Erol Alkan further expands on his production for Duran Duran’s acclaimed 2021 studio album, ‘Future Past’, with a ceremonious, widescreen rework of the single ‘Give It All Up’.

Recorded in London with founding members Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor, as well as Blur's Graham Coxon on guitar, ‘Give It All Up’ also features contributions from Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo, whose soaring vocals anchor the dramatic progression of Alkan’s sensitive reinterpretation.

Blossoming in unison with Le Bon’s own iconic voice and an insistent bassline that recalls the band’s innovative ‘Night Versions’, Alkan draws closer together Duran Duran’s legendary instinct for both pop music and the dancefloor alike. Expanding on this, the 12” includes a ‘Stripped Vox’ version which appears exclusive to the vinyl edition, arranged by Alkan for his own DJ sets and proven to be a powerful tool at clubs and festivals over the past few months.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Really enjoying these Erol reworks on Phantasy. Another one of synth-pop legends Duran Duran, which he turns into a deep yet anthemic slice of late night electro-disco pop.

TRACK LISTING

A. Give It All Up Ft. Tove Lo (Erol Alkan's Extended Rework)
B. Give It All Up Ft. Tove Lo (Erol Alkan's Stripped Vox Rework) 

Following the reissue of Bell Orchestre's debut album "Recording a Tape the Colour of Light" and their Juno award-winning second album "As Seen Through Windows" Erased Tapes is excited to announce the reissue of the band's original remix EP "Who Designs Nature's How". Bell Orchestre is a collaborative instrumental, Montreal based group who originally formed back in 1999. The first music they created was predominately live scores for contemporary dance performances and theatrical puppet shows. The fusion of Bell Orchestre's wildly divergent musical backgrounds and the energy created from this connection is the catalyst to the group's signature avantgarde sound. “

Who Designs Nature's How” features remixes of select songs from Bell Orchestre's second full-length album “As Seen Through Windows” and has been pressed on vinyl for the first time ever - originally only released on CD and exclusively sold on tour. Besides being pressed on vinyl for the very first time, the record features brand-new cover artwork by Munich-based graphic designer Bernd Kuchenbeiser. The album includes the spellbinding reinterpretation of Water / Light / Shifts courtesy of fellow Canadian electronic producer Tim Hecker.

“Listening to this, 14 years later and having totally forgotten making this one afternoon, was a reminder that things do change. I can hear the old markers of granular synthesis, Nord Modular synth and fake mellotron samples. These are tools left on a past workbench. It has the rough style of probably 5 layers of improvisation stacked against each other, in a way that feels both like home and yet also some distant foreign self.” — Tim Hecker In addition to Tim Hecker's lead single Water / Light / Shifts, The album also features contributions from the late Japanese prodigious composer Susuma Yokota, dub legend Mad Professor, Canadian DJ and producer Kid Koala, as well as long-time friend and collaborator Colin Stetson amongst others. I have some incredible memories from my brief stint as occasionally joining these lovely friends on stages around the world, and I am excited to see this music flitting about once again.

“’Ovals & Emeralds’ explores particular themes that I found haunting as a child: outdated ornate Victorian design, dolls and clowns, automatons, wind up toys, fairgrounds and circuses. The goal was to evoke these themes through manipulation of my own instrumentation, rather than directly sampling fairground organs etc. Although there are some more playful moments on the EP, the dreamlike qualities often take the form of feverish nightmares, dizzying and disorientating with a dose of paranoia.” - Bibio

TRACK LISTING

A1. Oval Emerald Vertigo
A2. The Death Of A Trapeze Artist
A3. Carosello Ellitico
B1. Six String Marenghi
B2. Polycoulrophon
B3. Segee And The Indian

”‘Vignetting The Compost’ partly draws on a theme of the endless cycle of life and death, of growth and decay and how the two are dependant on each other […] This album also explores the processes of pain, loss, suffering and healing, with an optimistic hopeful tone growing over the lamentation like ivy on a gravestone. I’ve always been fascinated with the quality of the imagination and dreams, how edges are unfinished and indefinite, unlike the boundaries of a cinema screen. In dreams, forms and details can seem vivid yet vague, impressionistic, powerful yet difficult to recall. These were the qualities and aesthetics that I focussed on with this album, including intertwining musical ‘vignettes’ amongst the more structured tracks.” – Bibio

TRACK LISTING

A1. Flesh Rots, Pip Sown
A2. Mr. & Mrs. Compost
A3. Everglad Everglade
A4. Dopplerton
B1. Great Are The Piths
B2. Odd Paws
B3. Under The Pier
B4. Weekend Wildfire
C1. The Clothesline And The Silver Birch
C2. Torn Under The Window Light
C3. The Ephemeral Bluebell
C4. Over The Far And Hills Away
D1. Amongst The Bark And Fungus
D2. Top Soil
D3. Thatched
D4. The Garden Shelter

To mark the 35th Anniversary of the label, Acid Jazz are reissuing some essential formative albums as a special series on coloured vinyl. Brand New Heavies’ ‘Orginal Flava’ was originally released in 1994, but includes material from before their seminal, self-title 1990 debut ‘Brand New Heavies’. 

Highlights include a lounge version of ‘Never Stop’, the Crusaders-esque ‘Country Funkin’ as well as an adventurous live version of ‘Headhunters’, which shows the Heavies’ power as a live outfit. A vital snapshot into the early years of a vital band and the early years of Acid Jazz

TRACK LISTING

1. Rest Of Me
2. Put Yourself In My Shoes
3. Reality
4. Country Funkin’
5. Got To Give
6. Mother’s Tongue
7. Dream Come True
8. Never Stop
9. Headhunters (Live)
10. A Day At The Seaside

Monsieur Dimitri from Paris works his magic on Casbah 73's organic disco grooves with a remix treatment that surpasses all expectations.

'To Be Free' and 'Doing Our Own Thing' had a fantastic response when released on 12", at the end of 2019. It received wide support from people in the know like Red Greg, Danny Krivit, Folamour, Soul Clap, Kenny Dope and many others. The first pressing quickly sold out and the tracks were sounding strong on discerning dancefloors until, well, "The Thing" hit and everything stopped.

