Step into the tumultuous world of music stardom with this collection of obituaries from The Times. From the rock’n’roll pioneers of the 1950s, to the pop superstars of the 21st century, and lesser-known innovators with undeniable influence, this book brings to life the enduring spirits of music’s brightest stars. Discover the untold stories behind the music, the triumphs, the tragedies and the unforgettable songs that have shaped our cultural landscape.

With era-defining obituaries and behind-the-scenes photos from The Times archive, this collection is a captivating journey through the lives and legends of rock and pop’s most iconic figures.

Produced by Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips), ‘Dizzy Heights’ is the third solo album by Neil Finn following 1998's Try Whistling This and 2001's One Nil.

Finn did not set out on his third solo album with a theme in mind. But by the time he came to call it after another track on the record, “Dizzy Heights”, it had become inescapable. “It crept up on me. I started noticing it in lots of places. You start off with a number of different threads and angles and demos, and they dictate the terms of the record. It’s only in the course of the process that you maybe get a feeling there’s a type of song emerging, or an atmosphere.”

Neil Finn was 18 when he was invited by his older brother Tim to join the trailblazing art rock band Split Enz. His career since might be measured as a series of bounds, the best-known being Crowded House, which he founded with Paul Hester and Nick Seymour after the breakup of Split Enz in 1984. Four albums, among them Crowded House and Together Alone, brought the group popular and critical acclaim around the world.

Along the way, there have been a host of collaborations, including with brother Tim and wife Sharon, and an array of names from Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien, Eddie Vedder and most of Wilco. And yet Dizzy Heights unmistakably marks a fresh leap.

“I didn’t want to make it a solo record in a stripped back singer-songwriter sort of way,” says Finn. “I had a feeling Dave would be good at adding some odd shapes to the music. Which I always welcome – making things a little more expansive ... He is good at subverting things, and making things sound a bit messed up and not as obvious, rather than being too tasteful, which is always a temptation.”

TRACK LISTING

Impressions
Dizzy Heights
Flying In The Face Of Love
Divebomber
Better Than TV
Pony Ride
White Lies And Alibis
Recluse
Strangest Friends
In My Blood
Lights Of New York

Frahm returns to Erased Tapes for his most beguiling outing yet. Kicking things off with the choral solemnity of the brief 'The Whole Universe Wants To Be Touched',  before 'Sunson' excellently displays the sort of percussive demi-trance that he and Olafur Arnalds excelled at in their collaborative output. 'My Friend The Forest' has perhaps the most semblance to Frahm's earlier work, with the gently hammered piano strings being subtly blunted with some sort of preparation. It doesn't sound quite as muted as his seminal work (perhaps the felt has worn out a little), and is unmistakeable in it's  rapid trills, separated by moments of acoustic ambience. 

'Forever Changeless' is again littered with moments of progressive beauty, but eases off a little on the sustain to give way to a slightly terse atmosphere, beautifully accentuated by Frahm's deft hands before moving into 'All Melody' which couldn't be more reminiscent of the spine-tingling electronic crescendo of 'Says' from 2013's 'Spaces'. 

With the percussive workout of '#2' and 'Momentum' taking a metaphorical breath from the more upbeat moments, it gives us time to relax and reflect before the mournful military requiem of 'Fundamental Values' gives way to it's own latter resolution and smooth segue into the tropical arps of 'Kaleidoscope' and the soul-soothing slow-mo beauty of 'Harm Hymn'. 

Another beautiful outing for Frahm, and further evidence of his credentials as one of today's most talented composers. 

TRACK LISTING

1. The Whole Universe Wants To Be Touched
2. Sunson
3. A Place
4. My Friend The Forest
5. Human Range
6. Forever Changeless
7. All Melody
8. #2
9. Momentum
10. Fundamental Values
11. Kaleidoscope
12. Harm Hymn

The three EPs will be available as one full length release titled All Encores featuring 80 minutes of music to follow his masterful 2018 album All Melody.

Whilst Encores 1 focused on an acoustic pallet of sounds with solo piano and harmonium at the core, and Encores 2 explored more ambient landscapes, now Encores 3 sees Nils expand on the percussive and electronic elements in his work.

“The idea behind All Encores is one we had from before All Melody; to separate releases each with their own distinct musical style and theme, perhaps even as a triple album. But All Melody became larger than itself and took over any initial concepts. I think the idea of All Encores is like musical islands that compliment All Melody.”

Moulded during All Melody but refined by his live performances, All Encores is testament to Nils’ exceptional ability to craft his art on stage. Artificially Intelligent which showcases his ‘mad professor’ organ, and All Armed which has been a live favourite for some time, appearing on set lists since 2015, are now available to hear on record for the very first time. The final track of Encores 3, as well as the whole series, Amirador, perhaps aptly nods to the Spanish word for ‘lookout’ and hints at what’s to come.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Roughest Trade
2. Ringing
3. To Thomas
4. The Dane
5. Harmonium In The Well
6. Sweet Little Lies
7. A Walking Embrace
8. Talisman
9. Spells
10. Artificially Intelligent
11. All Armed
12. Amirador

Vinyl Tracklist:
A1 The Roughest Trade
A2 Ringing
A3 To Thomas
A4 The Dane
B1 Harmonium In The Well
C1 Sweet Little Lie
C2 A Walking Embrace
C3 Talisman
D1 Spells
E1 Artificially Intelligent
E2 All Armed
F1 Amirador

To mark this year’s Piano Day and as an acknowledgement to these unprecedented circumstances we find ourselves in, Nils Frahm surprised the world with a collection of eight solo piano pieces, titled Empty, made available digitally on March 28. The highly anticipated physical editions on vinyl and CD are set for release via Erased Tapes on October 23, 2020.

Conceived of just before Nils broke his thumb and composed the similarly intimate solo piano album Screws, Empty is a soothing vessel of eight simple and serene pieces originally recorded as the music to a short art film he shot with his friend and film director Benoît Toulemonde. Drifting through emotions from the stark and sobering opener ‘First Defeat’, to the gently euphoric ‘No Step On Wing’ and the contemplative but hopeful closer ‘Black Notes’, with its poignant minute of silence, Empty is a comforting score for these turbulent times.

“When I came back from the hospital with a broken thumb and listened to the recordings, I felt they were unfinished. I decided to put them aside and started to work on my small album, Screws.

Many many other notes of the piano have been struck since these days, and before we all forget about this, I thought it would be a good moment to share these lullabies with you. I hope they help you stay all strong and calm in these days of solitude – despite the hardship, we can discover introspection and reflection unexpectedly. Who knows what it is good for.
Much love, Nils”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Frahm is back! Returning to his much sought after piano-forte after a fruitful foray into synthland. ‘Empty’ is a hushed affair, gorgeously plaintive and brimming with the sort of atmospheric recording and room sounds which made 'Felt' such a beautiful success. Gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

1. First Defeat
2. A Shine
3. No Step On A Wing
4. The Big O
5. Second Defeat
6. A Shimmer
7. Sonar
8. Black Notes

Encores 1 is five track 12" vinyl EP previously only available as an exclusive, limited release via Rough Trade. It was recorded in Nils Frahm's studio at the Funkhaus in Berlin, as part of the same sessions for the recently released and universally acclaimed new album, All Melody (Official Album Charts #21), released earlier this year on Erased Tapes. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Suddenly arriving as a top secret release on Friday morning, Frahm delivers five accompanying session tracks to his rather wonderful 'All Melody' album. Top drawer stuff!!

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Roughest Trade
A2. Ringing
A3. To Thomas
A4. The Dane
B1. Harmonium In The Well

Following the release of Encores 1 on June 1st, Nils Frahm releases of Encores 2, the second in a series of EPs following the release of the universally acclaimed album, All Melody, released in January of this year.

While Encores 1 focused on an acoustic pallet of sounds with just a solo piano and harmonium, Encores 2 explores a more ambient landscape from the All Melody sessions, the pinnacle of which is the astral 12 minute showpiece Spells. Recorded through an amplified stone well Frahm found on Mallorca, Encores 2 is at once unique but familiar; orbiting the universe of All Melody while inhabiting its own world.

“The idea behind Encores is one we had from before All Melody; to separate releases each with their own distinct musical style and theme, perhaps even as a triple album. But All Melody became larger than itself and took over any initial concepts. I think the idea of Encores is like musical islands that compliment All Melody”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful counterfoil to last years' 'Encores 1', we get a wealth of beautifully textured field recordings, icy and crepuscular loops bolstered with beautifully weighted and perfectly paced piano, as is Frahm's style. Encompassing elements of dark ambient and minimalism, this is further evidence of Frahm's domination of the modern classical field, and it shows no sign of slowing down. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Sweet Little Lie
A Walking Embrace
Talisman
Spells

Nils Frahm announces the third and final instalment of his Encores series. 

Whilst Encores 1 focused on an acoustic pallet of sounds with solo piano and harmonium at the core, and Encores 2 explored more ambient landscapes, now Encores 3 sees Nils expand on the percussive and electronic elements in his work.

“The idea behind All Encores is one we had from before All Melody; to separate releases each with their own distinct musical style and theme, perhaps even as a triple album. But All Melody became larger than itself and took over any initial concepts. I think the idea of All Encores is like musical islands that compliment All Melody.”

Moulded during All Melody but refined by his live performances, All Encores is testament to Nils’ exceptional ability to craft his art on stage. Artificially Intelligent which showcases his ‘mad professor’ organ, and All Armed which has been a live favourite for some time, appearing on set lists since 2015, are now available to hear on record for the very first time. The final track of Encores 3, as well as the whole series, Amirador, perhaps aptly nods to the Spanish word for ‘lookout’ and hints at what’s to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: if you enjoyed Nils Frahm's collab with Olafur Arnalds a few years ago (was it really THAT long ago?!) then this is the Encores for you! Percussive, more 'dancefloor' focused (as much as can be), and absolutely hypnotic, this is probably my favourite of the lot, and I have excellent taste. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Artificially Intelligent
2. All Armed
3. Amirador

Having recorded his last album live in a large, reverberant church, Nils Frahm now invites you to put on your headphones and dive into a world of microscopic and delicate sounds - so intimate that you could be sitting beside him. Recorded late at night in the reflective solitude and silence of his studio in Berlin, Frahm uncovers a new sound and source of inspiration within these peaceful moments: 'Originally I wanted to do my neighbours a favour by damping the sound of my piano. If I want to play piano during the quiet of the night, the only respectful way is by layering thick felt in front of the strings and using very gentle fingers. It was then that I discovered that my piano sounds beautiful with the damper.' Captivated by this sonic exposition, he placed the microphones so deep inside the piano that they were almost touching the strings. This brought a host of external sounds to the recordings which most producers would try their hardest to hide: 'I hear myself breathing and panting, the scraping sound of the piano's action and the creaking of my wooden floorboards - all equally as loud as the music. The music becomes a contingency, a chance, an accident within all this rustling. My heart opens and I wonder what exactly it is that makes me feel so happy.'

Berlin-based pianist Nils Frahm is already a firebrand in the modern classical world, collaborating with contemporaries such as Peter Broderick, Ólafur Arnalds and Anne Müller. His unconventional approach to an age-old instrument, played contemplatively and intimately, has won him many fans around the world. As announced by Drowned In Sound, he finally returns on October 10th 2011 with the successor to his highly acclaimed solo piano works Wintermusik and The Bells. Released on Erased Tapes Records and entitled 'Felt', the album will coincide with a European tour in November 2011 - a truly memorable and magical live experience.

Piano Day 2021 sees Nils Frahm surprise the world with his Erased Tapes debut. Wait, what? How? Anyone who has seen the trail blazing sonic pioneer live will know Nils likes to deadpan a joke. Graz is in fact the first studio album he recorded for the label back in 2009, that somehow remained a secret… until now.

Nils Frahm has quietly changed the musical landscape, reincarnating the centuries old figure of a pianist-composer for a new generation of music fans. As Nils’ word-of-mouth popularity grew and grew, so did the pop-culture profile of his instrument. He founded Piano Day with a team of like-minded friends in 2015 to help that process, some years releasing an album of piano recordings to celebrate one of humankind’s greatest inventions. Graz is one such record; an unheard snapshot of a young Nils recorded at Mumuth, the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, in 2009 as part of the thesis Conversations for Piano and Room produced by Thomas Geiger, which received an award in the Classical Surround Recording category at the 127th AES Convention in New York.

Whilst at the time it was decided to keep the grand piano recordings from the Graz sessions locked away and instead focus on his close mic’ed, dampened piano explorations which would become his acclaimed studio album Felt in 2011, two of the pieces — most notably Hammers — lived on as part of his live set, and were expanded on and re-recorded as part of his breakthrough 2013 record Spaces (a collage of field recordings from concerts which broke the Fourth Wall and included audience coughs). Over his mercurial career, Nils has pushed and pulled at the boundaries and parameters of his prolific work like that. He’s physically changed his piano (the softened prepared strings of Felt) played with a modified body (Screws recorded with 9 fingers and a broken thumb) played with scale (Solo recorded on the 3.7 metre high Klavins M370) and with the different layers of formats (last year’s Tripping with Nils Frahm nested his studio setup inside a live performance, concert film and live album). Now with Graz he has found the final frontier for play: time itself and his own discography. Graz is a moment of time at the very beginning of Nils’ quiet revolution. The essential genius is already evident; the harmonic language of classical, and the immediacy of jazz. Nils seems to pull down each idea moment by moment, gently, to not scare away the muse.

He describes: “sometimes when you hear a piano, you might think it’s a conversation between a woman and a man. At the same time, it can hint at shapes of the universe and describe how a black hole looks. You can make sounds that have no relation to anything we can measure.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There have been a number of Frahm iterations. Personally (though I love them all), I think that the era that birthed both 'Felt' and 'The Bells' is probably my favourite. It's with considerable excitement I read that this 'latest' outing is in fact the least latest of all the outings. Gorgeous piano musings, tickling ivories and roomy 'verb, just like in the olden days (2009 - 2011). Astoundingly good.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lighter
2. O I End
3. Because This Must Be
4. Kurzum
5. And Om
6. Hammers
7. Crossings
8. About Coming And Leaving
9. Went Missing

Nils Frahm returns with an expansive new album, Music For Animals, his first fresh studio material since 2018’s ‘All Melody’ and 2019’s associated ‘All Encores’. Containing ten tracks and clocking in at over three hours long, it’s an ambitious and compelling set different to anything Frahm’s released to date – in fact, it finds the Piano Day founder declining to use a piano – but at the same time retains many of the qualities that have set the influential musician’s work apart over much of the last two decades.

Unfolding at an unhurried, meditative pace in a celebration of tone, timbre and texture – and thus of sound itself – Music For Animals offers an unusually immersive experience. “My constant inspiration,” Frahm explains, “was something as mesmerising as watching a great waterfall or the leaves on a tree in a storm. It’s good we have symphonies and music where there’s a development, but a waterfall doesn’t need an Act 1, 2, 3, then an outcome, and nor do the leaves on a tree in a storm. Some people like watching the leaves rustle and the branches move. This record is for them”.

Music For Animals is a substantial collection that encourages listeners to bask in its tranquility at their chosen depth, demanding only as much attention as they wish to contribute. As Frahm himself happily points out, “It all comes back to that waterfall. If you want to watch it, watch it. If you don’t, then you don’t have to. It will always be the same, yet never quite the same.” Indeed, that’s Music For Animals’ greatest strength. Instantly recognisable, it’s still like nothing else.

TRACK LISTING

The Dog With 1000 Faces
Mussel Memory
Seagull Scene
Sheep In Black And White
Stepping Stone
Briefly
Right Right Right
World Of Squares
Lemon Day
Do Dream

Nils Frahm has always said that he’s just waiting for something real special when being asked if he would ever score the music for a film. And that’s exactly what German director Sebastian Schipperpresented to him with his one-take feature ‘Victoria’. Filmed in Berlin, Victoria’s plot sees a runaway party girl, who's asked by three friendly men to join them as they hit the town, but their wild night of partying suddenly turns into a bank robbery as the music changes from techno to subdued piano sounds.

For the recording session at Studio P4 in Berlin, Frahm enlisted the help of long-time collaborator and cellist Anne Müller, violist Viktor Orri Árnason and ambient artist Erik K. Skodvin of Deaf Center on guitar.

The soundtrack opens with an edit of ‘Burn With Me’ by German producer DJ Koze.

Dear viewer and listener,

I’ve finally written music for a film. It took me some time to do so, as I was patiently waiting for a movie that would truly speak to me. When director Sebastian Schipper invited me to work on Victoria, I knew it was worth the long wait. Does such a strong film even need music? I realised it wouldn’t be easy to create a score that embraces these bold pictures.

Luckily we were given unusual creative freedom by approaching the movie together with Sebastian Schipper, who was keeping the production and direction to one single team. The score was recorded in a special location, the former GDR broadcasting production facilities that today host Studio P4. We simply put a big screen in the middle of the room, filled it with microphones and instruments, set the movie on loop and kept improvising on top of it together – my good friends and I.

