rework
B4. Ghost Transistor

Treviso, Italy-based two piece Kill Your Boyfriend are releasing their fourth album 'Voodoo' via Sister 9 Recordings (Europe), Little Cloud Records (North America) and Shyrec (Itay). A frantic and hypnothising bacchanalia of Psych & Industrial tinged soundwaves, the new album is a collection of reverb laden necromantic charms, summoning the souls and bones of the greats in the Rock & Roll pantheon of the 1950s. The duo delivers such glittery dark enchantment via 7 hoodoo hymns, travelling with a crumbling, ghostly and magically whizzing Rocket 88, in the company of Marie Laveau and madame Lalaurie. It's a relentless whirl of Voodoo-Psych, Industrial-Billy, Electro-GrisGris, which you can dance to.

The new LP follows 'Killadelica', where Kill Your Boyfriend had refined their debut signature sound, bridging the gap between the semi-obscure but hauntingly fascinating tradition of Veneto's PostPunk (Death In Venice, Evabraun, Pyramids, etc.) and contemporary Psych-Nouveau. With 'Voodoo', Matteo Scarpa and Antonio Angeli, explore new genres and expand the sonic borders, without losing their original intent. They replace the synth bass with a bass-guitar, adding more fluidity and weight to a renewed and punchier rhythmic section. Electronic and acoustic percussion are fuller and heavier, and the band's new stomp-machine is a hyper-convulsive version of the saturated Rock & Roll and R&B drumming, from the cheap garage studios of 1950s indie labels.

Sida A is the most Rock & Roll of the two, and it is inspired by Michael Ventura's essay "Hear that Long Snake Moan", which brought forward the idea that "the Voodoo rite of possession by the god became the standard of American performance in Rock’n’Roll" where the performers "let themselves be possessed not by any god they could name but by the spirit they felt in the music”. Each song invokes one or a set of the lost souls of the Rock & Roll era, with 'The Day The Music Died' referring to the infamous 3rd of February 1959. Side B descends deeper into the magic swamps of Creole magic, with music taking on a much more liturgical function, conjuring shamanic possessions via extra layers of tribal percussion. The band says of side B: "we see it as a one long ritualistic descent into a psychedelic underworld made of echoing voices, claustrophobic spaces populated by lost souls, enchanters and witchdoctors."

For fans of: Throbbing Gristle, The Soft Moon, Suicide, Cult Of Dom Keller, Sonic Youth, The Cramps, Sisters Of Mercy, Wall Of Voodoo

TRACK LISTING

1. The King
2. The Man In Black
3. Mr Mojo
4. Buster
5. The Day The Music Died
6. Papa Legba
7. Vodoo

Absolutely ingenious album from relative new comers Mystic Jungle, aka Dario di Pace who, frankly, will astonish with the creative meanderings and twists on retro grade electro disco, boogie and proto house. Based in Naples, and head of the Periodica label; it's been some while since I've heard search an authentic reaction of styles from the golden age of the glitterball.

We're not talking no beige rehash here though folks, Mystic Jungle have conjured up an album of future classic cosmic-sherm disco - the kinda tracks that if you were searching through Baldelli or Ron Hardy mixtapes you'd be expecting to pay at least £50 each for a dusty copy!

Starting with the Mexican wave boogie of "Don't Stop Your Love", which you'd be convinced is a lost nugget from '83, we move through to "Get Down On It" - another sun-blushed boogie bomb with the spirit of California in its sights. Side B opens with the smoochy twilight-island epic, "Hold On Your Dreams", which, aside from have one absolute mother of all guitar solos, basically orders you to make your snazziest cocktail and comfortable in the hammock as it takes you on its psychedelic-disco rocket ride.