Despite this, the record has continued to grow by word of mouth, and so we thought it would be wonderful to have a 7" version with an edit or even a remix of the jazzy funky disco banger 'Doing Our Own Thing'. No one better than Dimitri from Paris for the job, one of the DJs who happened to tell us he loved the track. His two-part edit of 'Doing Our Own Thing' is a bomb that will make people dance for years to come.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doing Our Own Thing (Dimitri From Paris Remix Part 1)
2. Doing Our Own Thing (Dimitri From Paris Remix Part 2)

New one on cult Yorkshire label Golden Lion Sounds featuring renowned Manchester finger picker DBH (previously of Crowfoot and Thread Recordings). One of the most skillful acoustic guitarists I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing, his tracks of late have taken on a dreamy, enchanted elegance, which is the case here on "Jumbled Whole". A collage of serene strings, echoed artifacts and gentle strums guiding the mind through a blue sky vista filled with fluffy clouds and dancing daisies. Taking it straight to the meadows!

On the flip, The Utopia Strong, previously releasing on Rocket, swap the guitars for synthesizers and enter a psychedelicized alternative realm - with gated arpeggios, winding melodies and galloping drums creating the sense of a magic carpet ride through entity-rich dimensions and realities much more vast and grandiose than our own. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: I've been a long term fan of DBH - imbibing the spirit of John Fahay, Jack Rose, Bert Jansch etc - into modern finger picked soundscapes. The Utopia Strong are a new one on me - totally different in sound; but similarly, they conjure up imaginary dream worlds from their equipment of vintage synthesizers and rickety drum boxes. One of my favourite 7" sleeves the label have produced too!

TRACK LISTING

A. DBH - Jumbled Whole
B. The Utopia Strong - Gatekeeper

Mysterious Argentinian Deep Spectrum delivers an extended EP with synthpop and Italo influenced music for the pool/porn movie set / dancefloor / living room. Yes that's right, this is universal music, suitable for all kinds of situations. "Forever Free" could be an instrumental B-side of a Soft Cell or Vicious Pink record while "Para So Fiscal" holds the middle ground between an 80s soundtrack and an underground Italo jam. "Punch Line" on the flip is a smooth dance track where this talented new artist takes it to an even more sensual level. Fans of sleazy electronic futurism and early Legowelt should not sleep on this release!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: This is a really interesting release spanning cosmic synthscapes and electro-disco with a vintage hue and some classy programming and synthesis techniques. It's not all dancefloor centric, with the sub-100BPM numbers taking us off on light fluffy clouds into blue sky abandon.

TRACK LISTING

1 Forever Free
2 Para So Fiscal
3 Moon Memory
4 Zenith
5 Punchline
6 Chau Nos Vemos

Dorbachov is Damien O’Reilly, a London based techno DJ and producer from Northern Ireland. Damien’s musical journey began from listening to hardcore and techno cassette tapes in the Northern Irish countryside throughout the 90s, to becoming a regular across Ulster’s quickly emerging rave scene. After birthing the Dorbachov alias, several bookings followed and, with his ‘90s influence clearly evident in his sets, it wasn’t long before he was offered a residency at the Dublin hotspot So Loco. After a move to London, Dorbachov changed his focus and direction to the studio. Heavily immersing himself into production, he realised his true potential in formulating clever and energetic live sets. His vocational background was electrical engineering and this is clearly evident in his industrial and calculated sound that would not be a stranger in the clubs of Berlin. Now encompassing live modular elements, the “Shadows & Mirrors EP”, released on his own label Scrap & Delete; showcases the producer at peak performance, laying down three slamming techno kickers alongside four tasty locked grooves for the more adventurous jock.

All three tracks hark back to the vintage mid-late 90s / early 00s tribal techno sound - but done with incredible accuracy and sonic prowess. Highly rhythmical, main room workouts with pumping subs and clattering mid range; arranged to garner the maximum possible energy output from the dancefloor. If Dorbachov isn’t booked for the main stage at Awakenings festival off the back of some of this material I’ll eat my slipmats! Seriously strong. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: New techno firepower from London confirming that we are indeed at the beginning of a late 90s / 00s tribal techno revival. That's fine by me - techno's finest era in my humble opinion. Dorbachov knows what's up as he churns out three main room beasts plus a trio of locked grooves. TIP!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Object Consciousness 06:09
A2. Chasing Cat 05:32
B1. Shadows & Mirrors 08:33
B2. Appendix 1.1
B3. Appendix 1.2
B4. Appendix 1.3

Deluxe 20th anniversary edition of the defining album from innovative UK trio, Fridge. Restored and remastered by founding member of Fridge, Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet). Formed in 1996 by schoolmates Kieran Hebden, Adem Ilhan, and Sam Jeffers, Fridge were astonishingly prolific in their early years – releasing ten singles and four albums in just their first four years together. After a brief stint with a major label imprint – which saw the trio release their most focused album to date (Eph, 1999) Fridge delivered their fourth album, Happiness.

Originally released in 2001, Happiness was a sprawling, pastoral masterpiece – an innovative mix of acoustic clatter, electronic exploration, hip-hop production techniques, and experimental rock arrangements. Along with Hebden’s blossoming solo project, Four Tet, Happiness dragged the most compelling elements of the typically self-serious electronic, indie, and avant-rock of the 1990s and married them to eclectic folk and spiritual jazz for the new century. More remarkably, they did it without an ounce of pretense, imbued with an earnest and intimate execution that stood in stark contrast to virtually every comparable album of its time.