The guest musicians started their recording session by playing a cohesive take over the course of the whole movie. This was the most interesting part of the day, since they hadn’t seen the film before. They became spectators and creators at once, intuitively recording hundreds of different cues that way. You are about to listen to some of its highlights. I hope they do Victoria and your ears justice.

With love, Nils Frahm.

TRACK LISTING

01 Burn With Me (Victoria Edit DJ Koze)
02 Our Own Roof
03 A Stolen Car
04 In The Parking Garage
05 Them
06 The Bank
07 The Shooting
08 Nobody Knows Who You Are
09 Pendulum

Recorded one and a half years after his magnum opus Music For Animals—described by PopMatters as “a musical waterfall of monumental proportions”—Nils Frahm shares a new live album, due for release by his LEITER label on December 6. In what’s becoming a tradition, it follows 2013’s Spaces, a Pitchfork Album of the Year taped at shows over the preceding 18 months, and 2020’s Tripping With Nils Frahm, also released as a film. The latter, arriving in the wake of 2019’s All Melody and its 2020 companion, All Encores, was recorded during shows in Berlin’s grandiose Funkhaus Saal 1, once the largest studio in the former GDR’s radio complex. Paris, nonetheless, is Frahm’s first live album from a single night, March 21, 2024, and contains ten tracks over a running time of 84 minutes

Frahm’s performances have always been known for expanding upon his studio recordings, and Paris is no exception. Drawing on his substantial catalogue, the German composer and producer reworks tracks from Music For Animals (‘Right Right Right’ and ‘Briefly’) before less recent material from 2009’s The Bells (‘Some’, also included on 2015’s Solo), and 2012’s Screws (‘Re’, originally recorded with just nine fingers after Frahm broke a thumb). There’s also ‘Spells’ from All Encores and ‘You Name It’ from this year’s solo piano album, Day, while the brand new, luxurious and strangely gripping ‘Opera’ sets the stage for ‘On The Roof’ from his heart-rending, award-winning score for 2015’s widely acclaimed, one-camera, one-take German thriller, Victoria.

Having first come to prominence with delicate vignettes for piano, Frahm’s instrumental range has expanded to include a mountain of vintage synths and keyboard instruments. These include a custom-made organ as well as the final glass harmonica constructed by Gerhard Finkenbeiner, a master glassblower who, in the 1980s, resurrected the instrument – first invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761 – and then died in 1999 in mysterious, still unresolved circumstances. Frahm’s grasp of dynamics and tension has likewise expanded, and not only does he reinvigorate his work during concerts for this wider range of possibilities, but he also keeps developing it as he tours.

If he leaves the stage to the same uproarious jubilation with which he was initially greeted, Paris makes it clear why he’s been so in demand. He’s been booked, frequently for multiple nights, at halls around the world, including Sydney’s Opera House, London’s Barbican and LA’s Orpheum Theatre. Indeed, the LA Times wrote of Tripping With Nils Frahm, “Watching him at work, and hearing the audience react, is a little like watching an athlete at the top of his game.” Expect nothing less from Nils Frahm on Paris, a vital document of this ingenious, gifted musician’s endless pursuit of fresh perspectives.

“A masterful kaleidoscopic mix of music... one of the greatest concert experiences in years.“ Gaffa DK

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another spellbinding live document from one of the most legendary modern classical performers in the world right now. Nils Frahm never puts on a bad show, so hearing such a pristinely recorded document of one of his most legendary live shows is understandably, incredibly exciting. Amazing stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prolog
2. Right Right Right
3. Briefly
4. You Name It
5. Some
6. Re
7. Spells
8. Opera
9. Our Own Roof
10. Hammers

Nils experienced an unfortunate accident, which saw him fall from his bunk bed located directly above his studio, which resulted in a broken thumb. But through inspiration from his fans and despite the 4 screws that had just been surgically placed inside his thumb, he started recording with 9 fingers, which later resulted in 9 intimate piano recordings. Nils chose his 30th birthday to offer these recordings as a free download to his fans via screws. durtonstudio.com where they have been freely available since.

IN HIS OWN WORDS: “I am sitting in front of a sheet of paper. My right hand is bending over my left thumb. The first day I got out of my cast I could bend it by 15°. Now I am already at 50° and that makes me happy. Things are going uphill… As you can imagine, it is really bad news for a pianist when he gets diagnosed with a broken thumb. That day I was sitting in the emergency room, feeling rather dizzy while thinking of a zillion shows coming up and all the people involved around it. I realised in that moment how busy things have become. It is hard to turn down interesting projects and opportunities, since I surely love my work. It actually never felt like work. Playing piano and playing it for wonderful people is the greatest joy I can imagine. For a couple of days I felt like this could all be over. How pathetic, but hey – also feeling sorry for yourself has its place somewhere. All of a sudden I had so much time, an unexpected holiday. I cancelled most of my schedule and found myself being a little bored. Even though my doctor told me not to touch a piano for a while, I just couldn’t resist. I started playing a silent song with 5 fingers on my right and the remaining 4 on my left hand. I set up one microphone and recorded another tune every other night before falling asleep. The day I got rid of my cast I had recorded 9 little songs. They have helped me feel less annoyed about my accident and reminded me that I can only achieve something good, when I make the most of what I’ve got.” – NILS FRAHM.

A collection of nine reworks crafted by fans and selected by Nils himself form the ‘Screws Reworked’ re-issue, also featuring his original ‘Screws’

The 2012 album 'Screws' by Nils Frahm, was the result of inspiration from his fans and friends while he recovered from an unfortunate accident, which saw him fall from his bunk bed located directly above his studio, which resulted in a broken thumb. These nine intimate recordings were offered to fans to download for free and in return fans thanked Nils by sending him their audio and visual reinterpretations.

Fascinated by the results, Nils then publicly asked his fans to submit their reworks or any form of art that was inspired by the release and all these submissions have been collected since on a dedicated website: screws.nilsfrahm.com. It gave birth to the 'Screws Reworked' project from which Nils selected nine reworks to feature on a special edition re-issue which also includes his original ‘Screws’.

Helios, Bug Lover and Plasma Rüby are amongst Nils’s final selection for ‘Screws Reworked’, housed in an inner sleeve a visual rework created by Adam Young aka Saturnine.

“Whenever you have to decide between two things, you end up favouring one over the other. In the case of this record, I had to choose nine out of hundreds of songs – but I didn’t want to follow this logic, I didn’t want the songs to compete against each other. I never liked music competitions, neither when I was a kid playing classical music contests nor today when the best album of 2015 is awarded. Having been in the situation to pick my own tracks for my own records, I knew that the only way to manage this tough job is to concentrate on the cohesiveness of listening to the songs all together. Screws Reworked should sound like a record, not like a random collection of tracks.

The motivation to make such a record came with the release of Screws in 2012 as a gift to my listeners. I thought about it as a starting point for people to make their own interpretations of the songs. The feedback was overwhelming. A couple of months later, we counted over 300 contributions. Without going through a selection process, they were all available only online until now. It seemed essential to make it a real record as I imagined how happy it must make those who would find their names – in most cases for the first time – on a real record.

Now is the time to thank you all for your numerous and beautiful contributions. In case you don’t find your track here, please don’t think it stands behind the others. This record means, in fact, that some of the most beautiful songs couldn’t be included as they simply weren’t ‘good neighbours’ and because there is only one rework for each of my original compositions. However all of you opened your hearts and minds and shared your uniqueness with us and I feel incredibly blessed by each and every single rework of Screws. Thank you!” – Nils Frahm.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 Disc 2
1. You 1. You (Bug Lover Rework)
2. Do 2. Do (Databoy78 Rework)
3. Re 3. Re (Helios Rework)
4. Mi 4. Mi (Soul Channel Rework)
5. Fa 5. Fa (Fred Yaddaden Rework)
6. Sol 6. Sol (Ruhe Rework)
7. La 7. La (Sebastian Freij Rework)
8. Si 8. Si (Plasma R?by Rework)
9. Me 9. Me (Analogue Dear Rework)

A legendary artist at a legendary location: Tripping with Nils Frahm captures one of the world’s most sought-after live acts performing at one of Berlin’s most iconic buildings.

When Nils Frahm kicked off his world tour at Funkhaus Berlin in January 2018 to bring his highly acclaimed studio album All Melody to the stage, an ambitious journey was just to begin: Over the next two years, Frahm played more than 180 sold-out performances, including the Sydney Opera House, LA’s Disney Hall, the Barbican in London, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, and several big festival stages around the globe. Yet the stunning setting of Funkhaus Berlin, renowned for its vintage grandeur and outstanding acoustics, and also home to Frahm’s magnificent studio where All Melody was recorded, had occupied a unique place in the artist's heart.

In December 2018, Nils Frahm eventually returned to Funkhaus Berlin to host another set of four shows, tickets sold out within hours. Frahm’s friend and film director Benoit Toulemonde — a collaborator since 2011 — captured the concerts on film, only using handheld cameras, and employing techniques he had mastered for the famous concert series La Blogotèque, which featured some of the world’s most popular artists.

Tripping with Nils Frahm is an illustration of Nils’s lauded ability as a composer and passionate live artist as well as the enchanting atmosphere of his captivating, and already legendary Funkhaus shows: An extraordinary musical trip – rare and exclusive, close and intimate, bringing a unique concert experience to the screen.

"It was about time to document my concerts in picture and sound, trying to freeze a moment of this period where my team and I were nomads, using any method of travel to play yet another show the next day. Maybe tonight is the night where everything works out perfectly and things fall into place?

Normally things go wrong with concerts, but by combining our favorite moments of four performances, we were able to achieve what I was trying to do in these two years of touring: getting it right!

When you hear the applause on the end of the film you should know that I was smiling happily, being a tad proud and feeling blessed to share these moments with you.
Much love, Nils"

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The ever prolific Frahm brings his unbelievable live act to recorded media. Though 'Spaces' was very much an in-studio distillation of the timbres and feelings expressed on-stage, it could never have captured the live energy and spine-tingling sonic euphoria that 'Tripping With..' does. A superb and all-encompassing powerhouse of a live LP.

TRACK LISTING

01 Enters
02 Sunson
03 Fundamental Values
04 My Friend The Forest
05 The Dane
06 All Melody
07 #2
08 Ode – Our Own Roof

Fans of the Berlin based Nils Frahm are by now familiar with his beguiling live shows where more often than not fellow touring artists are encouraged to join Frahm on stage – the likes of Rachel Grimes, Rob Lowe of Balmorhea as well as label colleagues Peter Broderick and Ólafur Arnalds have all obliged with fascinating results. It will come as no surprise then that Nils Frahm, an accomplished composer and producer who signed to Erased Tapes in 2009, has extended his collaborative live musings to encompass the recording studio, working for the first time with noted cellist and fellow Berliner Anne Müller to produce "7 Fingers".

With their first collective release Frahm and Müller have built a world where modern classical and electronica collide creating an ‘intoxicating and delicious’ collection of songs. Primarily a pianist Nils Frahm provides evidence with "7 Fingers" that he can effortlessly turn electric throwing in loops, samples and glitches to accompany and showcase Müller on cello. Anne Müller, a renowned musician noted for her work with the Wolf-Ferrari-Ensemble, Phillip Boa and recent tours with Agnes Obel, proves an amp musical partner for Frahm. As the recognition continues to grow for Nils Frahm’s previous solo piano works Wintermusik and The Bells, 2011 sees a new side to this young talent as he embarks on a detour into strings, symphonies and glitch beats alongside the estimable Anne Müller.

After releasing Nils Frahm’s two-track solo synthesiser EP ‘Juno’ in a highly sought after 7” edition, Erased Tapes now re-release the original Juno tracks with guest reworks by Border Community's modular synth wizard Luke Abbott and Warp veteran Clark. Both known for their like-minded use of analogue synthesisers in their music, it makes them the perfect artists to rework the originals. Similar to Frahm’s online project ‘Screws Reworked’, where he invited fans to download his solo piano songs to reinterpret them with their own medium of choice, it’s far from being the typical remix EP.

‘Peter Broderick loved the sound of this synthesiser so much, he asked me to record some solo sketches with it. This is what I came up with. I didn't use any overdubs or punch-ins. See it as a synthesiser solo performance.’ – Nils Frahm

The cover photograph was taken by Peter Broderick and is a result of an unexpected double exposure between his image and the one taken by the camera’s previous owner. Dedicated to his dear friend, the Juno tracks carry the titles ‘For’ and ‘Peter’ and were recorded and mixed by Nils Frahm in his Durton Studio in Berlin.

Nils Frahm reveals new ‘Solo’ album and the ‘Klavins 450’ piano project on the world’s first Piano Day!

Berlin-based composer Nils Frahm has fast become know as a prolific performer and recording artist with the piano at the core. Piano Day is an official body created by Nils and his closest friends, and will house various exciting, piano-related projects. The first project revealed by the Piano Day team is the building of what will be world’s tallest piano: the Klavins 450.

As the life-long dream of David Klavins, it even exceeds the currently largest upright piano there is, the Klavins M370. Situated in Germany, Tübingen, 1.8 tons in weight, 3.7 meters high, its longest strings are about 10 feet in length. And it was on this piano that Nils recorded eight improvised piano motifs in one sitting, which form his new ‘Solo’ album – available for free download on the world’s first Piano Day on the 88th day (March 29, 2015) from www.pianoday.org. Once recorded, Nils began to think of ways to release the album as a gift to his fans, similarly to his 2012 release ‘Screws’, and that’s when Nils came up with the idea of Piano Day.

With a target of 100.000 euros to reach, Nils eases his fans into sharing their money for the project with this free release. All direct donations and a portion from any record sales will go to the Klavins 450 project until the target has been hit.

LINER NOTES:
Situated in Germany, Tübingen, 1.8 tons in weight, 3.7 meters high: the Klavins M370 is probably the largest upright piano there is. Its longest strings are about 10 feet in length.
This colossus was initially built to evaluate a useful maximum size of the piano. Driven by the assumption that pianos could sound better, David got to work in 1985 and finished his instrument 2 years later. Back then I was 5 years old, having no idea how much I would fall in love with it.
When I finally met David Klavins and his enormous piano 27 years later, in the very beginning of 2014, I arrived with empty hands. I didn't know what music, what songs I was about to record in the next 3 days.
Every piano has unique features and certain strengths. Some have more, some have less of them, but there is no bad piano out there, although I do moan about them almost all the time. Some simply hide their secrets better than others. These thoughts made me start to write music when I am with the particular instrument, the tape running.
The 8 pieces featured on this album were selected out of hours of improvising, happy hours as I recollect. The joy of playing and listening to the sound of the instrument made me play slower and slower, softer and softer, as almost every new note was destroying the immense beauty and sustain of the previous note. I was preparing the instrument with parts of my felt collection, carefully tuning mic positions with the help of my dear friend and recording gear wizard Matthias Hahn and simply playing whatever came to my mind. In conversations about this I am still struggling for words in order to praise David’s instrument. Words simply don’t do it justice, so listen for yourself. With lots of love, Nils Frahm.

TRACK LISTING

01. Ode
02. Some
03. Circling
04. Merry
05. Chant
06. Wall
07. Immerse!
08. Four Hands

Berlin-based contemporary composer Nils Frahm has built a steady reputation for his intimate, poignant piano recordings, yet they so far only showed a fragment of what to expect from a Nils Frahm concert. Frahm’s heart lies in improvisation, in the magic of a moment where, inspired by the space and the audience, his fingers can create new compositions loosely based around his familiar melodies.

Spaces is an ode to the joy of live performance. It expresses Frahm’s love for experimentation and answers the call from his fans for a record that truly reflects what they have witnessed during his concerts. Breaking the convention of a traditional live album, Spaces was recorded over the course of two years in different locations and on various mediums, including old portable reel-to-reel recorders and cassette tape decks. These moments were later pieced together in his Durton Studio and referred to by Frahm as a collage of field recordings rather than a live album. It Includes surprise moments such as the sound of him banging a toilet brush on the piano strings to create a dub-sounding track. The decision to select takes that have people coughing and cell phones ringing show that his audience is an integral part of every performance. In his own words:

"What I love most about playing in front of people has something to do with a certain kind of energy exchange. The attention and appreciation of my audience feeds back into my playing. It really seems as if there is a true and equal give and take between performer and listener, making me aware of how much I depend on my audience. And since the audience is different every night, the music being played will differ too. Every space I performed in has its own magic and spirit." – Nils Frahm.

Spaces was mastered by the gifted hands of Mandy Parnell.

Nils Frahm, born in 1982, had an early introduction to music. During his childhood he was taught to play piano by Nahum Brodski – a student of the last scholar of Tschaikowski. It was through this that Nils began to immerse himself in the styles of the classical pianists before him as well as contemporary composers. Today Nils Frahm works as an accomplished composer and producer in Berlin. In early 2008 he founded Durton Studio, where he has worked with Peter Broderick and Dustin O’ Halloran amongst other fellow musicians. As the curator of the Swedish boutique label Kning Disk’s Piano Series, Peter Broderick invited Nils to record a new album of piano improvisations – the result is "The Bells", which will now be released on the London-based cinematic music label Erased Tapes in the UK, Ireland and North America.