"Money Wonder" is that wigged-out moment of bedroom boogie you've been waiting for. With gilded guitar lines, catchy vocal hook and gritty drumbox it's superb keyboard solo has all the garnishings to really show off its pedigree as this bona fide dancefloor titan struts proudly onto the scene. So good! Just enough time for "Keep Alive This Fire" which keeps to the wonky disco flavour, injecting a plethora of vintage synth fx across a rattly drum rhythm, disco-not-disco basslines and vocal combo for a quirky and fun end to this rather life affirmed collection of modern dancefloor grooves. Mystic Jungle proves he's one of the hottest cats on the current circuit and I urge you intently to get this album ordered fast!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Stupidly good modern genius who recreates some of the best bits from Italo, cosmic, proto-house and boogie in his own clumsy, earnest style which you'll be convinced is a lost nugget.Future classic alert!

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Don't Stop Your Love
2. Get Down On It
Side 2
1. Hold On Your Dreams
2. Money Wonder
3. Keep Alive This Fire

WRWTFWW Records drop the first ever best-of compilation of Soichi Terada’s amazing project Omodaka. including 14 songs never released on vinyl before. The 18-track ZENTSUU: Collected Works 2001-2019 album is available on double LP in heavy 350gsm sleeve with printed inner sleeves, as well as in CD and digital formats.

Initiated in 2001 while trying to create a ‘boat racing song’, the Omoka project features sublime music by veteran electronic / house / jungle / video game music producer / DJ Soichi Terada and the vocals of Japanese folk min'yo & enka singer Akiko Kanazawa for a never-heard-before colorful blend of retro game 8bit / chiptune sounds and traditional Japanese music with wet electro rhythms, joyful 90s house grooves, and slick downtempo vibes. Feel-good, sexy, and fun, Terada’s project brings forth one of the most unique sounds in recent memory. The smile-inducing sonic adventure is packed with irresistible hits and a good dose of dancefloor-ready gems: a well deserved delivery of good times for 2022 and beyond!

Tokyo born genius Soichi Terada has built an impressive career in different music genres. He co-founded respected label Far East Recording with Shinchiro Yokata, composed the soundtrack for cult video game series Ape Escape, released tons of amazing house music records (some included in the beautiful compilation “Sounds from the Far East” released by Rush Hour in 2015), and has been a celebrated world-touring DJ.

- For fans of folktonica, house, dance, Japanese traditional music meets video game music, chiptune, Soichi Terada, Far East Recording, good times, good times, and more good times.

- First ever vinyl release of collected works from Soichi Terada’s project Omodaka!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Absolute madness from Soichi Terada! You might associate him with crafting deep house masterpieces; but he's also a dab hand at video soundtracks! Alongside Akiko Kanazawa this is a singular chiptune curio with amazingly catchy pop sensibilities and beguiling 8 bit sound design. Wild and wonderful!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Aranjuez
A2. Galaxy Deca
A3. Kiso Bushi
A4. Iyano Kobiki
A5. Kusatsu Bushi
B1. Nanbu Ushioi Uta
B2. Chakkiri Bushi
B3. Ryotsu Jinku
B4. Hyamikao
C1. Cantata No.147
C2. Kokiriko Bushi
C3. Fortunate 1mark
C4. Otemoyan
D1. Yosawya San
D2. Hietsuki Bushi
D3. Monkey Turn
D4. Kyoteidaiski
D5. Plum Song

With "Leave Me Alone", Detlef Weinrich presents his fifth album under the moniker Tolouse Low Trax. Weinrich, who has meanwhile turned his back on Düsseldorf and lives in Paris, has long since ceased to be an insider tip and is a guest in renowned clubs and festivals all over Europe. With his new album, he succeeds in an exciting, unforeseen new direction. The velvety heaviness and rawness of earlier records seems to have given way to a new playfulness. A playfulness perhaps in the sense of an electronica reminiscent of the late 1990s, which in its idea of deconstruction and reduction is currently enjoying a new appreciation in the clubs. But also in the sense of an urban vibe of hip hop and dub references, which are woven into a very unique mix in Weinrich's tracks.