Happiness – Anniversary Edition is the 20th anniversary reissue of Fridge’s career-defining gem. Meticulously restored, reconstructed, and remastered from the original master tapes by Kieran Hebden, the album’s sound quality honors the original recordings like never before. The vinyl was cut by award-winning archival mastering engineer, Kevin Gray, and pressed onto 125-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by Record Technology Inc. (RTI). The exquisite heavyweight old-style tip-on gatefold jacket was printed and assembled by hand at Stoughton Printing Company, to complete this masterful reissue of this momentous album. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Melodica & Trombone (6:02)
2. Drum Machines & Glockenspiel (13:18)
3. Cut Up Piano & Xylophone (2:35)
4. Tone Guitar & Drum Noise (4:46)
5. Five Four Child Voice (9:22)
6. Sample & Clicks (2:56)
7. Drums Bass Sonics & Edits (7:27)
8. Harmonics (4:00)
9. Long Singing (9:13)
10. Five Combs (Bonus Track) (9:45)

"Pulse Love / Heaven’s Passage" is the latest EP from Ireland’s Tommy Holohan and is a direct, jugular-busting exercise in classic, peak-time techno. The first two tracks build us up to a frenzy, with "Love Pulse" setting the tension and throb levels to a maximum before "Back To The Way" (featuring another rising techno producer, Kettama) sweeps in with life-affirming keys, vintage tribal hooks and a nitro-injection of heart-racing energy. Reminds me of classic Kevin Saunderson - yes it's that good!

"Red For You: Torpext" ensures side B doesn't relent. A tough, rhythmic mid-sessioner that you'd expect DJ Rush to hammer to death. Nowt but drums and squealy vox for more tribal techno with those vintage feels. "Greygoose" concludes and switches things up by opening with a southern rap styled groove which descends into phosphorescent synth work and deep subs; an interesting curveball and finish on and I guess showing the diversity of this highly skilled producer. If you've a penchant for turn of the millennium tribal techno this bad boys for you.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Another slamming techno twelve this week confirming the re-interest in the late 90s/00s tribal techno sounds and processes. Tommy Holohan seems to be the real deal - with some solid DJ sets reinforcing his DJ Rush-inspired style.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Pulse Love : Heaven’s Passage 
A2. Back 2 The Way It Was Ft. KETTAMA 
B1. Red4U : Torpex 
B2. Greygoose 

Japanese Telecom (aka Dopplereffekt / Der Zyklus) first outing recorded at the end of the 90's and officially released in 1999. A sonic exploration of the culture and technologies that influence daily life in one of the most advanced countries on this globe, the land of the rising sun. As a recurring theme in Heinrich Muellers work, the Japanese Telecom EP takes inspiration from the exciting culture of the upcoming internet, robots, high speed trains and game culture from a future past and combines this with Detroit's hi-tech machine funk. Remastered and re-issued for the first time since its original release.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Clone's Aqualung Series plunge deeper into the Drexciyan waters here, bringing us a much needed reissue of Gerald Donald's first album under the Japanese Telecom alias. Though perhaps not as polished as 2001's 'Virtual Geisha', it's still a vital piece of electro history with a dope Castlevanian aesthetic.

TRACK LISTING

01 Rising Sun
02 Japanese Animation
03 Asian Amazons
04 Character Maps
05 Game Player
06 Nipponese Robots
07 Kubi
08 Bullet Train

Kosmik Sun sees the return of Nordenham, Germany based Eugen Kohl, with a side project to his acclaimed Crypt Witch project, whose LPs flew out instantly on Feral Child sister label Deep Distance a couple of years ago.

Alongside Crypt Witch, the band features members of Coven Spell and Devil Leaf, and their debut here is a mesmerizing full length that takes its listeners on a hypnotic journey through the cosmos with its slow, hypnotic riffs and intergalactic soundscapes. Three epic, intensely deep stoner / psych cuts heavy on interstellar trips and hypnotic doom. The LP features beautiful sleeve artwork by DunkleStille. "Medium Interstellar" is a must-have for fans of slow, mesmerizing doom psych / metal and marks them as a name to watch out for with future releases planned….

A limited vinyl only LP on tasty oceanic blue splatter wax with Feral Child insert and wrapped up in cool screened FC outer PVCs…..

Two tracks lifted from the Japan only album release from 2022 by Kyoto Jazz Massive 'Message From A New Dawn' on Extra Freedom Records. Mukatsuku deliver two exclusive vinyl only versions with Yoshihiro Okino from KJM & his abbreviated but no less killer s side 'Yoshi's 45 edit' with Vanessa Freeman's vocals searing to new highs…

On the flipside the focus is the melody itself with a driving instrumental version edit but with the backing vocals intact

TRACK LISTING

1. Get It Together (feat. Vanessa Freeman)
2. Get It Together (Robin Lee & Nik Weston 45 Edit / Exclusive Instrumental With Backing Vocals)

Like a winding system of trails and paths cutting through a digital forest-scape, M. Sage’s Paradise Crick is shaped by time. Full of wonder and charm, designed patiently and from a rich, curious mulch of synthesized and acoustic sound, the versatile American artist and magic realist’s new suite of music is an imaginary destination and a pastoral fantasy that envisions the natural and fabricated worlds as one.

Matthew Sage is a musician, intermedia artist, recording engineer and producer, publisher, teacher, partner, and parent. Assembling a sprawling and idiosyncratic catalog of experimental studio music between Colorado and Chicago since the early 2010s, recent highlights include The Wind of Things (Geographic North, 2021), an ensemble- recorded expression of bow-splashed nostalgia, and the four seasonal albums of Fuubutsushi, the improvisatory ambient jazz quartet he formed with friends from afar in 2020. Sage renders projects with nuanced velocity and a completist sensibility — when it’s finished, it’s done — which is what makes Paradise Crick, his debut for RVNG Intl., a compelling outlier.

Sage first staked his tent in Crick’s conceptual campground five years ago from his home studio in Chicago (he’s since returned to Colorado, home to the mountains and prairies often personified in his work). He had just read Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, a kaleidoscopic reflection of pastoral America’s shifting identity by way of magical fishing sojourns. Inspired by that feeling, of getting lost but finding oneself in through the outdoors, he amassed over seventy demos documenting a fictional soundtrack for camping. Pull up to this park, and the sign might read, “Welcome to Paradise Crick. Fire Danger Is Low.” The sequence, pruned down to thirteen tracks, courses the dewy mornings, afternoon hikes, and firelit nights of a weekend expedition.