Perhaps the most stunning aspect of what on the surface appears to be an entirely pre-planned and composed body of work comes with the discovery that these pieces were in fact improvised. These two friends share a common affinity in that they now be released on the London-based cinematic music label Erased Tapes in the UK, Ireland and North America. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of what on the surface appears to be an entirely pre-planned and composed body of work comes with the discovery that these pieces were in fact improvised. These two friends share a common affinity in that they both possess an absolute mastery of melody, composition and performance – able to deliver with devastating effect. The modest Mr. Broderick states ‘I remember thinking to myself as I lay there stunned, that I could spend ten years trying to write an amazing piece of piano music, and still it would never be half as good as these improvisations!’ Recorded in a rented, beautiful old church in the heart of Berlin over two nights, Nils ‘just played’ with the occasional instruction from Peter ‘I spouted “Make a song using only the notes C, E, and G”, or "Make a song that you could imagine me rapping over the top of" (Track 8 – ‘My Things’). At one point I was even inside the piano, laying on the strings, asking him to make a song called "Peter Is Dead In The Piano". The resultant work "The Bells" shares the same excitement and air of playfulness. In contrast, his debut release "Wintermusik" consists of three piano led pieces, coloured with occasional celesta and reed organ parts.

Most recently Frahm and Broderick re-interpreted Pink Floyd’s "Is There Anybody Out There?" for MOJO’s covermount CD "The Wall Rebuilt!". According to MOJO ‘Hamburg-born pianist Nils Frahm spent the last few years creating wondrous, haunting music. Together they accentuate the orchestral qualities of Pink's lament, the track's sense of paranoia amplified by the choral resolution of this version". For a musician this early in his career, Frahm displays an incredibly developed sense of control and restraint in his work.

Nils Frahm, born in 1982, had an early introduction to music. During his childhood he was taught to play piano by Nahum Brodski – a student of the last scholar of Tschaikowski. It was through this that Nils began to immerse himself in the styles of the classical pianists before him as well as contemporary composers. Today Nils Frahm works as an accomplished composer and producer in Berlin. In early 2008 he founded Durton Studio, where he has worked with Peter Broderick and Dustin O' Halloran amongst other fellow musicians. The three instrumentals, which make up his debut release "Wintermusik" are piano led pieces, coloured with occasional celeste and reed organ parts. The record’s equal measures of sorrowful refrains and uplifting passages, combined with a real intimacy that makes for an album you'll want to return to again and again. The songs were originally intended as a Christmas present for friends and family, hence its winter release via London-based cinematic music label Erased Tapes.

Chicago singer, songwriter and pianist Neal Francis is ATO Records’ newest signing. After returning home from touring on the back of his 2019 debut album Changes, Francis went through a breakup and found himself living in a church, where he ended up writing a series of new songs about honesty and resilience.

“I’m owning up to all my problems within my relationships and my sobriety,” he says. “So much of it is about coming to the understanding that I continue to suffer because of those problems. It’s about acknowledging that and putting it out in the open in order to mitigate the suffering and try to work on it, instead of trying to hide everything.”

Francis and his bandmates recorded In Plain Sight entirely on tape - and mostly in that same church - and the resulting songs are dreamlike and reflective, anchored in the rock and soul sound that has led critics to compare him to legends like Allen Toussaint and Dr. John. In PlainSight was mixed by the Grammy-winning producer Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, MGMT).

TRACK LISTING

1. Alameda Apartments
2. Problems
3. Can’t Stop The Rain
4. D’Artagnan
5. Prometheus
6. Sentimental Garbage
7. Asleep
8. BNLV
9. Say Your Prayers

Since selling out the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House in 2010, Neil Gaiman and Four Play String Quartet have been firm friends and collaborators. They have toured the world together, released a New York Times best-selling book & record together, sold out Carnegie Hall together and most importantly, recorded a new album together, Signs of Life. Reflecting the fact that Gaiman and FourPlay have each, always refused to be pigeon-holed in their creativity - together, they have created something remarkable and unique.

Signs of Life is a gorgeous, ground-breaking and genre-bending collaboration between an iconic author and a unique musical ensemble. Part songwriting, part poetry, part story-telling; allencompassing, all-engaging, all beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Clock
2. Möbius Strip
3. Bloody Sunrise
4. The Wreckers
5. Song Of The Song
6. Credo
SIDE B
7. Neverwhere
8. Poeb First Read On January 26th, 2011 At The
Sydney Opera House
9. The Problem With Saints
10. In Transit
11. Sings Of Life
12. Oceanic (CD ONLY)

'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' is the eponymous release from the solo project of the former Oasis legend, and the first after his acrimonious split from the aforementioned band. Working in both London and Los Angeles between 2010 and 2011, with frequent collaborator Dave Sardy serving as co-producer, Gallagher utilized the talents of now bandmates Jeremy Stacey (drums), Lenny Castro (percussion) and Mike Rowe (keyboards) for the album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Oasis for grown-up people! Excellent songs, none of the baggage.

TRACK LISTING

1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. Dream On
3. If I Had A Gun…
4. The Death Of You And Me
5. (I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine
6. AKA... What A Life!
7. Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks
8. AKA... Broken Arrow
9. (Stranded On) The Wrong Beach
10. Stop The Clocks

Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2011-2021) is a Best Of celebrating the first decade of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

This double album, curated and compiled entirely by Noel, includes tracks from the three Number One albums (‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’, ‘Chasing Yesterday’ and ‘Who Built The Moon?’) and the three acclaimed EPs (‘Black Star Dancing’, ‘This Is The Place’ and ‘Blue Moon Rising’) - plus 2 previously unreleased tracks including the brand new single ‘We’re On Our Way Now’.

The album is available on limited edition deluxe formats featuring a bonus disc including previously unreleased acoustic versions, remixes, instrumentals and an unheard demo.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though the RSD version of this one follows one day later, you can have the chance to grab this retrospective / summary of the first ten years of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds project on a variety of formats NOW. Including all of the releases thus far and providing a great overview for new fans and old hands alike.

TRACK LISTING

Double Vinyl Tracklisting
Disc 1
Side A
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
Side B
1. Riverman
2. Lock All The Doors
3. The Dying Of The Light
4. Ballad Of The Mighty I
Disc 2
Side A
1. We're On Our Way Now
2. Black Star Dancing
3. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
4. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
5. This Is The Place
Side B
1. It's A Beautiful World
2. Blue Moon Rising
3. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
4. Flying On The Ground

Double CD Tracklisting
Disc 1
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
6. Riverman
7. Lock All The Doors
8. The Dying Of The Light
9. Ballad Of The Mighty I
10. We're On Our Way Now
Disc 2
1. Black Star Dancing
2. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
3. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
4. This Is The Place
5. It's A Beautiful World
6. Blue Moon Rising
7. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
8. Flying On The Ground

Deluxe 3CD Tracklisting
Disc 1
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
6. Riverman
7. Lock All The Doors
8. The Dying Of The Light
9. Ballad Of The Mighty I
10. We're On Our Way Now
Disc 2
1. Black Star Dancing
2. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
3. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
4. This Is The Place
5. It's A Beautiful World
6. Blue Moon Rising
7. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
8. Flying On The Ground
Disc 3
1. It's A Beautiful World (Instrumental)
2. If I Had A Gun … (Acoustic Version)
3. Black Star Dancing (Skeleton Key Remix)
4. Black Star Dancing (12" Mix Instrumental)
5. The Man Who Built The Moon (Acoustic Version)
6. International Magic (Demo)
7. Blue Moon Rising (Sons Of The Desert Remix)
8. The Dying Of The Light (Acoustic Version)
9. This Is The Place (Skeleton Key Remix)
10. This Is The Place (Instrumental)
11. Black Star Dancing (The Reflex Revision)
12. Be Careful What You Wish For (Instrumental)

Deluxe Box Set Tracklisting
Standard LP
Disc 1
Side A
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
Side B
1. Riverman
2. Lock All The Doors
3. The Dying Of The Light
4. Ballad Of The Mighty I
Disc 2
Side A
1. We're On Our Way Now
2. Black Star Dancing
3. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
4. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
5. This Is The Place
Side B
1. It's A Beautiful World
2. Blue Moon Rising
3. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
4. Flying On The Ground

Bonus LP
Disc 1
Side A
1. It's A Beautiful World (instrumental)
2. If I Had A Gun ... (acoustic Version)
3. Black Star Dancing (skeleton Key Remix)
Side B
1. Black Star Dancing (12" Mix Instrumental)
2. The Man Who Built The Moon (acoustic Version)
3. International Magic (demo)
Disc 2
Side A
1. Blue Moon Rising (sons Of The Desert Remix)
2. The Dying Of The Light (acoustic Version)
3. This Is The Place (skeleton Key Remix)
Side B
1. This Is The Place (instrumental)
2. Black Star Dancing (the Reflex Revision)
3. Be Careful What You Wish For (instrumental)

Etched 7"
1. She Taught Me How To Fly

Deluxe 3CD
Disc 1
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
6. Riverman
7. Lock All The Doors
8. The Dying Of The Light
9. Ballad Of The Mighty I
10. We're On Our Way Now
Disc 2
1. Black Star Dancing
2. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
3. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
4. This Is The Place
5. It's A Beautiful World
6. Blue Moon Rising
7. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
8. Flying On The Ground
Disc 3
1. It's A Beautiful World (Instrumental)
2. If I Had A Gun … (Acoustic Version)
3. Black Star Dancing (Skeleton Key Remix)
4. Black Star Dancing (12" Mix Instrumental)
5. The Man Who Built The Moon (Acoustic Version)
6. International Magic (Demo)
7. Blue Moon Rising (Sons Of The Desert Remix)
8. The Dying Of The Light (Acoustic Version)
9. This Is The Place (Skeleton Key Remix)
10. This Is The Place (Instrumental)
11. Black Star Dancing (The Reflex Revision)
12. Be Careful What You Wish For (Instrumental)

'Council Skies' is the highly anticipated fourth studio album from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. This 10 track album includes the new singles 'Pretty Boy' and 'Easy Now'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's no arguing that while the Gallagher popularity preference has shifted a little more recently towards Liam, it was older brother Noel's post-Oasis work that was the most refined, with the High Flying Birds hitting the perfect balance of melody and thoughtful songwriting. 'Council Skies' is the perfect illustration of Noel's sound, beautifully produced and nicely presented INCLUDING bonus 7".

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl Tracklisting
Side 1
1. I'm Not Giving Up Tonight
2. Pretty Boy
3. Dead To The World
4. Open The Door, See What You Find
5. Trying To Find A World That's Been And Gone Pt. 1

Side 2
1. Easy Now
2. Council Skies
3. There She Blows!
4. Love Is A Rich Man
5. Think Of A Number

Bonus 7”
1. We're Gonna Get There In The End
2. Pretty Boy (Acoustic)

CD Tracklisting
1. I'm Not Giving Up Tonight
2. Pretty Boy
3. Dead To The World
4. Open The Door, See What You Find
5. Trying To Find A World That's Been And Gone Pt. 1
6. Easy Now
7. Council Skies
8. There She Blows!
9. Love Is A Rich Man
10. Think Of A Number
11. We're Gonna Get There In The End

Deluxe CD + Extra Disc Tracklisting
Disc 1
1. I'm Not Giving Up Tonight
2. Pretty Boy
3. Dead To The World
4. Open The Door, See What You Find
5. Trying To Find A World That's Been And Gone Pt. 1
6. Easy Now
7. Council Skies
8. There She Blows!
9. Love Is A Rich Man
10. Think Of A Number

Disc 2
1. Don't Stop...
2. We're Gonna Get There In The End
3. Mind Games
4. Pretty Boy (Instrumental)
5. Dead To The World (Instrumental)
6. Council Skies (Instrumental)
7. Think Of A Number (Instrumental)
8. I'm Not Giving Up Tonight (David Holmes Remix)
9. Think Of A Number (Pet Shop Boys Magic Eye 12" Remix)
10. Pretty Boy (Robert Smith Remix)
11. Council Skies (The Reflex Revision)
12. Flying On The Ground (Radio 2 Session, 08.09.21)
13. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Radio 2 Session, 08.09.21)
14. Live Forever (Radio 2 Session, 08.09.21) 

Noel Gallagher takes some time out from feuding with shirty brother, Liam to put together a brand new full-length album with his High-Flying Bird cohorts. We kick things off with the decidedly 'D'You Know What I Mean'-y percussive scree, backed with distant shouting, thundering bass and growing shadowy reverbs on 'Fort Knox', obviously setting up a grand and extended entrance piece. From there we move into the stabbing horns and distorted bass of 'Holy Mountain', perfectly displaying his keen ear for melody, and almost irritating ability for penning a ruthless earworm. From there we move into the sleazy rock and roll of 'Keep On Reaching', owing as much to classic rock as it does disco with the harmonising backing vox and effervescent synth-brass. 

'She Taught Me How To Fly' presents a truly diverse set of influences, from dreamy synths to the airy ducked bass and dusty snappy percussives, providing a perfect balance between Noel's brilliantly robust compositional techniques and the more avant construction of mesmeric Krautrock or psychedelia. 'Black & White Sunshine' couldn't possibly be any more geared towards Oasis' fans, with that legendary vocal harmony NG does so well making an appearance, as well as the three-chord progressive lift we've heard once or twice before. 

What is most impressive is that the High Flying Birds have managed to step away from the considerable shadow that Oasis cast, whilst still retaining the melodic elements that made it resonate with so many people.   

TRACK LISTING

CD TRACK LISTING (STANDARD & DELUXE)
1. Fort Knox
2. Holy Mountain
3. Keep On Reaching
4. It’s A Beautiful World
5. She Taught Me How To Fly
6. Be Careful What You Wish For
7. Black & White Sunshine
8. Interlude (Wednesday Part 1)
9. If Love Is The Law
10. The Man Who Built The Moon
11. End Credits (Wednesday Part 2)
(Bonus Track) Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)

LP TRACK LISTING
A SIDE
1. Fort Knox
2. Holy Mountain
3. Keep On Reaching
4. It’s A Beautiful World
5. She Taught Me How To Fly
B SIDE
6. Be Careful What You Wish For
7. Black & White Sunshine
8. Interlude (Wednesday Part 1)
9. If Love Is The Law
10.The Man Who Built The Moon
11.End Credits (Wednesday Part 2)

Noel's second studio album finds his song-writing in supremely fine fettle, but then you'd expect that from the master-craftsman. This time he has self-produced and included a song which actually pre-dates Oasis, and one from the aborted Amorphous Androgynous sessions. There' a slightly funky vibe left-over from said collaboration and whilst most of the album is choc-full of Noel's classic sounding melodies (albeit with some fairly obvious cribbing) "The  Right Stuff"and opener "Riverman" are the most unusual cuts here, one a spacejazz freakout , the other a seventies acoustic groover inspired by a night out with Morrissey (namecheckin' fact fans!) The remainder of the LP isn't too dissimilar to Noel's debut, but perhaps with a more discernable bottom-end as  gloriously displayed on Noel-by-Numbers  (and therefore superb!) lead single "In The Heat Of The Moment", and the one-of-the-best-things-he's-ever-done follow-up "Ballad Of The Mighty I". All in all, a splendid record.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: He's still got it!

TRACK LISTING

1. Riverman
2. In The Heat Of The Moment
3. The Girl With X-Ray Eyes
4. Lock All The Doors
5. The Dying Of The Light
6. The Right Stuff
7. While The Song Remains The Same
8. The Mexican
9. You Know We Can't Go Back
10. Ballad Of The Mighty I

Nubya Garcia isn’t an artist you can easily classify. Is it jazz? Sure, the London-born saxophonist, composer and bandleader grew up studying the genre under the noted pianist Nikki Yeoh at Camden Music. But it isn’t until you listen to albums like 2020’s Source and 2024’s Odyssey that you hear broader creativity shining through: It’s jazz, classical, dub, R&B and whatever else Garcia wants to convey. It all comes from a place of exploration and self-study, of wanting to do all the things across all disciplines while ignoring arbitrary boxes that don’t t.

Garcia’s sophomore album Odyssey, out in September 2024 via Concord Jazz, is a majestic feat on which she blends orchestral arrangements with R&B, jazz, broken beat and dub, resulting in a grand, nuanced record that feels airy and celestial without sacricing the groove. It’s a deeply personal oering about her trek to falling back in love with musical composition over the past four years.

Source, her 2020 debut album, was released via Concord Jazz to massive critical acclaim, an NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, a Pitchfork “Best New Music” review and a Rolling Stone “Album of the Month” mention. In a prole, The New York Times called Source “a sweeping set of jazz with Afro-Caribbean inuences that funnels a life’s worth of experiences into an hourlong listen.” Also upon release, the album entered the UK charts in the Top 30, and she was just one of three artists selected to perform live at Glastonbury’s 2020 Experience, which aired on the BBC to thousands of viewers. Source was also nominated for the Mercury Prize, a prestigious award given to the best albums from the UK or Ireland. 