Nervous mechanical murmurs, drifting comic-like through razor-sharp rhythm cliffs: welcome to "Leave Me Alone", a loop meta-level dreamland of styles and mental meteorology. A repetitive notion on the overwhelming speechlessness towards the world, its clocking, and all the despairs that come along with it. Wholly veiled in a sharp sonorous language, that brings a complete agreement of the expression with the idea, a sense of harmony, of a secret beauty, that often escapes the judgment of the crowd. It marks the latest longplayer by Tolouse Low Trax. After his stunning collaboration with French singer and hurdy gurdy player Emmanuelle Parrenin and myriad remixes for artists like Aksak Maboul, Ex Ponto, or Sebastian Tellier, he sharpened his artistic skills for a fresh musical treasure hunt. "Leave Me Alone" is a renunciation from the industrial slow drone zones, waving into spectacular decon- structed style collages.

13 veiled drum machine experiments, featuring dubby jazz districts, hip-hop flair, haunting little melodies, and the TLT signature funk. Again, he listened to the prose of his rhythms deeply, connecting the tones, placing rhythmic commas judiciously, like stops on a long road. All obscured into a new, ironic, yet totally serious sound layout, that is mirrored in the minimalistic shaped cover art- work full of suggestions to ramified cultural meanings. For a wonder, this time almost no pocketed vocal samples in the TLT creations. Instead, freshly recorded spoken words and singing by Brooklyn based producer Chris Hontos aka Beat Detectives, poet and multidisciplinary artist Fran from Paris and Italian synthesist and singer Andrea Noce aka Eva Geist, chanting introspective verses and Pier Paolo Pasolini poems over rugged grooves and suggestive sounds, opening his creative universe into a crisp manic eroticism. A cluster of genres, dancing in a rebellious, blistering swing, whirling styles upside down with an overall atmosphere that is flourishing on a positive spirit. An accessibility unusual for TLT and his non- conformist MPC driven music. So, let’s leave him alone and get lost in a wavering jaunt that chase away angst and depression with smoky musical spells and dramatic interlocking beat patterns.

TRACK LISTING

1. Albatros
2. How To Beat The Sea
3. Gates
4. Impure Nature
5. I Would Prefer Not To
6. My
7. Non Giudicare
8. Yellows
9. A Great, Strange And Moving Work
10. Ossia
11. White Flicker
12. Muddy Floors
13. Bianca From Rome

First time available on final! New York's ultra-cool and totally brilliant DFA (Death From Above) label bring us a second round up of all their twelves following on from "Compilation #1". Included are two discs of awesome punk-funk bombs from JOY, The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem and a first ever DFA-Liquid Liquid collaboration "Bellhead" (soooo good!), or more electronic and electro-punk outings from The Juan Maclean, Pixeltan, Delia Gonzalez, Black Leotard Front and Black Dice. The third disc features a DJ-mixed selection by Tim Sweeney and Tim Goldsworthy. You need this!!

“What could have been a mere anthology of the label's uniformly excellent 2004 output is, additionally, a meticulously assembled personal narrative. This is a label that balances its musical and commercial aspirations with an earthy, no-bullshit disposition and - let's say it - the world's best fucking handclaps.” - Nick Sylvester, Pitchfork, in the heady days of 2004.

Behold, "Compilation #2". A compendium what are arguably the best prime-era DFA cuts, mostly all recorded and/or remixed at the old DFA Studios on W. 13th Street (with some notable exceptions), released as 12-inches at the time, and then compiled onto a 3xCD set for convenience because, at the time, people actually bought CDs more than vinyl.

Now, in the spirit of time not really being much of a linear thing anymore, and for our own selfish desire to have this version of Liquid Liquid’s “Bellhead,” produced by the DFA, finally committed to wax, we have reverse engineered this thing back onto vinyl and presented it as a four-record boxed set.

We went back and found the master tapes or files for each song - a not insignificant effort given our habit of disorganization. We then rather painstakingly resequenced and remastered it with the guy we trust with such things: Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service. The lacquers Bob cut were plated and pressed at what we believe to be one of the best pressing plants in the country: QRP in Salina, Kansas.