While Sage is not a filmmaker, he views the method of making this album as a similar form of world-building via structure, narrative, formal elements, and editorial refinement. Contrasted with his collaborative craft, here he is a sole auteur reclined in total autonomy, able to improvise scenes and implement special effects at will. A parallel precedent for such unchecked imagination in the M. Sage canon is A Singular Continent, his 2014 album that tilted its compass to a faraway land. Where Continent built its world layering samples as composition, Paradise Crick deploys a balance of accessible song structures with experimental instrumentation and sound design.

Speckled with harmonica, autoharp, chimes, penny whistle, voice, hand percussion, and other mysteries, Crick’s texture is treated as a sensorial adventure; the swamps gurgle, the lakes glisten, and the valleys breathe in robust HD. The rhythms are loose and buoyant, bursting with a few ‘kick and snare’ moments shaped by Sage’s lifelong love for drumming and headphone prone electronic music. Crick bumps more than most anything he’s done before; crackling static pulses and lush vibrations reveal an intrinsic groove, a hidden beat map.

In the landscapes of Paradise Crick, science and magic co-exist, 5k boulders and midi frogs share the frame with real-life memories of Midwest camping trips and the desire to feel extra human in a digitized space. Sage strived for “nature in the holodeck” but couldn’t help leaving fingerprints in the simulation, and it’s these traces of spirit and character that give Paradise Crick its strange allure.

The album’s bubbling sense of play, melody, and timbre takes cues from left-field electronic lineage; synth pioneers like Tomita and Raymond Scott up through the more expressive pop tendencies of Woo, Stereolab and the Cocteau Twins, and into contemporary composers like Sam Prekop. The album’s vocabulary is uncomplicated; the gestures are sweet and inviting, intended to lull the listener. As much as Sage continues to be an experimentalist by nature in his work, with Paradise Crick, he spins a narrative. Not necessarily a concept album, but rather an invitation to take off for a weekend. That’s the modus operandi down here in the Crick, we stretch out.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Bendin’ In
A2 Map To Here
A3 River Turns Woodley (for Frogman)
A4 Fire Keplo
A5 Crick Dynamo
A6 Tilth Dusk Drains
B1 Tilth Dawn Rustles
B2 Mercy Lowlands
B3 Paradise Pass
B4 Stars Hanging Shallow
B5 Backdrif
B6 Crick Foam
B7 Evenin’ Out

Recorded in caves, crypts, and shopping centers, Mandy, Indiana's debut album' i've seen a way' is everywhere at once: Their first recordings emerged around 2019, with a smattering of early singles released not long after, culminating in 2021's critically acclaimed' EP which saw the band draw early cosigns including a remix from Daniel Avery and support slots from Squid, and Gilla Band.

The latter's Daniel Fox mixed several of the tracks on the album alongside Robin Stewart (Giant Swan) and the album was mastered by Heba Kedry (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bjork). Like Thomas Bangalter locked in This Heat's Cold Storage fridge studio with Special Interest for a weekend, keeping their setup minimal for maximum effect. Buried found sound samples, sprawling percussive experiments are arranged via oblique references to film soundtrack strategies and experimental video games.. "We take inspiration from films where the language of cinema is disrupted," explains Fair, who takes Julia Ducournau's narrative detournements as a key influence. "We want to alter textures, create clashes, and craft those moments when what you're expecting to happen never comes - by subverting expectations you keep an audience on its toes." Though 'i've seen a way' was painstakingly crafted, where Mandy, Indiana thrives is the unexpected - and the resulting album sounds like nothing that has come before it.

TRACK LISTING

Love Theme (4K VHS)
Drag [Crashed]
Pinking Shears
Injury Detail
Mosaick
The Driving Rain (18)
2 Stripe
Iron Maiden
Peach Fuzz
(?>?<)? :??:*:??'?,??:*:???'? (Crystal Aura Redux)
Sensitivity Training

At first, Gia Margaret called her new album ‘Romantic Piano’ to be a bit cheeky. Its spare, gentle piano works share more spirit with Erik Satie, Emahoy Tsegué- Maryam Guébrou and the ‘Marginalia’ releases of Masakatsu Takagi than they do with, say, a cozy and candlelit date night. But in that cheekiness lies hidden intention: across the gorgeous set, “Romantic” is suggested in a more classic sense, what the Germans call waldeinsamkeit. Its compositions conjure the sublime themes of the Romantic poets: solitude in nature; nature’s ability to heal and to teach; a sense of contented melancholy. “I wanted to make music that was useful,” says Margaret, vastly understating the power of the record. ‘Romantic Piano’ is curious, calming, patient and incredibly moving — but it doesn’t overstay its welcome for more than a second.

Margaret’s debut, ‘There’s Always Glimmer,’ was a lyrical wonder, but when an illness on tour left her unable to sing, she made her ambient album ‘Mia Gargaret’ (another cheeky title!) which revealed a keen intuition for arrangement and composition not fully shown on ‘There’s Always Glimmer’s lyrical songs. ‘Romantic Piano’, too, is almost totally without words. “Writing instrumental music, in general, is a much more joyful process than I find in lyrical songwriting,” she says. “The process ultimately effects my songwriting.” And while Margaret has more songwriterly material on the way, ‘Romantic Piano’ solidifies her as a compositional force.

Originally pursing a degree in composition, Margaret dropped out of music school halfway through. “I really didn’t want to play in an orchestra,” she said of her decision, “I really just wanted to write movie scores. Then, I started to focus more and more on being a songwriter. ‘Romantic Piano’ scratched an old itch.” ‘Romantic Piano’ does indeed touch on a rare feeling in art often only reserved for the cinema — a simultaneous wide-lens awe of existence and the post-language intimate inner monologue of being marooned in these skulls of ours. How very Romantic!

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1) Hinoki Wood
2) Ways Of Seeing
3) Cicadas
4) Juno
5) A Stretch
6) City Song

SIDE B:
7) Sitting At The Piano
8) Guitar Piece
9) La Langue De L’amitié (feat. David Bazan)
10) 2017
11) April To April
12) Cinnamon
13) A Hidden Track (Physical Only)

The music of Melati ESP aka Melati Malay is a euphoric vision of megacity rhythm and rainforest escape, club breaks and weightless pop, mapping new dreams from the sound of futures passed: hipernatural.