TRACK LISTING

01. Dawn Ft. Esperanza Spalding
02. Odyssey
03. Solstice
04. Set It Free Ft. Richie
05. The Seer
06. Odyssey (Outerlude)
07. We Walk In Gold Ft. Georgia Anne Muldrow
08. Water’s Path
09. Clarity
10. In Other Words, Living
11. Clarity (Outerlude)
12. Triumphance 

'Multi award-winning saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia is back with her much anticipated debut album, "Source". Her first release on Concord Records, under the iconic Concord Jazz imprint. The album follows her 2018 self-released EP, "When We Are", the title track of which was described as “effervescent” by The New York Times and named one of NPR’s Best Songs of 2018. Her debut EP, "Nubya’s 5ive", released in 2017, was hailed as “exceptional” by The Vinyl Factory and sold out on vinyl within 24 hours. In 2018, Garcia also featured on five of the nine tracks on "We Out Here", the Brownswood compilation project celebrating London’s young and exciting jazz scene.

She won the Jazz FM Breakthrough Act of the Year Award and the Sky Arts Breakthrough Act of the Year Award in 2018, and the Jazz FM UK Jazz Act of the Year Award in 2019. A collection of sonic mantras to live by, "Source" is a deeply personal offering in which Garcia maps cartographies around the coordinate points of her identity, her family histories, grief, afro-diasporic connections and collectivism. "Source" is fundamentally about getting grounded within yourself, so that you can be present with others. It's about a realization of personal and collective power: the evolution of the saxophonist’s values as she re-connects with herself, her roots and her community. Garcia digs deep to present an album with a global outlook: from London to Bogota, Caura to Georgetown, it's a record drawing inspiration from the many places Garcia calls home. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Nubya Garcia has been leading the way in the nu-jazz world, her incredible new album Source is uplifting and powerful and has been one I’ve been looking forward to for a long time now – the wait is over!

TRACK LISTING

Pace
The Message Continues
Source 
Together Is A Beautiful Place To Be
Stand With Each Other
Inner Game
La Cumbia Me Esta Llamando (feat La Perla)
Before Us: In Demerara & Caura 
Boundless Beings (feat Akenya)

"Source - We Move" finds Garcia reinventing her Mercury Prize-nominated album, "Source", through new collaborations with several artists and producers including; Dengue Dengue Dengue, Georgia Anne Muldrow, DJ Harrison and Moses Boyd. The reworked tracks retain the inspiring musicianship and blend of jazz and other influences found on the original, whilst also moving in a more beat-driven, electronic direction.

Perfect for DJs exploring more slower and sensuous moods, these lavish and highly musical grooves remind me of nights spent at Mr. Scruff and Eyes Down; with a spaciousness that allows turntablists and MCs to perform at will. The electrical innovation works incredibly well with Garcia's source material which should appeal to hip-hop heads, beat diggers, jazz nerds and soul boys alike. Mega stuff this, check it! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Now this is truly gorgeous, these remixes are paired back versions from her 2020 album Source and but it’s like discovering her music all over again. With remixes from the likes of Kaidi Tatham, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Moses Boyd these tracks are just so smooth.. it’s super limited so don’t sleep!

TRACK LISTING

1. La Cumbia Me Está Llamando Feat. La Perla (Kaidi Tatham Remix)
2. Together Is A Beautiful Place To Be (Nala Sinephro Remix)
3. The Message Continues (DJ Harrison Remix)
4. Inner Game (Blvck Spvde Remix)
5. Boundless Beings Feat. Akenya (Georgia Anne Muldrow Remix)
6. Stand With Each Other Feat. Ms. MAURICE, Cassie Kinoshi And Richie Seivwright (KeiyaA Remix)
7. La Cumbia Me Está Llamando Feat. La Perla (Suricata Remix)
8. Source (Dengue Dengue Dengue Remix)
9. Pace (Moses Boyd Remix) 

Garrie’s album "The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas" became a cult album in the truest sense of the word which has been re-released several times, and rightly so. Gradually, a new generation of music fans and musicians came to appreciate Garrie's work, he was collaborating with the likes of Duglas T. Stewart (BMX Bandits), Norman Blake, Francis McDonald (both Teenage Fanclub) and Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor) and releasing critically acclaimed albums in recent years. The latest find from the Nick Garrie cosmos is a session he recorded in Portugal at the beginning of the millennium: "Summer Nights - The Lost Portuguese Session".

In the final year of the sixties and in the final year of his teens, Nick Garrie made an album that should be regarded as one of the great classic albums of the decade: 'The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas'. It's packed full of smart, romantic, melodious baroque-pop story telling songs with killer string and woodwind arrangements.

Back to 2017 and now there is a new album by Nick Garrie. It's a thing of great and rare beauty. It's still very much the same Nick Garrie who made that incredible 1969 debut and the 2009 album too, but this time round it's Nick Garrie in a more reflective mood.

Suffering from burn-out during Air's 2010 tour, Nicolas Godin was looking for inspiration to reignite his passion for music. He watched a Bruno Monsaingeon documentary about Glenn Gould playing Bach. Godin was immediately attracted to this mysterious and inaccessible universe, which he wanted to explore when he got home to Paris.

Having made a statement with Air, Godin wanted to go back to the classical world, to grow up musically; to renew himself. Even at this stage in his career he took new piano lessons. He decided to start recording Bach pieces, “but not to make a Bach record with modern sound, I didn’t want to make a Wendy Carlos record; she’s already done it brilliantly in the 70s. The problem is how to do something new, because everything has already been done! But when I heard Glenn Gould talk about how to explore and transform the past, this was exactly what I was reaching for.”

Godin began a period of transformation, “taking parts of Bach’s scores, then creating new parts,” he recalls. “Sometimes only thirty seconds of Bach’s original music was left behind. But I want people to listen to Contrepoint without noticing that it’s Bach. And in the process, I discovered that I had made a solo record! But it’s more of a tribute to all the great composers that have inspired me. Making a record about Bach leads to all composers who have listened to Bach.”

Working in tandem with co-songwriter, arranger, keyboardist and Bach specialist Vincent Taurelle at AIR’s Studio de l’Atlas in Paris, Godin ended up with eight pieces. The end result is 'Contrepoint', a dazzling experience that conjoins Godin’s former habitual musical fusions with classical forms, taking the listener on multiple adventurous journeys, often within each song, with counterpoint just one of its many landmarks. It’s remarkably varied in tone and rhythm, splicing genres with a bold, punchy and yet sensual and sweeping feel, with a variety of enticing lyrical narratives, and a starry international cast of guests, such as French vocalist Thomas Mars (from Phoenix), Brazilian singer Marcelo Camelo, Italian author Alessandro Barrico, New Zealand guitarist Connan Mockasin and the choir from Macedonia’s FAME'S Project. But the unifying force of Contrepoint is Johann Sebastian Bach. Each album track uses a Bach piece as its source, before jumping off to all manner of new places. Glenn Gould is also in the mix, though more of a spiritual guide than compositional. The predominant influence on 'Contrepoint' is Godin himself, composing at a new-found level of inspiration, both structural and emotional. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Orca
2. Widerstehe Doch Der Sünde
3. Club Nine
4. Clara
5. Glenn
6. Quei Due
7. Bach Off
8. Elfe Man

Belgium, not the first place you'd think of when it comes to Latin or Afro-funk. Yet one of the greatest records to blend both styles came from the small northern European country, masterminded by Nico Gomez and his Afro Percussion Inc.

'Ritual' was originally released in 1971 on the Dutch label Omega International (Gomez was born in Holland before moving to Belgium in the late 40s) and is being reissued by Mr Bongo in 2013, bringing its blazing funk grooves to both new ears and those already tuned in to this masterpiece's legacy.

Across its 11 tracks Ritual delivers the kind of production, arrangement and musicianship that rightfully belong in a dictionary next to the definition of professional. Gomez' band was tight and they knew it, showing it off on their covers of Perez Prado's 'Caballo Negro' and 'Lupita' by injecting the originals with a deep funk that blends both Afro and Latin influences. On 'Samba De Una Nota So' and 'El Condor Pasa', another pair of covers, they switch to soulful downtempo with mesmerising ease. The title cut remains one of the album's highlights, a devastating dancefloor groove with horns to match that has aged beautifully and was heavily sampled by Liquid People for 'The Dragon'. 'Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa!' adds touches of rock with fuzzy guitars for one of the album's headier experiences.

'Ritual' is a perfect example of the kind of experimentation that was rife in the 70s and which, when done as well as on this album, proves quite simply timeless.

Nico Gomez, a Belgian orchestra leader of Dutch roots, has long been a favourite with Latin fans, record diggers, DJs, and collectors alike

His blend of bossanova, latin jazz, and easy listening always turns up a few choice nuggets and surprises; what is perhaps most remarkable is that it was recorded in Europe. Back in 2013, Mr Bongo re-issued Nico Gomez's sought-after 'Ritual' album from 1971, and now we follow it up with another jewel from his catalogue his 1972 album 'Soul Of Samba'. For this re- issue, we have opted to present it with the cover art originally used on the Trio Records version released in Japan. In the Netherlands and Belgium, the album was released with different cover art under the title 'Bossa Nova’, on Omega International and International Bestseller Company records, respectively. We loved the beautiful psychedelic design of the Japanese version and wanted to use it for this re- issue. 'Soul Of Samba' features several euro-bossa-jazz favourites such as the catchy 'Rio'; which was a firm DJ choice cut at jazz dance nights, including Brighton's 'Jazz Rooms' in the 90s. It also featured in Rainer Trüby's classic ‘Glücklich' compilation series which explored European-Brazilian-inspired music. The beguiling ‘Aquarela', with its engaging latin shuffle, entices feet to the dancefloor and is not one to miss. 'Agua’ has a lazy-quirky latin-funk feel with breathy-stoned vocals floating in the background. The album additionally features numerous breezy latin, Brazilian, and easy listening joints, some of which are ripe for sampling.

TRACK LISTING

Aquarela
Tristeza
Desafinado
Agua
Orpheu Negro
The Girl From Ipanema
One

Over 23 minutes of fresh music by Nick Grey and English guitarist Nicholas Davis. 'Silvery guitar lines, distant drum poundings, warm vocals and chords meandering like a milky stream floating on the bed of the moon.' "Les Eaux Territoriales" is the first volume of Nick's mini-series "Unclear Perspectives"; each volume of the series will be centered around one or several specific instruments and will revolve around its own original musical axis and its own set of collaborators. Nick Grey is a member of the collective 48 Cameras, (which have collaborated with prestigious artists such as Charlemagne Palestine, Gerard Malanga, Michael Gira or Paul Buck), and his other projects include a new full length album named "Thieves Among Thorns" (out on Hand/eye early 2006) and a yet-unsigned EP. Nicholas Davis is a talented improv guitarist from the UK, and Nick's full-time collaborator. This is highly recommended, warm and delicately beautiful music.

A collection of self-penned songs and astute cover versions : as usual Nanci Griffiths has released an album of real depth, emotion and humanity. The lyrics touch on all her passions and come from the heart. Songs of the past and Vietnam's legacy, poignant songs of her home and family; it's one of her most satisfying releases.

There are many Ninas – so many iterations and incarnations; so many images, moments, voices and songs; so many faces with mouth ripped open, an array of faces that now spans five decades. The same is true in the video for her new single “16 Tons.” Nina Hagen is a legend – “the Godmother of punk rock, ” activist, fictional character, phenomenal performer, Jesus disciple, extraterrestrial emissary and Brecht connoisseur. Nina is the beginning and the end. She breaks down walls and begins again , keeps on and never stand sstill. Nina is many, and yet there can only be one of her. The woman who fell to Earth cannot be replicated.

Nina Hagen, the most beautiful, and most strident hell-raiser to toe the line between punk and pop, East and West and outta space that Germany has ever produced is finally back. On 09.12.2002 her new album Unity will be released on Grönland Records. It is her first album since Volksbeat in 2011. The time was more than ripe.

The 12 songs on Unity take us on a wild journey through a densely woven musical jungle full of chirruping, buzzing and chittering. Country twang sung over spacey synth grooves and rock pop playing over dub and sexy slow funk. Some songs tell of biblical miracles, others are feisty political tirades, and then there are covers: a country classic, a Sheryl Crow hit and even a Bob Dylan song with German lyrics (“Die Antwort heißt ganz allein der Wind”) – really something that only a larger - than - life songstress can dare to do. Unity plays with a multifaceted mélange of textures, samples and everyday sounds. Amidst this rich foliage of sounds and themes there is, of course, that voice; in the wink of an eye it transitions from operatic to demonic, hitting insane high notes then plummeting to awe - inspiring deep bellows, as if she is trying to inter fuse the sexes. Nina Hagen screams and hisses, belts out lyrics and performs recitatives, rasps and reverberates in electronic distortions. She launches into musical dialogues and soliloquys. It is as if her voice is echoing in to our time from another world.

In short, Unity is a piercing, warm - hearted and varied Nina Hagen spectacle. She is as prolific at 67 as she has ever been. And because she has never wasted time playing it safe or easing people into things, the album takes of f at full speed. “Shadrack” is shimmering half - sung, half - rapped power pop rock with a driving beat. It tells a Bible story that ends with the line: “That was a goodnight story for the soul about God’s kindness.” Nina Hagen, who has been a member of the Protestant Reformed Church since 2009, quotes a pop spiritual from American composer Robert MacGimsey that tells the story of three Hebrew men who God saves from a fiery death. From men walking in flames the album launches into Women of World, a feminist punk reggae anthem of solidarity, which was conceived with Jamaican singer Liz Mitchel and new wave icon Lene Lovich; a song with a message we may have heard often, but one that cannot be repeated often enough: “It’s all for one and one for all.”

With her first single release “16 Tons ,” Nina Hagen has taken on a heavy burden: “You load 16 tons, what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt.” It is her version of the old American country-folk classic about Kentucky miners who se lives consisted of work ing themselves to the bone and overcoming constant hardships. Nina Hagen sings of the inescapable desperation of daily life – “muscle and blood and skin and bones” – in her deep, commanding and ominously vibrating voice. It features country twang updated for the year 2022 and recorded with plenty of erratic reverb, unwaveringly forward - moving groove and bone - dry electric guitars. “16 Tons” transports the filth and soot - laden socially critical mining song out of the year 1947 and into the year 2022. This song has been waiting for Nina Hagen. She lends the in some way s spookily topical lyrics the gravitas of an echo chamber for the centuries. “Unity” is a collaboration with funk visionary George Clinton. It is a wonderfully light ly flowing and cosmically glistening dub number that pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. The two of them wrote the song as an immediate response to the death of George Floyd. The synthesizer melodies swing like gentle waves to stuttering hi-hats while Nina and George sing against hate: “Positive vibrations surround the world’s nations!” The song “Atomwaffensperrvertrag” is explicitly political. In it, Nina Hagen remix es two sampled excerpts from speeches (one she gave in 2009 at the United Nation Freedom Festival at Brandenburg Gate and a UN speech from US politician Dennis Kucinich), creating a pulsing tour de force with country guitars, jumbled voices and frantic percussions.

One thing has not changed since the beginning of her career. Nina Hagen is radical. She tries new things. She speaks her mind. She knows no limits, whether a rtistic or ideological. Entertainment and very earnestly meant messages still go hand in hand for her. Yes, there are indeed many, yet there is only one Nina Hagen.

TRACK LISTING

Shadrack
United Women Of The World
Unity
16 Tons
Atomwaffensperrvertrag
Gib Mir Deine Liebe
Venusfliegenfalle
Redemtion Day
Geld, Geld, Geld
Die Antwort Weiss Ganz Allein Der Wind
Opne My Heart (Dinner Time)
It Doesn`t Matter Now

Great mix of down country and twisted rock 'n' roll from this ex-Royal Trux man.

While Nick Hakim’s sophomore album, "Will This Make Me Good", was the release of a blockage that came out at the height of the pandemic as everyone was struggling to stay grounded, his forthcoming album "Cometa" sees the artist on the other side of that emotional roller coaster as he transcends to the next realm of his musical universe. Instead of tuning the world out and turning inward, Hakim invites the listener to embrace a newfound sense of clarity that he’s found. Since he was transitioning into the life of a nomad throughout 2021, the album was recorded between recording studios and domestic spaces throughout Texas, North Carolina, California, and New York. To build the foundation of this intricate soundscape, Hakim teamed up with his longtime collaborator, producer/mixing engineer Andrew Sarlo.

"Cometa" is truly a collaborative effort and the highlight for Hakim is having so many special guests from his community that play supportive roles–this talented roster of peers includes Alex G, Isaiah Barr, and DJ Dahi. Hakim refers to the bassist Kyle Myles as the glue that has held his musical life together for the past decade along with the pianist Jake Sherman, drummer Vishal Nayak, and guitarists Joe Harrison and Dylan Day. “Happen” includes Abe Rounds on drums and Alex G on piano, and “Slid Under” features Helado Negro on synths. Hakim’s younger brother, Danny Hakim, wrote the chords for “Perfume,” a sweet song about falling in love with someone’s scent, which he also plays acoustic guitar on.