We tell you all of this to say: we took this shit pretty seriously. Because we felt like it was important and because we felt like some folks would really appreciate it. It sounds remarkable. It looks great. (Rob Carmichael re-did the original packaging, adding a new photo from DFA OG Tim Saccenti from one of the original parties at W. 13th St.) Of course, we somehow can’t stop ourselves from making labeling errors - Pixeltan’s “That’s the Way I Like It” somehow escaped the center labels on the fourth record. It’s kind of the DFA curse. Has to be!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Black Leotard Front - Casual Friday
B1. J.O.Y. - Sunplus (DFA Remix)
B2. The Juan MacLean - I Robot
B3. The Juan MacLean - Dance Hall Modulator Dub
C1. Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - Rise (DFA Remix)
C2. Black Dice - Wasteder
C3. J.O.Y. - Sunplus
D1. LCD Soundsystem - Yeah (Pretentious Version)
D2. The Rapture - Sister Saviour (DFA Dub)
E1. Liquid Liquid - Bellhead
E2. LCD Soundsystem - Yeah (Crass Version)
F1. Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - El Monte
F2. The Rapture - Alabama Sunshine
G1. Pixeltan - Get Up : Say What (DFA Remix)
G2. LCD Soundsystem - Beat Connection (Extended Disco Dub)
H1. Pixeltan - That’s The Way I Like It
H2. Black Dice - Endless Happiness (EYE Remix)
H3. The Juan MacLean - Less Than Human

“Enter The Decagon” assembles friends of the label - near and far - for further excursions into the abyss of industrial, folk, jazz and ambient music.

From Copenhagen hails Kristi Brud (Bride of Christ) extending us with a shimmering violin contemplation initially made for the short art film piece The Abduction of Europa, absorbing a modal ambiance of harmonics rooted in central European renaissance. Recorded in Svalöv in rural Skåne comes a hillbilly folk jazz piece constructed by Joel and Ivar on equal parts violin, flute, upright bass and percussion, recorded somewhere in the misty era of of 2012-2015. Then, an interlude follows, reconstructed from the very early live sets of the label's own Inre Kretsen Grupp, laden with tuned metallic percussions and synthesized bow sounds. Following up, the idiosyncratic local talent Fai Ling offers a piece of Basinski/Hassel-esque horn repetitions in full deterioration. Concluding the A-side of the compilation is the band that never was - the only released material of Prins Emanuel and Golden Ivy's Börringe Kloster project - encapsulating their minimal maximal approach of low quality sound samples turned in to a wall of sound of rhythm of sorts.

The B-side picks up on different musings in the form of ambient cadence and carefully sculpted soundscapes signed Phillipp Otterbach, who gives us an unraveling journey into kalimba-hampered harmonies carried through a bed of industrial, synthesized sounds. Moonilena follows up with an eerie yet beautiful minimal composition of radio disturbances and repetitive, ear catching melodies.
Breaking the barrier of stillness, local producer and Catholic chant music fiend Digge Shim performs a rhytmical, tongue-in-cheek number that pulls widely from both the hymnal traditions of medieval Europe as well as the zonked out ambient trance sounds you'd meet in a mid nineties Goa chill-out room.
Near the tip of the decagon, we find the Cypriot producer, singer and lyricist Spivak presenting us with a feeling of the-familiar-but-never-heard in the form of an ambient pop breakbeat number with carefully crafted choirs oscillating on top - hauntingly beautiful and equally danceable.

Ending in the best of styles, well-mannered umarel and purveyor of drum-smitten metallic sounds shows us what Moisture is really about - the mental image of finding your true self dancing in purgatory in a never-released Kenneth Anger film set, encumbered with red lights and occult paraphernalia.

TRACK LISTING

Kristi Brud - Variations Of La Folia - The Abduction Of Europa
Joel Ivar - Svalov 9 Juli
Inre Kretsen Grupp - Interlud
Fai Ling - Ikaros Svett Short Version
Borringe Kloster - Hommage A Eva Ramel
Philipp Otterbach - The Lost Track
Moonilena - Onio
Digge Shim - A Friend In Deed
Spivak - Oauver
Moisture - Blue Tea