Drawing on the music era of her teenage years growing up in Jakarta – Javanese radio Dangdut, gamelan cassettes, Moving Shadow-era liquid jungle, Japanese chill-out, etc. – as well as her current work in progressive percussion trio Asa Tone, Malay’s solo debut is boldly borderless, bridging worlds and wavelengths into a richly imagined hybrid synthetic utopia.

hipernatural is momentous linguistically, too, as Malay’s first foray into singing in Indonesian, the language of her youth. She characterizes her lyrical mode as “abstract, and a bit broken,” an intuitive collage of diaristic emotion and oblique poetry (“plant me in fleeting twilight / missing home, where is home? / I am another you”). Her voice serves as its own versatile instrument, alternately intimate and alien, sensual and sacred, shaded with the haze of hidden heavens.

Co-produced with long-time collaborator Kaazi (100% Silk, Asa Tone), the album’s 12 tracks are cohesive but eclectic, threading through temple bass music, cyber siren techno, Stereolab drum n bass, new age downtempo, and dial-up rave reveries, flecked with tactile fragments of offworld dialogue, computer hum, bubbling water, and beyond.

Malay’s technique of sampling and processing her voice into an electronic palette which she then performs on generative instruments gives the songs a bewitching artificial intelligence elegance, exquisite but uncanny. Hers is a hybridity both organic and hypermodern, deeply personal yet globally sourced – YouTube rips, nature tapes, cheap sample packs, club bootlegs. hipernatural champions a dynamic new language at the axis of then and now, of east and west.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tepi Memori
2. Bahasa Baru
3. E.m.z.
4. Spesimen Sempurna
5. Intuisi
6. Kupu Kupu Elektronik
7. Di Atas
8. Itu Cukup!
9. Anda Katakan
10. Kita Vs Mereka
11. Wanita
12. Energi

Legendary and genre-defining Detroit label Metroplex Records is rereleasing a run of carefully selected releases from its classic-studded catalogue. The remastering and recut was done with uttermost care, using the newest mastering and audio-restoration technologies. These techno and electro benchmarks, taken from original sources, have never sounded better. We've already had Model 500's "No UFO's" (M001) and now we get "Night Drive (Through Babylon)" (M002). With a nagging B-line as addictive as the former, which seems to be permanently corroding alongside a AM-radio distorted robot vox and some of the most sense and eerie string and lead parts you'll hear. It's another classic earworm of techno - they don't make em like this anymore! Also includes the lesser known "D-Mix" of "No UFOs".

Rediscover these futurist transmissions from techno's ground zero and the absolute classic Detroit techno EP's that started the genre. 

TRACK LISTING

Night Drive Thru Babylon
Time Space Transmat
No Ufos (d-mix)

Mouche (real name Tim Karmouche) returns to Australian label Research Records with another full-length of imaginary soundtracks, instrumentals and sun-kissed digital jazz. Active on the Melbourne scene in projects such as Crepes/The Murlocs/Swazi Gold/Dreamin' Wild, Tim's first album Live From The Bubble arrived back in 2020 as an ode to his aptly named studio space - The Bubble.

Lake Songs builds on those same atmospheres, showcasing the inward-looking craft of his one-man band. Cicada field recordings and light keys open proceedings, reflecting the warmer side of 80s new age, though before long we're introduced to a variety of stylistic shifts incorporating elements of cosmic funk, lounge and library-style compositions. There are traces of Steve Hiett, Max Groove or even the recently re-discovered Ronald Langestraat, though the strength of Mouche's talent for harmony shines through on its own level.

Shifting between moods yet reflecting an overarching sense of positivity, listening through the ten tracks gives off a real sense of place, though time is somewhat irrelevant. The warm climate and sandy beaches of Australia seem eternally embodied in 'Juice' or 'Crystal Water'. Perhaps where Live From The Bubble was dedicated to the very studio that birthed it, Lake Songs is dedicated to the vast land that surrounds it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Silence On Lake Purity
2. Swans In The Night
3. Crystal Water
4. Swamp Thing
5. Forest Solitude
6. Juice
7. The Neighbourhood
8. Race Against Time
9. After All
10. Sweet Rain

The Orielles on The Goyt Method: Our concept for The Goyt Method was birthed from our interest in cybernetics, improvisation and experimental electronic music. We wanted to zoom out of ‘Tableau’ (the band’s third album released in 2022) and disconnect all the pieces, rearranging them in new ways to create variations of songs, which encapsulate the whole record. We left this part of the process completely down to chance, adopting an online roulette wheel to choose our stems. This way of creating music was familiar to us from spending a lot of time remixing and record collecting, gaining an invested interest in deep listening and avant-garde electronic music.

The name itself comes from the initial location in which we remixed with Joel Patchett, a wintery and freezing cold Goyt Mill. From here, we coined the term ‘Goytism’ or ‘to Goyt’ which was basically our way of describing the process of repurposing and resampling acoustic sounds through digital production, making them unrecognisable from their original source.

The photograph on the sleeve was taken in winter 2020, our first visit to the Mill studio, our first Goyt session. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Tableau 001
2. Tableau 002
3. Improvisation 002
Side B:
1. Tableau 003
2. Tableau 004 

The Midwich Cuckoos is based on the 1957 science fiction novel by John Wyndham, and tells the story of an English village where the women become mysteriously pregnant. Hannah Peel‘s score is described as a unique and intricately produced soundscape, working in harmony with the sound design of Sky’s adaptation. With analogue synthesisers recreating the horror of the ‘Hive Mind’, tape manipulations, drones, woodwind and melodies echoing the song of the cuckoo bird, Peel creates a score that perfectly balances the organic instrumentations and melodies, juxtaposed with an increasingly dark electronic ‘invasion’. Peel explains, “Creating the score was a constant endeavour to find the balance between darkness and light, fear and beauty. It was a very fine and intricate equilibrium between the normal sunlit logical world as we know it, and a subversive unfamiliar musical language.”