TRACK LISTING

1 Ani
2 Happen
3 Vertigo
4 Feeling Myself
5 M1
6 Only One
7 Perfume
8 Something
9 Slid Under
10 Market

In 2017, Hakim’s debut album, the critically acclaimed ‘Green Twins’, announced the singersongwriter as an idiosyncratic talent, making music that resists genre classification.

You could work a song of his into an HBO original series, as ‘Insecure’ did; you could smoke to it and wonder about your ego; you could slow dance with the person you love—it’s not versatility, so much as a lack of boundaries and a strong sense of intuition. In between albums, musical ideas still came and he worked with his peers, some including Onyx Collective, Anderson .Paak, Jesse and Forever, Lianne La Havas, and Slingbaum, but there came a time for Nick to dive into his own songwriting again, and ‘Will This Make Me Good’ is the result of this.

TRACK LISTING

All These Changes
Wtmmg
Bouncing
Let It Out
Qadir
All These Instruments
Drum Thing
Vincent Tyler
Crumpy
Lacjkl;ajclaj
Gods Dirty Work
Seeing Double
Whoo

Solo debut from guitarist/vocalist from Neurot Recordings' North Carolinian pastoral psych specialists U.S. Christmas.

A Great River has that Southern melancholy feel in common with Hall‘s band, and joins the ranks of highlight Neurot solo outings from Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till (both Neurosis) in its appreciation of classic folk, from Bob Dylan, whose influence shows up prevalently throughout, to a more stripped-down look at the brilliance of arrangement that has found a home in Wovenhand‘s David Eugene Edwards.

Foremost, the album is honest. Recorded in a single night last March, its “first album” feel is undercut by psychedelic flourish and the emotional depths Hall brings to the surface, and while there are still avenues of progression to be explored, a song like the Townes Van Zandt cover “Kathleen” remains the beautiful and lush work of a singer-songwriter beginning what will hopefully be a long journey.

It is a reflection of a lifetime spent with the echoes of Dylan, Young, Petty, Springsteen, and Van Zandt.

It draws from the rich musical history of America, the melancholy of Appalachia, and harnesses the "electric vacuum roar" of guitar slingers past and present.

Drag City invite you to celebrate Dismay Day with America’s hardest working funnyman in show business, Neil Hamburger.

A sombre work from a seasoned entertainer clearly carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, ‘First Of Dismay’ is being issued in answer to many who have applauded for “More! More!”

Specially-chosen stand-up comedy recordings from Neil’s recent appearances at coveted nightclubs in London, Savannah and Los Angeles are interspersed with musical cries for help as Neil emotes with the purely professional panache of the Too Good For Neil Hamburger Band in support.

Song highlights include ‘Endless Roll’, a disco complaint letter aimed at Kirkland Signature trash bags (featuring guest spots from members of The Germs and Jefferson Starship) and ‘Nickel Candy’ - societal decline set to music. Although Neil was strongly advised against the risk of merging side-splitting comedy segments with melancholy musical numbers, the exciting potpourri that resulted has enhanced his sparkle into a veritable milky way of entertainment.

‘First Of Dismay’ effectively captures the excitement of the popular comedian’s nightclub presentation, featuring ruminations on history and the bible that, besides provoking laughter, will also be educational for the whole family.

Neil’s 10th full-length album is his first since 2012’s muchloved ‘Live At Third Man Records’.

Mutant, in partnership with WaterTower Music, are proud to present...The original motion picture soundtrack to Paul King's 2023 film Wonka, with delectable original music performed by Timothée Chalamet in the title role, along with the movie's phenomenal ensemble cast, including Hugh Grant, Calah Lane and Keegan-Michael Key, and many others. The score features all-new music from acclaimed composer Joby Talbot and songwriter Neil Hannon.Composer Joby Talbot says: "Paul King is a director who puts music front and center. I'm grateful that he gave me so much room to really explore the musical possibilities of the beautiful and exciting world he created."

Songwriter Neil Hannon says: “To be allowed to stir some of my own imaginative ingredients into Paul's fantastical recipe is one of the honours of my life. To get to work with my old friend and collaborator Joby Talbot again was a joy, and reminded me of what a genius he is. And for my humble songs to share the stage with two Newley-Bricusse classics I grew up adoring is something I could only have dreamt about. But then every good thing in this world started with a dream!”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pure Imagination (Opening Titles Version)
2. A Hatful Of Dreams
3. Welcome To Scrubbit’s
4. You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (Hoverchocs)
5. Flying Chocolatiers
6. Scrub Scrub
7. Wonka's Case
8. Sweet Tooth
9. Willy And Noodle At The Zoo
10. For A Moment
11. The Letter 'A’
12. Clock Tower
13. You've Never Had Chocolate Like This
14. Oompa Loompa
15. A World Of Your Own
16. Sorry, Noodle
17. Mamma’s Secret
18. Pure Imagination (from "Wonka”)
19. Oompa Loompa (Reprise)
20. 500 Monks, 1 Giraffe
21. Death By Chocolate
22. The Oompa Loompa To The Rescue
23. Noodle Gives Affable The Ledger
24. Chocolate Fountain

Nobuo "Hara", whose real name is Nobuo Tsukahara, is a Japanese saxophonist who became known in 1951 with his big band, the Sharp & Flats. Together they recorded more than a hundred album during their career. Hozan Yamamoto is, for his part, a Shakuhachi player, a traditional Japanese flute, enjoying such recognition in his country that he was awarded a Living National Treasure in 2002. The first record bringing together the two musicians is a live recorded in 1967 during the Newport Jazz Festival. It was a year later, in 1968, that New Jazz in Japan, their first studio recording, was released. Accompanied by the power of the Sharps & Flats, Nobuo Hara's tenor sax and Hozan Yamamoto's shakuhachi respond subtly to give this record, which had not been reissued since 1971, a completely unique style.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chakkiri-Bushi
2. Sakura Sakura
3. Kuroda-Bushi
4. Donpan-Bushi
5. Rokudan Kuzushi
6. Sangai-Bushi
7. Itsuki No Komori Uta
8. Kangun March
9. Tabaruzaka
10. Kiyari Kuzushi

2018 Reissue – Remastered From Original Tapes, Carefully Reproduced Original Art.

Released in 1976, Distinctive Themes / Race To Achievement is legendary arranger Nick Ingman exploring the two distinct ideas of “impressive themes varying in style from ‘Basie to Elgar’” and “a study in the pressure and rewards of achievement”.

Distinctive Themes is a veritable indulgence of variously-tempoed, full orchestra, big band workouts, from relaxed swing to more propulsive themes. The progressively building “Expanding Markets” is a true highlight, with its rolling pianos, contemplative electric guitar solos and moody horns over skipping beats. The dramatic “Against The Odds” is another stand-out.

Race To Achievement is all rugged funk with stabbing chords and strutting horns and it’s probably our favourite side. Of course we have to acknowledge the fantastic “Tense Preparation”, sampled by Prince Paul and Dan The Automator for Handsome Boy Modeling School’s seminal “Magnetizing” with Del Tha Funky Homosapien. But the whole side’s range from tense underscores to fast and punchy chase themes makes this is a gem of the KPM catalogue.

As with all ten re-issues, the audio for Distinctive Themes / Race To Achievement comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. We’ve taken the same care with the sleeves, handing the reproduction duties over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand identity.

TRACK LISTING

Happy To Be Alive
Basie 77
It's Easy
Expanding Markets
Land Of Opportunity
Against The Odds
Ooops!
Pride In Purpose
Winner Takes All – Opening
Winner Takes All – Closing
The Road Forward – Opening
The Road Forward – Closing
Trademark, Tense Preparation
Light Preparation
Under Pressure
Speedway
Double Quick
Made It
Pick Up
Accolade

Using broader concepts, ‘Dreamer’ is “more introspective, because it's about things that I’ve been through over the last few years,” she says. The album is an intimate journey through snapshots and memories of Nabihah’s life. Exploring personal identity and grief through the soft-focus lens of melancholy, the album is not one specific sound. Her left-field lo-fi aesthetic twirls itself throughout as she manages to skate between tracks without ever sounding disjointed. Apart from four of the songs which have live drums on them, Nabihah wrote, recorded and produced the album herself. Incorporating the harmonium and sitar in her music for the first time, instruments reflective of her Pakistani heritage, it’s Nabihah’s rawest and most personal work yet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Though not a million miles away sonically from her 2017 debut album ‘Weighing Of The Heart’, Nabihah Iqbal's second long player ‘DREAMER’ does sound like the London based musician, producer and DJ has taken on a new creative direction, deconstructing her trademark sound of electronic shoegaze and dreamy synth-pop into its core elements. While sounding more mature and confident than its predecessor, the record also shows more vulnerability, as if past struggles (among them stolen equipment and a family emergency during the pandemic) have left her visibly exposed. The ethereal, otherworldly opener “In Light” is followed by a catchy dream pop number, the aptly titled “Dreamer”, before “This World Couldn't See Us” introduces more electronic elements and spoken vocals without interrupting the sonic theme of melancholy that is undisputedly making its mark throughout the entire the album.

‘DREAMER’ sounds like it was written by someone who feels just as at home at an intimate gig as at a rave, but it manages to combine Iqbal's influences so effortlessly that the album flows and never strays from what it set out to do, despite featuring tracks as wildly different as the introspective, stripped back “Lilac Twilight”, the haunting, beatless “Sweet Emotion (Lost In Devotion)” and the anthemic, trance influenced “Sky River”; one of the songs on the album that showcases her love for dance music. Awash with ambient synth pads, reverb laden guitars, textured melodies and big beats, ‘DREAMER’ manages to please both stargazers and night-time ravers. A truly beautiful record by an artist who is at a creative peak in her career.

TRACK LISTING

1. In Light
2. Dreamer
3. This World Couldn’t See Us
4. Sunflower
5. Lilac Twilight
6. Gentle Heart
7. Sky River
8. Sweet Emotion (Lost In Devotion)
9. A Tender Victory
10. Closer Lover

Five years on from 2001's "Space Is Only Noise", prolific, precocious and boundary pushing producer Nicolas Jaar returns with his second full-length LP, the expansive, experimental and uncompromising "Sirens". If you've followed his career thus far, you'll be well aware that Mr Jaar is an eclectic kind of chap. Equally adept at stripped back club bangers, minimalist electronics, intimate torch songs and droning avant garde compositions, Jaar has been carving out his own niche from day one. Over the course of past eight years, Jaar has gradually honed his sound, borrowing samples, phrases and rhythms from jazz, blues, soul, folk and latin traditions, before manipulating them beyond all recognition as he applies his unique production aesthetic. Dreamy, deep and experimental, Jaar's records sound like nothing else. "Sirens" finds the producer pushing all the way through to the other side, fusing precise electronics, full spectrum frequencies and a full gamut of styles into a thematically assured, sonically adventurous game changer. Smashing glass punctuates buzzing feedback, prepared piano rings out while cumbia rhythms elicit a subtle sway. "The Governor" and "Three Sides Of Nazareth" pogo away with a no wave snarl while "History Lesson" is a hallucinogenic detour into doo wop. Despite its stylistic indeterminacy, "Sirens" maintains a thematic and sonic narrative which leads us from start to finish. Near on indescribable, but entirely excellent, this breathtaking example of adventurous composition and scientific sound design stands alone in the world of modern electronica.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Challenging, unique and sonically breathtaking, Nicolas Jaar's return to the long format is every bit as good as I hoped. Indescribable and mindblowing.

TRACK LISTING

LP.
Mirrors
Killing Time (LP Version)
Sirens
Wildflowers
The Governor (LP Version)
Leaves (LP Version)
No (LP Version)
Three Sides Of Nazareth (LP Version)
History Lesson (LP Version)

CD.

Killing Time
The Governor
Leaves
No
Three Sides Of Nazareth
History Lesson

Four years after his debut on the Brooklyn label Wolf + Lamb, and the much lauded follow up "Time for Us", whose glacial slow-jam take on house sent journalists scrambling for adjectives, the 20 year old Chilean New Yorker returns to Circus Company with "Space Is Only Noise", an uncompromising manifesto on traces of the past, love lost, and specters of the future.

Jaar has made it quite apparent over the course of his nascent catalog and increasingly sought after live sets that challenge is an intrinsic part of his creative discourse. Few are the producers of any age with the nerve to ride a sub-100-bpm tempo at peak time in the techno Mecca of Berlin, and fewer still are those who receive an ecstatic hands-in-the-air response for their precocious efforts. It is precisely this sense of risk which elevates "Space Is Only Noise" beyond the realm of valiant first effort or crossover dance music oddity. Those looking to wade through the sea of Jaar’s potential influences will quickly find themselves in the deep waters of golden age Factory records, home spun digitalism of Mille Plateaux, "Endtroducing" era DJ Shadow and Eric Satie.

Jaar gently coaxes his listener into the experience from the opening sounds of rolling waves on "être", but quickly transitions into the sophisticated percussion and meandering melodies that characterise his sound. Jaar seeks, and often finds, beauty in melancholy on the first few tracks of the album. As the album begins to accelerate with 'Too many kids finding rain in the dust', Jaar confronts us with the often forgotten reality that our sadness is not mutually exclusive from the dancefloor. Suddenly, on "Keep Me There", Jaar’s voice appears over the delicious, rumbling melody. Though your hips stir to the relentless bassline and the sexiness of the voices, your heart is jolted out of its luxurious malaise when horns erupt seconds later. Complete landscapes such as these are only realised in contrast - the indulgent against the reserved, the sky against the earth; lightness and darkness.

"Space Is Only Noise" is a tour de force with few modern equals, and a great sign of things to come from one of electronic music’s most exciting producers.

Even from his earliest edits and deep but different club tracks on Wolf + Lamb, it was clear that Nicolás Jaar was a special talent, and once he'd arrived at his Essential Mix in 2012, he'd more or less mastered dance music. Since then, he's turned his attention to noise experiments, film scores, politico-punk and some inspired production work for other artists, most notably FKA Twigs second LP 'Magdalena'. 

Written and produced between 2017-2019, 'Cenizas' sees Jaar in introspective mode, leading us through deep waters and seductive darkness for a little under an hour. Almost entirely fluid, the thirteen tracks bleed from one to the next, occasional snatches of latin rhythm, sleek clarinet or jazzy keys disrupting the moody electronics and crepuscular vibrations. At times beautiful and beatless, incorporating elements of drone, modern classical, latin, jazz and electronica, this LP flows like a film score and captures the otherworldly atmosphere of his aformentioned Essential Mix perfectly. There's no one out there who sounds like him, and few who operate at his level. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Vanish
A2. Menysid
A3. Cenizas
A4. Agosto
B1. Gocce
B2. Mud
B3. Vacíar
C1. Sunder
C2. Hello, Chain
C3. Rubble
D1. Garden
D2. Xerox
D3. Faith Made Of Silk

Nat Johnson is the former singer, songwriter and guitarist of Monkey Swallows the Universe - a Sheffield based five piece band who released two critically acclaimed albums earlier in the decade, toured the UK with Richard Hawley, the Long Blondes and Camera Obscura, were profiled in The Sun and the Guardian, played a host of festivals and performed live sessions for the likes of XFM, 6music and Radio 4's Loose Ends. Since the band split in 2008 Nat has embarked on what has so far proved to be a very fruitful solo career with her single for Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation "Dirty Rotten Soul" which is on the album and made Single of the Week by Steve Lamacq on 6 Music. Now with her debut album all recorded Nat has assembled a new backing band The Figureheads (featuring MSTU co-founder Kevin Gori, Chris Loftus of Fury of the Headteachers and Neil Piper of Champion Kickboxer) for a series of gigs throughout the Summer and Autumn - all leading up to the release of debut album "Roman Radio" on the 19th of October preceded by the double 'A' side single "Wonderful Emergency" c/w "Don't Worry Baby".

“One of the best debut albums of all time” – Rolling Stone

Come Away With Me, released in 2002 by a young, unknown singer on a traditionally un-pop label, was a unique blend of jazz, blues, country, folk and pop – and lifted off beyond imagination. To date, the album has sold nearly 30 million times, and has garnered multiple awards, including no less than eight Grammys®. This coming February marks this landmark album’s 20th anniversary and, to celebrate, Blue Note/UMe has worked with the artist and her team on a special collection that will reveal for the first time the full story of the making of this now-classic album.

4-LP & 3-CD DELUXE EDITIONS INCLUDE:
New remastering of Norah’s legendary debut album
22 unreleased tracks: demos, session outtakes, alternate versions & mixes
Norah’s earliest demos—the tracks that got Blue Note’s attention, and the demos she recorded for the label—some of which were released on the promo-only EP First Sessions
The full previously-unreleased original version of the album—including 11 unreleased cuts—produced by Craig Street and now newly-mixed by Tony Maserati, with alternate versions of well-known tracks and unheard performances
Premium packaging with an extensive booklet featuring new liner notes by Norah, rare session photos and detailed track annotations

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Newly remastered standalone 1-LP includes original gatefold packaging and brief liner notes from Norah, exclusive to this release
Newly remastered 1-CD jewelcase with liner notes from Norah
Dolby Atmos release of The Demos, First Sessions EP, and the Allaire Sessions

TRACK LISTING

Standard Tracklisting
1. Don’t Know Why (Side A)
2. Seven Years (Side A)
3. Cold Cold Heart (Side A)
4. Feellin’ The Same Way (Side A)
5. Come Away With Me (Side A)
6. Shoot The Moon (Side A)
7. Turn Me On (Side A)
8. Lonestar (Side B)
9. I’ve Got To See You Again (Side B)
10. Painter Song (Side B)
11. One Flight Down (Side B)
12. Nightingale (Side B)
13. The Long Day Is Over (Side B)
14. The Nearness Of You (Side B)

Deluxe CD Tracklist
CD 1 | Come Away With Me - 20th Anniversary Remaster
1. Don’t Know Why
2. Seven Years
3. Cold Cold Heart
4. Feelin’ The Same Way
5. Come Away With Me
6. Shoot The Moon
7. Turn Me On
8. Lonestar
9. I’ve Got To See You Again
10. Painter Song
11. One Flight Down
12. Nightingale
13. The Long Day Is Over
14. The Nearness Of You
CD 2 | The Demos / First Sessions Outtakes / First Sessions EP
1. Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
2. Walkin’ My Baby Back Home
3. World Of Trouble
4. The Only Time
5. I Didn’t Know About You
6. Something Is Calling You Tabla Version
7. Just Like A Dream Today
8. When Sunny Gets Blue
9. What Am I To You
10. Hallelujah I Love Him So
11. Daydream
12. Don’t Know Why
13. Come Away With Me
14. Something Is Calling You
15. Turn Me On
16. Lonestar
17. Peace
Tracks 1-11 Previously Unreleased
Tracks 12-17 Previously Released As The Promo-only First Sessions EP
CD 3 | The Allaire Sessions
1. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
2. I’ve Got To See You Again *
3. What Would I Do
4. Come Away With Me*
5. Picture In A Frame**
6. Nightingale*
7. Peace*
8. What Am I To You*
9. Painter Song*
10. Turn Me On*
11. A Little At A Time
12. One Flight Down*
13. Fragile
* Alternate Version
** Alternate Mix
All Tracks Previously Unreleased Except “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” And “Picture In A Frame”
Original Recordings Produced By Jesse Harris, Todd Horton, Norah Jones, Jay Newland, Arif Mardin, & Craig Street
20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition: Produced By Eli Wolf

Super Deluxe 4LP Tracklisting:
LP 1 | Come Away With Me - 20th Anniversary Remaster
Side A
Don’t Know Why
Seven Years
Cold Cold Heart
Feelin’ The Same Way
Come Away With Me
Shoot The Moon
Turn Me On
Side B
Lonestar
I’ve Got To See You Again
Painter Song
One Flight Down
Nightingale
The Long Day Is Over
The Nearness Of You

LP 2 | The Demos
Side A
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
Walkin’ My Baby Back Home
World Of Trouble
The Only Time
I Didn’t Know About You
Side B
Something Is Calling You Tabla Version
Just Like A Dream Today
When Sunny Gets Blue
What Am I To You
Hallelujah I Love Him So
Daydream

LP 3 | First Sessions EP
Side A
Don’t Know Why
Come Away With Me
Something Is Calling You
Side B
Turn Me On
Lonestar
Peace
Previously Released As A Promo-only CD

LP4 | The Allaire Sessions
Side A
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
I’ve Got To See You Again *
What Would I Do
Come Away With Me *
Picture In A Frame **
Nightingale *
Side B
Peace *
What Am I To You *
Painter Song *
Turn Me On *
A Little At A Time
One Flight Down *
Fragile
* Alternate Version
** Alternate Mix
All Tracks Previously Unreleased Except “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” And “Picture In A Frame”

Original Recordings Produced By Jesse Harris, Todd Horton, Norah Jones, Jay Newland, Arif Mardin, & Craig Street

20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition: Produced By Eli Wolf

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH).

Will contain all 8 feature tracks from Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever). "Dial Drunk" w/ Post Malone, "Call Your Mom" w/ Lozzy McAlpine, "She Calls Me Back" w/ Kacey Musgraves, "Northern Attitude" w/ Hozier, "Everywhere, Everything" w/ Gracie Abrams, "Homesick" w/ Sam Fender, "You're Gonna Go Far" w/ Brandi Carlile, & "Paul Revere" w/ Gregory Alan Isakov. Tiger Eye Brown color variant.

Noah Kahan on Cape Elizabeth –
“And that EP in particular is such a special story, because it was right at the beginning of the pandemic, and I just made it with my neighbour, a friend of mine, who’s an amazing producer.

We worked on it for a week, and we didn’t really promote it too much — and it kind of became “Stick Season” before “Stick Season” in a lot of ways.

It was a study on a place and a relationship in a place, and it was the first time I’d experimented with telling a story that felt like it had an overarching narrative.

And it was also the first time that I let myself just not care about how it sounded at the end. Whatever the process was, I just wanted it to make me happy. And to see it connect with people really inspired me to write “Stick Season.”

It kind of gave me the confidence to be like, “All right, this niche-specific storytelling stuff can actually connect with people in a more universal way.” I really owe it all to that EP, and it’s still probably my favorite piece of work I’ve made. I just love it.”

Within six days and “without overthinking anything,” Noah Kahan completed the five-track Cape Elizabeth EP which has amassed 200M streams. See the newly repackaged Cape Elizabeth Aqua vinyl as Noah’s “thank you to the fans who stuck around, came to shows, watched my livestreams, and listened.” The vinyl features fan favorite songs “A Troubled Mind”, “Glue Myself Shut” and “Maine”.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Troubled Mind
2. Close Behind
3. Glue Myself Shut
4. Anyway
5. Maine

Over the past year, GRAMMY Best New Artist-nominated Vermont singer & songwriter Noah Kahan has exploded from his New England roots into the global mainstream and has been touted as one of this year’s biggest and best new artists. This limited-edition transparent 7” will have ‘Dial Drunk’ and ‘Dial Drunk’ ft. Post Malone. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Dial Drunk

Side B:
1. Dial Drunk Ft. Post Malone

Following the release of his sophomore album, Noah continued to write and record, unlocking a new level of himself as an artist and songwriter.

Rife with fluttering guitar melodies, inviting vocals, and homey imagery of the northeast on the verge of changing seasons, it represents a massive turning point for him. Kahan’s relationship with his career was altered, his conviction for storytelling and a pursuit of a more organic sound that aligned with the folk music of his upbringing had firmly arrived.

TRACK LISTING

1. Northern Attitude
2. Stick Season
3. All My Love
4. She Calls Me Back
5. Come Over
6. New Perspective
7. Everywhere, Everything
8. Orange Juice
9. Strawberry Wine
10. Growing Sideways
11. Halloween
12. Homesick
13. Still
14. The View Between Villages

Over the past year, GRAMMY Best New Artist-nominated Vermont singer & songwriter Noah Kahan has exploded from his New England roots into the global mainstream and has been touted as one of this year’s biggest and best new artists.

The global sensation is back with a deluxe version of Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever). The Deluxe CD showcases seven additional tracks from Kahan’s Platinum-Certified Stick Season album as well as his

Double Platinum-Certified and first career top 10 hit “Stick Season” and Platinum-Certified top 40 hit “Dial Drunk”.

It all starts with the voice. At turns heavy and hulkingly powerful, yet agile and pointedly precise, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s vocal not only embodies the tradition of the Sufi qawwali but it is the emotive essence of singing itself.

Descended from a 600-year-old lineage of qawwali singers, Nusrat’s voice has been singularly responsible for spreading the devotional music of Sufism to the world, ever since he became the leader of his family’s musical group in 1971. It is a formidable heritage for an ancient song. Originating in 10th Century Iran, qawwali is the music of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. Characterised by states of musical ecstasy and sophistication, qawwali singers are the mouthpiece of divine power, tasked with capturing the audience’s attention and heightening their consciousness to receive a spiritual message.

‘Chain of Light’ is an album of previously unheard recordings of the singer and his qawwal party made at Real World Studios in 1990, whilst he was at the height of his vocal capabilities. Carefully restored from the original analogue tapes, this ‘lost album’ of traditional qawwals includes a pristine recording of the much-loved classic ‘Ya Allah Ya Rehman’, as well the only known performance of ‘Ya Gaus Ya Meeran’.

The late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice is universally recognised as one of the greatest in musical history and he was key in bringing the Qawwali music tradition to the Western world. Khan’s legacy has enraptured millions across the globe with his magnificent and haunting voice. In his lifetime he collaborated with many Western musicians, including Peter Gabriel, Eddie Vedder and Michael Brook. His vocals appeared on soundtracks to films directed by Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Shekhar Kapur and Tim Robbins.

TRACK LISTING

Ya Allah Ya Rehman
Aaj Sik Mitran Di
Ya Gaus Ya Meeran
Khabram Raseed Imsha

An early devotee of shoegaze and the dreamy melancholia of bands such as Mazzy Star and Sparklehorse, Khouri began her career as an acoustic singer-songwriter in New York, selfreleasing her first EP ‘A Song to the City’. Returning to London, she was eventually discovered by producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, This is the Kit) and began writing songs for what would become her first LP, ‘The Salted Air’ released in 2017. The album earned plaudits from the likes of MOJO and Drowned In Sound, was celebrated by Q (Feb 2017 Critics Choice) and selected as one of Rough Trade’s Albums of the Year 2017. In the past year, Khouri has toured in the UK and Europe and has shared the stage with artists such as Low, John Parish, Aldous Harding, H. Hawkline, Howe Gelb, Adrian Crowley, and many more.

Self-produced and recorded in London in between touring commitments, Khouri’s latest offering was mixed by Alan Weatherhead (Sparklehorse, Julien Baker) and is a powerful return from her acclaimed debut. If her debut ‘The Salted Air’ were an allegory for displacement, in ‘A New Dawn’ Khouri has found the shore and displays a quiet, newfound confidence. The title track, which premiered on CLASH in August, opens with droning harmonium, cascades of tremolo guitar and mermaid-like backing vocals.

‘To Sleep’ sees violinist Basia Bartz doubling Khouri’s nylon string guitar in a pizzicato set against swelling harmonium, piano and flurries of guitar delay. Penned as “a lullaby she wrote from the point of view of a younger self” in a war zone, Khouri deals with the sounds of shelling by singing herself to sleep: “Teach me / A melody / So I can hum myself to sleep”. The beautifully arranged EP highlights Khouri’s talent for creating songs that feel both vast and intimate, as her sumptuous vocal takes centre-stage with poignant lyrics set against delicate atmospheric soundscapes.

TRACK LISTING

1. A New Dawn
2. To Sleep
3. The Hours

Another Life is the second album by singer-songwriter Nadine Khouri. Recorded in London and Bristol with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Dry Cleaning) the album extends a collaborative partnership that began with Khouri's acclaimed 2017 debut The Salted Air.

Her debut The Salted Air was hailed by MOJO as "A thing of dark possessed beauty" in their four-star album review, celebrated by Q as a Critics Choice record, and selected as one of Rough Trade's Albums of the Year in 2017.

The legendary Kenny Dope with collaboration with BBE Records gets down to work on this Afro Disco classic from Ghanian Disco queen Nana Love. Over 35 years since its initial vinyl release, ‘I’m In Love’ has stood the test of time and is packed to the brim with groove, soul and energy. On these special Kenny Dope mixes, part 1 and 2, we’re treated to a beefed up version which will absolutely slam on any sound system and dancefloor across the globe. The NYC icon has injected warmth, rhythm and weight to this classic: primed and ready for you to enjoy on 7 inch vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

I'm In Love (Kenny Dope Mix Pt.1)
I'm In Love (Kenny Dope Mix Pt.2) 

Sol Power Sound returns with an EP of two blistering (and rare) island disco cuts remixed by Bosq and the Sol Power All-Stars that will make you forget that summer has come to a close. Officially licensed from the estate of Nappy Mayers, who wrote and produced both originals, both tracks capture Nappy’s exquisite sound that dominated the Trinidadian discotheques in the late 1970s and early 1980s but never received the international acclaim they deserved.Bosq, a long-time friend of the label, leads things off on the A-side with his fiery dance floor flip of Nadie La Fond’s “Three Way Situation.” In his classic yet understated style, Bosq adds just enough, enhancing the captivating groove, while preserving the true essence and of the original. Using both vocal and dub parts Bosq turns up the funk and transforms the tune into a blistering modern disco cut that works equally well on the beach, in a dark club, or at your favorite underground afterhours.On B1, the Sol Power All-Stars present an extended disco dub of the 1980 Nappy Mayers tune “Let Yourself Go.” The Sol Power crew opts to work with the b-side version of the original, which bypasses the lead vocal and instead focuses on the synth-bass led groove, an unforgettable chorus, and powerful disco horns. Toss in some chopped up flute, guitars, and synth and you’ve got yourself a party. And did we mention drums and perc? Don’t miss the massive soca break that will take you straight to a carnival jam in the islands.Alongside remastered extended 12” versions of both original vocal cuts, Trini Disco Dubs highlights the genius of Nappy Mayers, a legendary Caribbean songwriter, producer, and performer, through the lens of modern producers who are at the top of their game.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Nadie La Fond - Three Way Situation (Bosq Disco Special)
A2. Nadie La Fond - Three Way Situation (12" Version)
B1. Nappy Mayers - Let Yourself Go (Sol Power All-Stars Disco Dub)
B2. Nappy Mayers - Let Yourself Go (12" Version)

McSweeney started writing his Americana-tinged, folksy solo material while teaching English in Italy, following the break-up of his first band, Faded. Upon returning to his native Sheffield, he continued to write songs inspired by the likes of Low and Papa M, and was invited to record some tracks by a local studio. McSweeney became a fixture on the local live circuit, with his intense, brooding live performances. Following a self-released album last year, he now releases his debut single on Kids. "Postcards", one of the stand-out tracks on the album, showcases McSweeney's extraordinarily powerful voice. His deep vocals resonate over a maudlin yet uplifting backdrop with an emotional depth that recalls the quiet menace of The Bad Seeds. Reference points also include Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Will Oldham, King Creosote maybe even Richard Hawley, and strangely Tracey Chapman! A stunning single.

Lyrics that deal with the contrasts and contradictions of life to romantic melodies as hopeful as they are melancholy, McSweeney’s finely crafted songs have been championed by his peers as well as across national radio and mainstream and specialist press. Since the release of his last album, Cargo, McSweeney has made increasingly big waves on the English folk scene picking up main stage festival appearances and collaborating with the likes of Jon Boden and Fay Hield.

March 2017 sees the release of McSweeney’s fourth album, A Coat Worth Wearing, the second release for new imprint Hudson Records. Produced by award-winning folk producer Andy Bell and building on the success of its predecessor, A Coat Worth Wearing shows a marked development in Neil’s sound and approach. Its nine songs were conceived as a piece and subsequently recorded together, largely in full-band live-takes, over seven days in the beautiful Welsh countryside. McSweeney has toured extensively throughout the UK as well as in mainland Europe on his own and as support for the likes of Richard Hawley and Bellowhead. He will continue to tour around the release of A Coat Worth Wearing then throughout 2017 and beyond.

TRACK LISTING

Old Glory Blues
Forlorn Hope
Danse Macabre
Land Of Cockaigne
Atlantis
Strangers Of Maresfield Gardens
Waving Not Drowning
Night Watchman
The Call

Neil McSweeney is a critically acclaimed singer / songwriter from Sheffield. He’s toured with Richard Hawley and been played across BBC national radio. He’s recently collaborated with the bright young things of the English folk and Americana scenes including Lucy Farrell, Matthew Boulter and Sam Sweeney as well as more established artists such as Brooks Williams.

For fans of: Neil Young, Richard Thompson, Grant Lee Phillips

This is the third solo album release from Neil McSweeney following Remember to Smile (2006) and Shoreline (2009). Neil has also released singles though London based Kids Records and earlier in 2013 he released a The Seventeen EP through his own January Records label.

Cargo presents a series of walking songs each recounting the thoughts, deeds or words of an imagined traveller. The album features a range of musicians including BBC Folk award winners Sam Sweeney (Bellowhead) and Lucy Farrell, label-mate Matt Boulter, double-bass master and ace producer Andy Seward (Kate Rusby, Phil Selway of Radiohead).

TRACK LISTING

1. Bulldozer
2. Be Your Own Dog
3. Happiness
4. San Miniato
5. New Year’s Day
6. Sapling Bough
7. Snow Blind
8. Into The Sound
9. Slowly Sets The Sun
10. Cargo
11. Stop Digging

The steadily brilliant French producer Nathan Melja – who’s made the rounds between choice outlets over the past half decade, from Mister Saturday Nights to Antinote, via Ninja Tune offshoot Technicolour and Opal Tapes, is here to potently cement his status as one of Europe’s number one club trailblazers, and one that knows all too well how to turn any dancefloor into an infinity pool of pure liquid euphoria.

Drawing its name from the physiological and psychological process that results in a confusion of one’s sensory perceptions, "Synesthesia" is indeed the kind of club single that shall trigger off massive reaction amongst right-minded bipeds and chromakey house suckers. Straightforward club business done right.