TRACK LISTING

Hive Mind
Cuckoo
Help Me
Ward 300
Hive Scream
Seen
Underground
Midwich School
Midwich Cuckoos
The Blackout
Awakenings
Pregnant
Scared
The Keys
If And When
No Leaving
Waking
A Pattern
Come Out
It's Over

Hania Rani announces "On Giacometti" a tender meditation on the life and art of Alberto Giacometti and family.

"On Giacometti" is a collection of beautiful recordings inspired by the renowned artist and family and features some of Rani's most profoundly delicate compositions to date. Invited by film director Susanna Fanzun, to score her forthcoming documentary on the legendary artist Alberto Giacometti, Hania Rani took herself to the Swiss mountains to compose in blissful isolation. As Rani explains eloquently below the compositions are based on improvised melodies, simple harmonies and structures and inspired by the silence of the mountains as Rani returns to her main instrument, the piano. The results are beguilingly reminiscent of her beloved debut album Esja, but with subtle extra layers of synthesiser, and on two tracks cello from friend and long-running collaborator Dobrawa Czocher.

'On Giacometti' is presented as a limited edition LP with bespoke packaging featuring Les Naturals -Chocolat (Gmund) sustainable recycled paperboard made from 100 % recovered paper with Foil Artwork by Łukasz Pałczyński. Plus Double sided printed insert and download code inside.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm a big fan of ambient and modern classical music, and Hania Rani is one of my more recent artist discoveries, and one of my absolute favourites. Tender prepared paino pieces a-la Frahm, echoic room sounds and shimmering reverb. Soft strong sweeps and pad-like swells offset the more frantic piano pieces with panaceas of calm. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Allegra
2. Spring
3. Stampa
4. Struggle
5. Morning
6. In Between
7. Knots
8. Dreamy
9. Storm
10. Time
11. Mountains
12. Annette
13. Alberto

Red Axes return to Crosstown Rebels with their absorbing new single “Relax Shiva”, featuring a remix from DJ Gregory.

An electronic duo at the forefront of house and techno, Tel-Aviv-based pairing Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi, aka Red Axes, continue to advance and develop their own ever-evolving eccentric and idiosyncratic sound. Informed by new wave and post-punk through to electronic genres across the spectrum, their releases on Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sound, Jennifer Cardini’s Correspondant and Life and Death, coupled with recent material on Higher Ground and Shall Not Fade, have welcomed a plethora of varying soundscapes. This versatility and range is something they explore once again as they return to Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels - following on from 2015’s “Sabor” - with their latest single, “Relax Shiva”.

An intensely hypnotic and entrancing effort that slowly wanders and creeps between sounds and spheres covering all hours of the night, the warping “Relax Shiva” utilises resounding and deep organic percussion alongside a spiraling deeply rooted acid line at its core to guide the trance-inducing vocal calls across a near-eight-minute trip. Providing the remix on the package, Parisian house legend DJ Gregory, aka Point G, harnesses the vocals while introducing crisp, rolling drums and winding melodies, a sure-fire remix BOMB!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Red Axes' singular and inimitable sound traverses into the electronic music powerhouse that is Crosstown Rebels. "Relax Shiva" fires acidic machine gun fire over a trench of barbed drums and deep bass. DJ Gregory's remix is a nice and tribal take, full of head splitting fx to boot. Top stuff.

TRACK LISTING

A. Relax Shiva
B. Relax Shiva (DJ Gregory Remix) 

Albert’s Favourites label founder Scrimshire is set to release bold new album 'Paroxysm'. In the last few weeks of October 2022, Scrimshire wrote a new collection of songs with the descriptive working title "Scream". A direct response to the absurdity of the breakdown in the UK government, the horror of the treatment of refugees arriving on our shores and the callous disregard for the trauma being caused to low-income people or anyone considered "other". The anger, sadness, mourning, and frustration he felt was poured into these recordings.

Originally named “Scream 8”, ‘Unity Gain’ was one of the early outpourings from those sessions. Piano and drums bubble up until it fully boils over with huge stabbing synthesiser and string sounds in an outburst of frenetic energy. "Division seems to characterise our daily experience”, says Scrimshire. “How does a society stop the callousness and corruption from seeping into its bones?".

Singer Faye Houston features on both ‘Eyes Shut’ as well as, alongside saxophonist, composer, and multi-wind instrumentalist Tamar Osborn, on ‘Flames’. About the latter Scrimshire explains, “One person can breathe fire into your life and the world, leaving an indelible mark. The album was influenced hugely by a friend we sadly have lost. I think of it like the heat you still feel after a fire has gone out”.

London-based poet and emcee The Repeat Beat Poet captures moments of time, thought, and feeling on ‘What Is The State Of Our State’, a furious yet succinct stream-of-consciousness diatribe in two parts. From afrobeat and reggae-influenced London band Soothsayers, clarinetist and saxophonist Idris Rahman features on ‘Your Invasion Is A Lie’, an ever-progressing, cosmic-jazz track.

The elegiac ‘Unforgotten, Unforgiven’ features saxophonist Nat Birchall, on which Scrimshire says "This is dedicated to the politicians who have forced refugees into life-threatening decisions. Pushing people into the hands of traffickers, into small boats and too many beneath the waves of our seas. Who force the lives of men, women, and children into more danger, in the hope of escaping war, poverty and persecution only to meet more cruelty and persecution. It won't be forgotten, and it won't be forgiven".

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Paroxysm is the epitome of emotive, rich spiritual jazz, bringing together flickering percussion and rich bass rolls that both surprise and transport the listener. It's an intense experience, but so beautifully balanced and perfectly measured that it never comes across as anything less than a bracing and fascinating listen.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Permeate
A2. Unity Gain
A3. Eyes Shut Feat. Faye Houston
A4. What Is The State Of Our State (Part 1) Feat. Repeat Beat Poet
A5. Your Invasion Is A Lie Feat. Idris Rahman
B1. Unforgotten, Unforgiven
B2. What Is The State Of Our State (Part 2) Feat. Repeat Beat Poet
B3. Flames Feat. Faye Houston & Tamar Osborn
B4. Refuge (Interlude)
B5. Refuge

In the words of Bill Brewster - DJ History

‘At the turn of the 1990s, there were few more successful New York house producers than Victor Simonelli. Under a dizzying array of aliases - Solution, NY’s Finest, Groove Committee, Critical Rhythm and Cloud 9 being amongst the better-known - the Brooklyn-born DJ / producer delivered a string of underground club hits during the city’s early ’90s house boom.’