Melja’s original is a vivid kaleidoscope of skittish drums, swampy bass stabs and a well-rounded, supremely curvy synthwork, tailored to take ravers on a flash journey through space and time.

Called in on remix duty, TTT affiliate and Incienso co-founder Anthony Naples delivers a more fragmented and cerebral variation, though functional and club-ready in its own right. Brushing even wider verbed-out pad tapestries for your brain to wander in, the track expands to deeper organic horizons with a field-depth that can not but recall that of the KLF and Bochum Welt’s emotional soundscaping. Meanwhile, Pariah takes care of whelming us deep into more techno-friendly terrains, true to his ever masterly touch for epic buildups and multi-level textural innovation, bringing up the acidic phlegm of Melja’s original as he treats us to a carefully orchestrated ballet of synthetic whorls, contemplative chords and propulsive drum programming. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Phenominal, deep, techy, aquatic house number from Nathan Melja on Kalahari Oyster Cult. Comes with two superb remixes by Anthony Naples and Pariah.

TRACK LISTING

1. Synesthesia
2. Synesthesia (Anthony Naples Remix)
3. Synesthesia (Pariah Remix)

Excellent Traveler is --- Ears As Eyes, Musical Mind Cinema, Exploratory Music with a Sense of Discovery, making music with the Highest Quality Listener In Mind, Walking Through The Forest, there's a swarm of bees, and a bird I've never heard before, Noticing, A vibrant painting flies through the night sky Carried by Egrets, Worlds Within Worlds, Worlds Upon Worlds, Framing, Time Music, Playing with Time, in and out of Focus, World Creation, Shredding on levels (in ways) once deemed "impossible", now thought of and felt as Now -- have All Ways Been Eternal, hi-fives all around (It Can Be Like This), From One Place To Another, Now We’re Here, Traveling (emotionally), Traveling (physically), Traveling (sonically), Navigating Inner and Outer Worlds in all directions, All Possible Realities, Reality Accelerators, Electric as Acoustic and Acoustic as Electric, Preheating Your Creative Mind, Solo Trips, Visual Music, Playing Not Notes, Expanded Realities, 'Going There' and Reporting Back, A New Type of Solo Guitar Album, Expanding the range of what the guitar can do, unique energy and Pacing, getting as close as I can to sharing the unedited feeling of aliveness in all ways, Understanding What I’m On The Planet For (this time), Searching, Finding Out/In, Epiphanic Score Music, (there are no limits)(redefine)(anything is possible), Sharp Turns, Tempos Implied with multiple overlaid + fluctuating/breathing tempos, Body Tempo, “The School of Freedom All Ways”, Planetary Chord Beam Echoing Throughout The Universe, I’m In The Ocean, I’m on Top of the Mountain, riding and creating waves, Honoring Intuition Immediately, (being) the space listening from, Guitar Solos, Fantastic Thoughts, Lions, Time Decoration, Scene Shredding, This Is Happening Now, All 1 Thing …

TRACK LISTING

1. For The Highest Quality Listener Testing The Limits
2. Sound Within Sound
3. Surfing, In Manhattan
4. Excellent Traveler Theme
5. Infinite Places Of Possibility / Horse
6. Continually Cresting
7. I Am In The Fire Place
8. Worlds Beyond (into It)
9. Worlds Upon Worlds
10. Watershed, In Oakland
11. Ears As Eyes (Benton, Tujunga, Mayer)
12. Immersive Realization Landscape
13. From One Place To Another
14. Juniper's Theme
15. DJinn'
16. Sky Spine Curving Into The Horizon
17. Awayness

Nonesuch Records releases Natalie Merchant’s Keep Your Courage, her ninth solo studio album and first of new material since 2014’s self-titled record. An eclectic album, produced by Merchant, it features two duets sung with vocalist Abena Koomson-Davis (Resistance Revival Chorus), contributions from the Celtic folk group Lúnasa and Syrian virtuoso clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and horn arrangements by jazz trombonist Steve Davis. There are lush orchestrations throughout by seven composers including: Gabriel Kahane, Stephen Barber, Colin Jacobson, and Megan Gould. Keep Your Courage comprises nine original songs by Merchant as well as an interpretation of ‘Hunting the Wren’ by Ian Lynch of the Irish band Lankum. The vinyl LP edition of Keep Your Courage includes four bonus tracks from earlier albums, previously unreleased on vinyl.

Merchant writes in her album’s liner notes, “The songs contained within this album were written and recorded during the global pandemic that began in the winter of 2019 and is in its fifth wave as I write, in the autumn of 2022. It has been, and continues to be, a period of great flux and fear on every level: global, national, communal, familial, personal. But this is not an album about the coronavirus or the chaos it caused. For the most part, this is an album about the human heart.” She continues, “The word ‘courage’ has its root in the Latin word for heart, cor, and we see it over and over in many languages: le coeur, il cuore, o coração, el corazón. This is a song cycle that maps the journey of a courageous heart.”

Over her forty-year career Natalie Merchant has attained a place among America’s most respected recording artists. She has earned a reputation for being a songwriter of quality and a captivating stage performer and has distinguished herself as a social justice and environmental activist. Merchant began her musical career as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the pop music band 10,000 Maniacs and released one platinum, two double-platinum, and one triple-platinum records with the group: The Wishing Chair (1985), In My Tribe (1987), Blind Man's Zoo (1989), Hope Chest (1990), Our Time in Eden (1992), and 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged (1993). Merchant left the group in 1994 and has subsequently released nine albums as a solo artist with combined sales of seven million copies: Tigerlily (1995), Ophelia (1998), Natalie Merchant Live (1999), Motherland (2001), The House Carpenter’s Daughter (2003), Leave Your Sleep (2010), Natalie Merchant (2014), Paradise Is There (2015), and Butterfly (2017).

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Big Girls (feat. Abena Koomson-Davis)
2. Come On, Aphrodite (feat. Abena Koomson-Davis)
3. Sister Tilly
Side B:
1. Narcissus
2. Hunting The Wren
3. Guardian Angel
Side C:
1. Eye Of The Storm
2. Tower Of Babel
3. Song Of Himself
4. The Feast Of Saint Valentine
Side D:
1. Spring & Fall: To A Young Child (2023 Remaster)*
2. Butterfly (2023 Remaster)*
3. Giving Up Everything (2023 Remaster)*
4. Frozen Charlotte (2023 Remaster)*

*Vinyl Only Bonus Content

First compilation album of works from Argentine synthesizer maniac Nacho Marty Meyer... Tip!

Since the 80's, Meyer has been interested in synthesizers and electronic music, and started making demos. The compilation includes the Italo disco track 'Magical Journey', previously released under the name Xarion, which is now a hard-to-find record.

Makoto (satoshi& makoto): "The sincerity conveyed in his work is very good and I love the primitive feel of the music."

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Primitive synth disco curio from Argentina that should appeal to fans of Patrick Cowley. T-Coy, Daniele Baldelli, Red Laser etc.

TRACK LISTING

Galeria Guizona
Turismos
Queen Africa
Journey To Love
Magical Journey
Fiesta De Animales
Afternoon Revelation
Stylos
The Sun Goes Down
CZ Funk
Orbitas

To say a lot has happened to Nathan Micay since the release of ‘Blue Spring’ four years ago is an understatement. Since the Canada-native turned Berghain-regular made the short jump from Berlin to Copenhagen after the pandemic, he’s been holed-up in a derelict studio complex to immerse himself in consecutive acclaimed soundtracks: multiple seasons of HBO/BBC award-winning drama ‘Industry’, the upcoming post-Trump feature ‘Reality’ starring Sydney Sweeney, and the highly anticipated HBO Original Documentary 'Time Bomb Y2K. His meteoric rise in the world of scoring has forced a break from the DJ circuit, but new tracks have debuted as VIPs through the sets of respected DJ peers Peach and Avalon Emerson, with clips from this album already closing-out festival stages to packed crowds. Having sharpened his proverbial sword he returns with his most ambitious offering yet. ‘To The God Named Dream’ takes inspiration from classic RPGs to present a haunted library record for the large language age. No longer solely gearing his music for clubs has proven a revelation for Micay. The result is a record equally at home in earphones as a PA. From the title down to every detail of the artwork, ‘To The God Named Dream’ represents a cursed library record, possessed by an interdimensional intelligence ripping though the sleeve. The vinyl art contains an original multiplayer board game, designed by LUCKYME® to accompany the album. “Jumanji meets Hellraiser.”

TRACK LISTING

1. My Sweat Dries With The Heat
2. You Can’t Win But You Can Lose
3. If Wishes Were Fishes We’d All Cast Nets
4. Fangs
5. This Is Killing Your Gainz
6. To The God Named Dream
7. The Death Of FOMO
8. Hexagon Of Death
9. It’s Recess Everywhere
10. When The Centre Doesn’t Move You’re In It’s Path
11. Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye
12. Fangs (Avalon Emerson’s Re-Chip Remix)

For Nicole Miglis, the multi-instrumentalist and voice of the beloved indie pop group Hundred Waters, writing the songs for her debut solo album Myopia evolved in bits and pieces: travel to a new city, gather field recordings, spark an idea, refine and repeat in an ever-changing order. Many of the songs poured out over the span of a few weeks, while the rich instrumentation developed patiently as Miglis tinkered with the layered soundscapes. Lived experiences recontextualized loose lyrics or snippets, letting the compositions grow organically. Her field recordings further modify the mood with their geography. Ambient street noise conjures visions of lovesick nights along moonlit city blocks, whereas plucking harp points to a restorative afternoon in the mountains; the sense of time and place is vivid. The result is her debut Myopia, an album that explores the complex intersections of desire, melancholy and identity while showcasing her mesmerizing ability to synthesize experimental production, pop melodies and classical form into a musical language completely her own.

Miglis’ musical career began in college where she met her future collaborators in Hundred Waters, the indie pop group with whom she wrote and co-produced three studio albums. The band and each of their releases received considerable praise from numerous outlets including Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NPR, New York Times and many more. After recording their last album Communicating, she found herself breaking off from the band and in search of what life could look like outside of the group. For her first solo album Myopia, Miglis was determined to write, produce and perform all of the songs herself. “A big part of this album was to see what I could do on my own,” she explains. “Especially coming out of Hundred Waters, where I was starting to have a bit of an identity crisis.” Although many of the tracks came together while still with the band, she found renewed creative vigor following her global tour as lead singer for Grammy nominated electronic musician Bonobo in 2022-23.

Throughout Myopia, Miglis crystallizes interwoven states of obsession, love and loss alongside an evenly eclectic array of sounds, both organic and digital. The album is the culmination of a lifetime of artistic endeavors, threading moments throughout her entire career into her most lush and compelling collection of songs to date. It blends textures and genres alongside instruments and influences—from pianos and strings to harp acoustics and ethereal loops—bridging the gap between classical and modern with an album poised to intrigue fans of electronic, orchestral and pop music alike.

TRACK LISTING

All I See Is You
Heaven Sent
City Rats
One & Only
Autograph
Lure
Silver Wild
Sleep All Day
Blink Of An Eye

Some wonderful piano solos and epic arrangements are the suprise ingredient on the new solo album from Spock's Beard vocalist Neal Morse. An assured and quality recording.

In collaboration with Nick Mulvey, Sharp’s Brewery is making music that will protect British coastlines from plastic pollution and reduce single plastic usage, in a music industry first. The Cornish Brewery and the Mercury Music Prize nominee have today released the first track pressed onto a record made from recycled plastic, which has been washed up on Cornish beaches.

Sharp’s Brewery and Nick Mulvey announced the first of its kind collaboration with the launch of the track, titled In the Anthropocene. Lyrically the song explores themes of responsibility and freedom in this time of urgent ecological and social crisis (and opportunity), aka ‘the Anthropocene’.

Proceeds from the track, including from sales of the limited-edition record pressed onto recycled plastic and digital streams*, will go to Surfers Against Sewage to help protect the Cornish coastlines from pollution, including plastic waste.

The launch of this innovative new ‘ocean vinyl’ comes after last year’s signing of ‘Keynvor’, the music artist’s name given to the Atlantic Ocean, by Universal Music.

The music industry is blighted by sustainability challenges from tackling single-use plastic cups at gig venues to unsustainable vinyl production practices. The new campaign from Sharp’s Brewery, and the first playable track made from recycled ocean plastic aims to give music lovers the chance to own something that’s made out of ‘single use’ plastic, that they’ll treasure forever.

Nick Mulvey, Singer-songwriter: ‘’I've always loved the wildness of the Cornish coast and it feeds something deep in me every time I'm there. My music is about knowing who - or what - we are, right at the core. Aliveness itself, conscious. These times of urgent global crisis are demanding we re-examine ourselves and the world and raise ourselves, individually and collectively, to match the Earth, this wonder-organism from which we are not, and never have been, separate.

Hugo Tagholm, CEO of Surfers Against Sewage: ‘We are excited to be partnering with Sharp’s Brewery again to raise vital funds to protect our coastlines from plastic pollution and other environmental hazards. Keynvor, as a musical artist, and the new ‘ocean vinyl’, which uses plastic pollution and turns it into something positive, is a powerful way to help us raise money and continue to spread our message.’

10th anniversary product suite for Nick Mulvey’s debut album, ‘First Mind’.

“Nick Mulvey’s debut is a charmingly simple and rarely produced album full of beautiful melodies, extensive guitar skills and exotic ryhthms – it feels like the missing soundtrack for the beginning of a perfect summer.” NBHAP

“A total package of pop hooks, instrumental genius and gorgeous rhythms, Mulvey presents us with an intelligent record that demonstrates his passion for sounds outside of insular scenes.” THE LINE OF BEST FIT

“‘First Mind’ is captivating, full of intricacies and influences that should see it celebrated as one of the great albums of 2014.” CLASH

TRACK LISTING

LP1 - Side A
First Mind
Fever To The Form
April
Juramidam
Cucurucu
Ailsa Craig
LP1 - Side B
Meet Me There
Nitrous
Venus
I Don’t Want To Go Home
The Trellis
The World To Me
LP2 - Side C
Nitrous (single Version)
House Of Saint Give Me
Juramidam (Charlie Andrews From Fever EP)
Look At Miss Ohio
River Lea
Vetiver
LP2 - Side D
We Are Never Getting Back Together (BBC)
Hold On We’re Going On Home (BBC)
Venus Demo (Will Ward)
The Trellis (Will Ward, Trellis EP)
Juramidam (Live From Cambridge)
April (Live From Cambridge)

To arrive at this album, the acclaimed artist and songwriter has come a long way – both experientially, musically and philosophically. Musician, composer and producer, Nick’s work pushes boundaries in songwriting and sound, music both traditional and experimental, acoustic and electronic. A founding member of the award-winning British collective Portico Quartet, he left in 2011 to concentrate on his own material. Once solo, he released the Mercury Prize nominated debut album First Mind in 2014, and 2017’s celebrated Wake Up Now, along with a number of EPs. On New Mythology, our shared humanity becomes common sense and this humanity and the natural world are enmeshed. The possibility of flourishing futures becomes real. The album explores the vulnerability of the everyday human experience; becoming a father, sickness and death, navigating the pandemic, but also Nick’s journey to compute the scope and scale of his feelings: an attempt to embody the personal all the way to the planetary – and grasp their true inseparability. ‘Star Nation’, and ‘Begin Again’ - released during the pandemic - both sow the seeds of this interconnected space.

New Mythology was recorded during the pandemic in Paris with renowned producer Renaud Letang [Manu Chao, Feist, Connan Mockasin] at Studio Ferber – which miraculously remained open whilst the city was in lockdown. Nick also credits his friends and family, teachers past and present who’ve helped him arrive at this point – from mentors like the Polynesian ambassador and elder Aunty Ivy, the life’s work of Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Berry’s collection of essays evening thoughts and Mac Macartney’s book The Children’s Fire. Further inspiration Nick credits to his beloved homeland of Britain, his ever deepening kinship to the land, ancestors and the living world. Now, Mulvey finds himself at the precipice of change and is ready to share his raw musings with the world.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Prayer Of My Own
2. Star Nation
3. Mecca
4. Brother To You
5. Shores Of Mona
6. The Gift
7. Sea Inside (Third Way)
8. Causes
9. Another Way To Be
10. Mona
11. Interbeing Part 1
12. Begin Again (Love You Just The Same)

Following the all-area smasher "Pinball" and super classy "EchoLow" Black Acre orphanage for sonic outsiders welcomes a true pioneer in the form of legendary DJ N-Type. "Dark Matter" is a departure from the DNA scrambling rippers we've come to expect without sacrificing any of N-Type's trademarked impact. Here he gets all Edgar Alan Poe on the beat as etheric winds slice into the sub and our nocturnal narrator depicts ghostly happenings. The heavyweight bruiser kick / snare tag team anchor the impossibly subtle midrange growl as bongolian tribalist procussion keeps the riddim rolling. Sprinkle some arpeggiated synthetic angel dust over the mix and you've got an original take on a well-practiced classic form. On the flip we unearth the long requested often speculated over "HP Sauce". This long awaited lost dub reeks of the sheer rudeness that kicked off modern dub music, lazer bass rips deep wounds into the rugged halfstep riddim and ultra low-end dabbling squeezes oxygen outta the dance. DJ support from Hatcha, Caspa, Walsh and Mary Anne Hobbs.