Launching the first Behind The Groove collectors edition vinyl series is New York’s finest Victor Simonelli with ‘The Early Years Vol 1 & 2’ double Vinyl releases. Featuring seminal house tracks such as Cloud 9’s ‘Do You Want Me’, Solution’s ‘Feel So Right’, Instant Exposure’s ‘Wanna Be With You’ and rare mixes of Raiana Page and EZ-AL, this collection brings together classic and rare Victor Simonelli cuts that reflect the early raw energy and buzz of the New York House scene. With ‘Vol 2” scheduled to follow shortly after, this is the most comprehensive collection of rare Simonelli cuts that firmly establishes his esteemed role in 90s House Music as well as introducing new fans to his inimitable sound.

Victor Simonelli is one of the early kings of NYC sampling in house music. The real deal - Victor danced at the legendary David Mancuso’s Loft sessions and developed a serious appreciation for good music. He interned for Arthur Baker at his renown Shakedown Studios (where Arthur worked with the iconic Afrika Bambatta on the seminal dance floor ’Planet Rock’ track) and went on to release hugely influential releases on seminal NYC labels 4th Floor and Nu Groove. Victor’s music was championed by the hugely celebrated iconic house music DJ pioneers, Larry Levan and Tony Humphries at Paradise Garage & Zanzibar / WBLS / Kiss FM respectively.

Revered as a New York house heavyweight and prolific producer since the turn of the 1990s, Victor Simonelli grew up in Brooklyn, NYC, nurtured by a music loving family, with an avid record collecting father who also worked as a local party DJ. He took music lessons in piano, drums, guitar and bass, before discovering his first love, tuning into NY’s Radio Mix Shows on WBLS, WKTU and WRKS,98.7 Kiss FM) where he discovered the art of mixing and in his own words, ’I just simply got lost in the music’.

Graduating from NYC’s Centre For Media Arts, Victor got an internship in the legendary producer, Arthur Baker’s Shakedown Studios. Soon graduating to editing, mixing and then producing he worked for artists David Bowie, Quincy Jones, Debbie Harry, Sinead O’Connor and Talking Heads. Teaming up with fellow NYC producer Lenny Dee to become the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, they released records ‘Critical Rhythm’ and ‘Subliminal Aurra’ on 4th Floor before Victor went solo as Groove Committee releasing the classic ‘I Want You To Know’ on the legendary Nu Groove Records. Paradise Garage legend, Larry Levan broke ‘I Want You To Know’ rocking 2 copies on his last tour of Japan whilst King of NY House Music,Tony Humphries broke Victor’s new ‘Feels So Right’ across New York on his WBLS/Kiss FM Mastermix show and at his legendary Zanzibar club sessions. It was only a matter of time before Victor’s name became synonymous with quality House music ensuring a worldwide platform for his productions.

In the early 90s alongside his own productions, Victor Simonelli worked on high profile projects, including James Brown’s album, “Love Overdue” BeBe and CeCe Winans single featuring Mavis Staples “I’ll Take You There” and Quincy Jones’ “I’ll Be Good To You” featuring Chaka Khan and the legendary Ray Charles. Never straying too far from his clubland roots, Victor worked with Danny Tenaglia on his classic “The Harmonica Track”.

DJ gigs across the world started flooding in and Victor found himself recording for a dizzying array of labels including Tribal America, Sub-Urban, Bassline, King Street Sounds and Vibe, under a wide range of aliases. He also produced, wrote and remixed for artists such Nile Rodgers (Chic), Afrika Baambata, Hall & Oates, Frankie Knuckles, Kerri Chandler, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Famed for his own productions “It’s So Good” by Creative Force, “I Know A Place” as Sound Of One - the first release on Roger Sanchez One Records -, “Dirty Games” as well as the “Street Players Vol 1 EP”, Victor went on to set up Suburban Records with Tommy Musto and Bassline Records with two other partners. Notable releases on this label include “Do You Feel Me”, Connie Harvey’s gospel inspired, “Thank You Lord”, Urban Blues Project’s “Deliver Me”, Colonel Abrams “Not Gonna Let”, and Mone’s “Better Way”. Never ceasing to produce, DJ, run his own label and host radio shows like Groove Lift, Victor has worked with virtually every NYC producer and has nurtured a next generation talents including Angel Moraes, Jazz ‘N’ Groove, Urban Blues Project, Harlem Hustlers, Jay Jay and Julius Papp. Victor’s releases have also been used on M&S’s “Salsoul Nuggett” hit and Eddie Amador’s underground smash ‘House Music’.

In the late 90’s Victor launched his new Westside Productions, notable for the “Latin Impressions 1 & 2” releases, opened up a studio in Italy as he found himself increasingly working in Europe and now divides his time between New York and Italy. Suffice to say his unique sound of uplifting and spiritual music has kept him at the forefront of House Music and he is credited as one of its leading exponents with his string of classic releases and remixes.

TRACK LISTING

A. N.Y's Finest - Do You Feel Me (Club Mix) 
B1. Groove Committee - Dirty Games (Victor Simonelli Club Mix) 
B2. Street Players Vol. 1 - Make It Thru The Night 
C. Sound Of One - I Know A Place (118 BPM Mix) 
D1. Inner Faith - I've Been Changed (Club Mix) 
D2. International Connection - I Can't Help Myself (Previously Unreleased Instrumental Mix) 

Everyday Is The Song is Joni Void’s 3rd album for Constellation and a deeper plunge into emotive audio montage; the Montréal-based French-British producer calls it “Tape Vortex / Musique Verité / Memory Collage”. The album’s raw material relies centrally on a Walkman bought at local record shop Death Of Vinyl in spring 2020 and lost at a Backxwash show two years later, but not before hours of audio snippets were captured and archived. Everyday Is The Song is an evocative sample-based sonic diary brimming with warmth, transience and hyper-specificity where Void explores a more abstract and interstitial terrain of drifting miniatures. It remains very much a collection of songs, but relative to the more assertive and intensive tracks channeling explorations of traumatic interiority on their previous pair of acclaimed LPs, Void’s new album flows with intentional lightness and a more incidental atmosphere. Songs are constructed from audio recordings made all over and often while literally on the move: walking, cycling and skateboarding around the city; in bus and train stations; from car windows. The album’s overt musical material was recorded, often spontaneously and informally, in all sorts of jam spaces, living rooms and at local live shows. Perambulation is a central theme and constituent fabric of Everyday Is The Song, carrying with it a colloquial spirit of gentle, intrinsic sentimentality. The self-proclaimed “love, soul, agency, and whimsy” virtues of Ruby Yacht (R.A.P. Ferreira, Pink Navel, et al) have also been a lodestar for Void in this respect.

As Sasha Geffen writes in their glowing 8.0 Pitchfork review of Joni Void’s last album Mise En Abyme (2019): "There is still experience that can't be atomized and analyzed, however slippery it may be even to those feeling it; [Void] hunts that sensation of flux and liminality, unearthing warmth in a landscape of paranoia." Everyday Is The Song continues in this ineffable vein, but on an explicit mission to substitute psychosis with the ephemera of fleeting delight in observation, documentation, participation, the daily small acts of sharing, caring, enthusiasm and kindness of creative being in-the-world. The album’s sonic travelogue through local audio geography and community conveys a sort of urban pastoralism and charming softness. Less kinetic and beat-driven than previous work, a field recording and audio art sensibility prevails, with a tempered intimacy that sends this new song cycle sailing along mostly dulcet but detailed waves of materiality. The result is an electro-acoustic tape collage album of beautifully drifting melody, occasional voice, wide-ranging ‘instrumentation’ and enchanting texture. Void’s deeply personal and keenly original aesthetic of assemblage and experimentation is on fine display, less burdened by forceful statement-making, but scrupulous, generous, and full of feeling.

Musician friends whose instruments, sounds and voices appear on the album include Owen Pallett, N NAO, YlangYlang, Sarah Pagé, Shota Yokose, Mojeanne Behzadi, Maya Kuroki, Moshi Moshi and Thoughts On Air to name just a few. The album’s title comes from Strawberry723, a Twitter bot that posted “Everyday Is The Song” on May 5th 2018 (the anniversary of Void’s 2017 Constellation debut Selfless) and serendipitously invokes Void’s own long-running local event and micro-label platform Everyday Ago, itself taken from the Japanese-to-English auto-translate of a sentence about depression that yielded the phrase “I am being sad, everyday ago.” Everyday Is The Song remains perhaps broadly melancholic in temperature, but marks a turn away from angst, agitation, despondency or despair for Joni Void. Instead, its subjectivity imbues the quotidian with affecting narrative, understated wonder, and a wholly engaging serenity.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tape
2. Still Life
3. Disposable
4. Non Locality
5. Event Horizon
6. Negative Loop
7. In-Between Moments
8. Parallax Error (+ N NAO)
9. World Is Spinning At 33 RPM
10. Vortex Any% Speedrun
11. Present Day Montage
12. Post-Credits Scene

Dreams In Splattered Lines fuses together Wolf Eyes' 25 years of DIY electronics with the avant-garde sensibilities of Fluxus and the granite of dreary Midwestern life. Continuing some of the ideas explored on the Difficult Messages record of collaborations, the result is a surreal dreamscape of disorienting sound collages, where hit songs are transformed into terrariums of sonic flora and decimated fauna. As if pulled from a fever dream, the surrealists of the 1960s converge with alien electronic blues musicians in an underworld of mystery. The air is thick with car wash radio white noise, crackling and fizzing like a toxic elixir, spoken word poetry transmissions as absurd and cryptic phrases. Each corroded aural environment is a microcosm of chaos, honed to razor-sharp precision. Swept away in a whirlwind of thirteen perplexing narratives, each one an unpredictable journey through subterranean worlds, a sonic trip of reality folded into itself.

TRACK LISTING

1. Car Wash Two W/Short Hands
2. Radio Box (excerpt)
3. Plus Warning
4. Engaged Withdrawal
5. Exploding Time
6. My Whole Life
7. The Museums We Carry
8. Pointerstare
9. Comforts Of The Mind
10. In Society
11. Find You (Vocal)
12. Days Decay
13. Dreams In Shattered Time

Locus returns with its latest various artists aural missive: ‘Locus Trax Vol. 3’, welcoming label debuts from Captea boss Jamahr, Leeds-based DJ/producer Mehlor, Dutch talent Project89 and an Italian pairing of Manuel De Lorenzi and Giacomo Silvestri.

Now established as a standalone label in its own right, Fuse’s sister imprint Locus continues to prove itself as a go-to stop for forward-thinking and fresh house music with minimal-leaning influences from both established and emerging talent. Five new names for the label as Captea boss Jamahr, Leeds-based DJ/producer Mehlor, and Dutch talent Project89 serve up fresh singles alongside a slick collaboration from Italian pairing Manuel De Lorenzi and Giacomo Silvestri.

Jamahr opens the package with an impactful combination of slick drums, resonant vocals and warped basslines across ‘Night Tales’, while Mehlor’s ‘BSOD’ offers up off-kilter electronics, skippy percussion and woozy low-ends. On the flip, Project89’s ‘What’s Going On’ delivers a peppy groove accented by atmospheric pads and spaced-out aesthetics, before closing via the tight, rolling grooves of Manuel De Lorenzi and Giacomo Silvestri’s ‘Sit Down’ as the two unveil a heads-down, hands-up terrace anthem.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Bumpety and skewwhiff house teasers showcasing the talent of the Locus roster. A team with the championship in their sites if this cheeky V/A EP is anything to go by. One to watch!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Jamahr - Night Tales 
A2. Mehlor - BSOD 
B1. Project89 - What's Going On 
B2. Manuel De Lorenzi & Giacomo Silvestri - Sit Down