With a requisite crackle, hum and drone, you’re fixed to slide into the disrupture in stereo that is guitarist Bill Nace and — well, THIS is a nice surprise — Bill’s got his own record out this time.

Sweet — in the past 15 years or so, Bill’s been a trusty improv partner to so many: Steve Baczkowski, Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty, Greg Kelly, James Twig Harper, Samara Lubelski and Thurston Moore, plus - with Kim Gordon – in Body/Head, to name but a handful.

Bill’s appeared on probably more than 50 albums — but other than a few solo cassettes way back in the day, Both is his actual solo LP debut. It’s been a long time coming, and just like we hoped, with the Nace approach to electric guitar waxing front and center, sound and countersound, it’s a blast.

Working with producer Cooper Crain, Bill constructed Both with the ribs of composition protruding from his improvisational electron pool, pulsing with energies black and shiny, finding lots of sound and music in the process. The listening experience is only faux-monolithic — you can take it all in as a big noise thing if you want, but it’s much more rewarding to lean in and observe the variety of colors and spaces in the playing, how it breaks along discrete lines into alternating currents. The small details, like the crunch of contact between fingers and strings, the hum of the amp in a resting moment, the rhythm implied in a waveform and then pursued, all build up into melodies, climatic detours and underlying emotional expression before wiping into silence again. A real encompassing vision of what to do with a guitar in this day and age. Plus, you got cover artwork by Daniel Higgs.

TRACK LISTING

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

Heavenly Recordings release a 20th anniversary vinyl of Nada Surf’s classic album Let Go. This is the first time Let Go has appeared on Heavenly vinyl.

Let Go was the third album by the New York trio Nada Surf (Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, Ira Eliot). By the time it was released on Heavenly in the summer of 2002, the band had already witnessed a good deal of the highs and lows of the music industry, having had a breakout MTV hit before being dropped by their US label and having to go back to 9 to 5 jobs. Sessions were entirely self-funded, with the band paying the producers in dollar bills earned from the merch table at their shows.

When a cassette of the album initially arrived at Heavenly, it was with no preconceptions, just a “you’ll like this” nod from a mutual friend. And they were right. Let Go is a power pop masterpiece - all soaring melody and closing time melancholy. It quickly became the soundtrack to day and night in the office and on release picked up glowing reviews from Q (“melodic… mature… intelligent… wistful” 4*), Rolling Stone ("Nada Surf show enough smarts and panache to leave most of their Nineties-rock peers eating hot dust” 4*) and Entertainment Weekly (“a comeback effort that grows more popular with each spin”).

Twenty years on, Let Go is getting its first ever vinyl release on Heavenly. This new cut reinstates the UK tracklisting over four sides of vinyl (previous pressings were over three sides with one side left blank - us neither).

TRACK LISTING

A1 Blizzard Of ’77
A2 The Way You Wear Your Head
A3 Fruit Fly
B1 Blonde On Blonde
B2 Inside Of Love
B3 Hi-Speed Soul
C1 No Quick Fix
C2 Killian’s Red
C3 Là Pour Ça
D1 Happy Kid
D2 Treading Water
D3 Paper Boats 

Bittersweet anthems that begin quiet but explode into soaring harmonies? Check. Songs that are play-on-repeat heart punches? Check. Songs that are poetic and thought-provoking while also being absolute belt-at-the-top-of- your- voice-withthe-windows-down masterpieces? Check. It's all here.

For the past 30 years, Nada Surf has had the same core lineup: Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, and Ira Elliot. Moon Mirror, their frst for New West Records, was produced by the band and Ian Laughton at Rockfeld Studios in Wales. For the recording, Matthew, Daniel, and Ira were joined by their friend and longtime keyboard player Louie Lino.

'Moon Mirror' is a thrilling and moving leap forward for Nada Surf. The songs on the album are true to the human experience--as meaningful and mysterious and sometimes absurd as it is. There's love, yes, but also grief, deep loneliness, doubt, wonder, and hope. These are not the songs of a band in their 20s. There is hardwon wisdom here, and hard-won belief in possibility - the kind that comes from falling down and getting back up.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Huge swooning choruses and beautifully produced rock guitars, topped with Matthew Caws' unmistakeable vocals. It's brilliantly dynamic, and brings to mind all of the latent melodicism and perfectly optimistic phrasing of their early work. A perfectly balanced, warmingly familiar sound.

TRACK LISTING

1.Second Skin
2. In Front Of Me Now
3. Moon Mirror
4. Losing
5. Intel And Dreams
6. The One You Want
7. New Propeller /
8. Open Seas
9. X Is You
10. Give Me The Sun
11. Floater

2CD Bonus Disc Tracklist:
1. Second Skin (Demo)
2. In Front Of Me Now (Demo)
3. Moon Mirror (Demo)
4. Losing (Demo)
5. Intel And Dreams (Demo)
6. The One You Want (Demo)
7. New Propeller (Demo)
8. Open Seas (Demo)
9. Give Me The Sun (Demo)
10. Floater (Demo)

2LP Bonus LP Tracklist:
1. Second Skin (Demo)
2. In Front Of Me Now (Demo)
3. Moon Mirror (Demo)
4. Intel And Dreams (Demo)
5. The One You Want (Demo)
6. New Propeller (Demo)
7. Open Seas (Demo)
8. Give Me The Sun (Demo)
9. Floater (Demo)

Here to remind us that music is not just an audible experience, Minneapolis/New York’s Nadine make melodies that transcend acoustics. Their debut album oh my is collection of sophisticated modern pop songs that resonate in the gaps, the space between deadlines and timelines.

More akin to poetry set to music, Nadine is all about exploring feeling. Whilst most poets revel in the personal, Nadine's process is collaborative whose core is singer Nadia Hulett (part of the loose collective Phantom Posse) and Julian Fader and Carlos Hernandez (both of Ava Luna). The trio's practice is marked by their commitment to playfulness, curiosity, and fluidity.

Nadine's songs have one foot standing firm in pop, but ebb and flow with exploration and experiment. Polyphonic melodies swing and gambol, instrumental layers take generous flourishes and unexpected turns with an ear to the wondrous and occasionally weird, crafting jazz-tinged lounge-pop all held together by Hulett’s characteristic vocals, strong with a sincerity and gentleness that holds the listener. Let go of old ideas. Listen for tricks of the light. What does it feel like?

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
#53
Nook
Ultra Pink
Plinth
Not My Kinda Movie
New Step
That Neon Sign

Side B:
Pews
Contigo
Little Self In The Garden
Can’t Be Helped
Peace In The Valley

Here to remind us that music is not just an audible experience, Minneapolis/New York’s Nadine make melodies that transcend acoustics. Their debut album oh my is collection of sophisticated modern pop songs that resonate in the gaps, the space between deadlines and timelines.

More akin to poetry set to music, Nadine is all about exploring feeling. Whilst most poets revel in the personal, Nadine's process is collaborative whose core is singer Nadia Hulett (part of the loose collective Phantom Posse) and Julian Fader and Carlos Hernandez (both of Ava Luna). The trio's practice is marked by their commitment to playfulness, curiosity, and fluidity.

Nadine's songs have one foot standing firm in pop, but ebb and flow with exploration and experiment. Polyphonic melodies swing and gambol, instrumental layers take generous flourishes and unexpected turns with an ear to the wondrous and occasionally weird, crafting jazz-tinged lounge-pop all held together by Hulett’s characteristic vocals, strong with a sincerity and gentleness that holds the listener. Let go of old ideas. Listen for tricks of the light. What does it feel like?

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
#53
Nook
Ultra Pink
Plinth
Not My Kinda Movie
New Step
That Neon Sign

Side B:
Pews
Contigo
Little Self In The Garden
Can’t Be Helped
Peace In The Valley

Nadja’s latest full-length offering Labyrinthine, recorded during the pandemic and concurrently with their Southern Lord album Luminous Rot, finally sees a CD release on the band’s own label, Broken Spine.

Labyrinthine explores themes of identity and loss, monstrosity and regret, extreme asceticism, the differences between labyrinths and mazes, taking inspiration from Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore, Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Tombs Of Atuan, and Victor Pelevin’s reinterpretation of the story of the minotaur and Ariadne, The Helmet Of Horror.

While this might be Nadja’s heaviest, doomiest album to date, it is unique in the band’s extensive catalogue as each track features a guest vocalist: Alan Dubin, legendary American vocalist from O.L.D., Khanate currently Gnaw; Rachel Davies, vocalist and bassist from the British band, Esben & The Witch; Lane Shi Otayanii, a Chinese multi-media artist and vocalist in Elizabeth Colour Wheel; and Dylan Walker, American vocalist from grindcore / noise band Full Of Hell. Nadja has released numerous albums on many different underground labels—Alien8 Recordings, Daymare Records, Robotic Empire, Hydrahead Records, Gizeh Records, and Important Records, to name a few. The duo has toured extensively around the world, including performances at such festivals as SXSW, FIMAV, Roadburn, Donaufest, Le Guess Who, Incubate, and Unsound, and has shared the stage with such artists as Earth, OM, Khanate, Tim Hecker, Ben Frost, and Godflesh.

Mixed by DAVID PAJO (Slint, Tortoise, Will Oldham and more..) Nadja is a duo of multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker and bassist Leah Buckareff—active since 2005—and making music which can be described as ambient doom, dreamsludge, or metalgaze. Nadja’s signature sound combines the atmospheric textures of shoegaze and ambient/electronic music with the heaviness, density, and volume of metal, noise, and industrial. For their new album, Luminous Rot, the duo retain their overblown/ambient sound, and explore shorter and more tightly structured songs reflecting their interests not only in metal, but post-punk, cold-wave, shoegaze, and industrial. 

Thematically, Luminous Rot explores ideas of 'first contact' and the difficulties of recognising alien intelligence. This was in part inspired by reading such writers as Stanislaw Lem and Cixin Lui -- in particular, theories on astro-physics, multi-dimensionality, and spatial geometry in "The Three Body Problem" -- as well as Margaret Wertheim's "A Field Guide To Hyperbolic Space," about mathematician Daina Taimina's work with crochet to illustrate hyperbolic space and geometry.

The album was recorded between their home studio, Broken Spine Studios, or Nadja’s live rehearsal studio, both in the district of Lichtenberg, Berlin. Luminous Rot marks the first album mixed by someone else, who in this case was David Pajo. The band comment, “as big fans of Slint, we thought he might fore-front the more angular, post-punk elements of our music - the mix is quite different from our previous albums. But, as usual, we had James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD, etc) master the album as we trust his ears and aesthetic, as he's mastered numerous records of ours.”

TRACK LISTING

1 Intro
2 Luminous Rot
3 Cuts On Your Hands
4 Starres
5 Fruiting Bodies
6 Dark Inclusions

Marissa Nadler lays the listener - and herself - on the line with ‘July’, her sixth full-length album in nearly a decade.

Recorded at Seattle’s Avast Studio, the album pairs Nadler for the first time with producer Randall Dunn (Earth, Sunn O))), Wolves In The Throne Room). Dunn matches Nadler’s darkness by creating a multi-coloured sonic palette that infuses new dimensions into her songs.

Eyvand Kang’s strings, Steve Moore’s synths and Phil Wandscher’s guitar lines escalate the whole affair to a panoramic level of beautiful, eerie wonder. The results are astonishing and occasionally reminiscent of David Lynch.

Ethereal dream gloom from a voice so unique they had to create an entirely new genre to contain all four octaves.

Mixing classical music with synthesizer and acoustic guitar, Happy Rhodes’ ‘ecto pop’ never quite broke outside upstate New York, but that didn’t stop gothic Americana queen Marissa Nadler from reinterpreting ‘Where Do I Go’ in 2018.

Both the original and cover have been paired here, housed in an elegant black and silver sleeve, with embossed braille lettering for the visually impaired.

TRACK LISTING

Marissa Nadler ‘Where Do I Go’
Happy Rhodes ‘Where Do I Go’

The eighth album from Marissa Nadler, For My Crimes, is the sound of turmoil giving way to truth. The songs stare down the dark realization that love may not be enough to keep two people together through distance and differing needs. By asking these difficult questions about her relationships, Nadler has found a stronger sense of self and a sharper voice as both a songwriter and a vocalist, culminating in her most evocative entry in an already impressive discography. 

Following the release of 2016’s acclaimed Strangers, Nadler’s relationships were put to the test as she left the Boston area on tour. She wrote throughout 2017 about this tension, and ended up with three times as many songs as she needed. But after reviewing the demos with her co-producers Justin Raisen and Lawrence Rothman, Nadler wrote a flurry of tight but no less intense new songs in the week before arriving at Rothman’s Laurel Canyon studio, House of Lux, in early January. She considered it a challenge to herself, applying new strategies and structures to the craft of “slow music” she’s honed over the last 15 years. From that group of songs came nearly all of the singles on For My Crimes, some of the most indelible of Nadler’s career.

The opening title track is classic Nadler: a sweeping, vaguely Southern drama of voices, strings, and acoustic guitar, that walks the fine line between character song and personal indictment by metaphor. “For My Crimes” spawned out of a songwriting exercise in which Nadler wrote from the perspective of someone on death row, but the song casts a dark shadow over an album that turns marital conflict into inner reflection. Helping Nadler dig down into the song’s remorseful soul is her old friend Angel Olsen, who serves as a distraught echo from beyond in the chorus.

“Blue Vapor” has an intoxicating raw energy luring you in, somewhere between Springsteen and a grunge band playing MTV Unplugged back in the day. It feels at once tight and improvisational, balancing on little more than Nadler’s steady strumming and vulnerable harmonies with Kristin Kontrol (of Dum Dum Girls), until the heavy, purposeful style of Hole drummer Patty Schemel conjures chaos in the second half. This slow burn feeling is all too appropriate for a song centred around repeating patterns and creeping numbness in a relationship. “Blue Vapor” names that strange ambivalence and turns it into a chant that hangs in the air long after the song ends.

Dreaminess and eeriness have often been two sides of the same coin in Marissa Nadler songs. Where “For My Crimes” and “Blue Vapor” come from her dark side, the album has plenty of moments that twinkle in their sadness and sentimentality. “I Can’t Listen to Gene Clark Anymore” is one of those highly specific songs you’ll get if you’ve ever lost a favourite band to your own broken heart. It sways perfectly in its bittersweet-ness, like a slow dance you never want to end. After the strings swell and the bass pedals kick in, Nadler coos, “Cause I remember/The songs you sang/To me when it was you/I was falling for.” Later, closing track “Said Goodbye To That Car” turns a final odometer reading into a rhythm for a catchy, wistful hook: “1-1-9-6-5-7, and the engine blew/“1-1-9-6-5-7, and I thought of you,” Nadler lulls, harmonizing with herself. It’s an ingenious way to capture the end of an era in one small moment, and she moves as delicately as you would handling an old photo with her sweet oohs.

Bolstering the intimacy of these songs is the strong feminine energy that defined their recording. Between Rothman’s fluidity with both gender and genre (as heard on his 2017 album The Book of Law), and Raisen’s track record of successful collaborations with strong women (Olsen, Kim Gordon, Charli XCX), Nadler felt empowered to explore without judgement in the studio. With the exception of a single saxophonist, every player on the album is a woman of notable pedigree and distinct style, many of whom have played with Nadler over the years. In addition to the cameos by Angel Olsen and Kristin Kontrol, Sharon Van Etten sings backup on “I Can’t Listen to Gene Clark Anymore” and “Lover Release Me.” Mary Lattimore joins on harp for “Are You Really Gonna Move to the South,” while the great experimental multi-instrumentalist Janel Leppin plays strings throughout the record.

These women and others helped make For My Crimes as dynamic as it is intimate, but Nadler’s mesmerizing voice—stripped of nearly all reverb—is what sits at the center of these songs. You can hear the emotional range of her performances more than ever before, from the spectral harmonizing of “Are You Really Gonna Move To The South” to the cheeky boredom of “All Out Of Catastrophes,” two other highlights. As a singer, she has never sounded more confident than she does here.

Adding to the album’s deeply personal feeling is its abstracted artwork, featuring Nadler’s original oil paintings. Though Nadler is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and a semi-retired art teacher (she has one student left—a 95-year-old named Doris), For My Crimes marks the first album cover bearing one of her paintings. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Nadler has never failed to tickle the feels with her own brand of gothic acousticry, slowly morphing from quiet folk ballads into grand, echoic anthems. Layering Nadler's haunting vocals on top of each-other to great effect and underpinned with a spine-tinglingly haunting instrumental sensibility, this is without a doubt, her greatest work. Beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1 For My Crimes
2 I Can't Listen To Gene Clark Anymore
3 Are You Really Going To Move To The South?
4 Lover Release Me
5 Blue Vapor
6 Interlocking
7 All Out Of Catastrophes
8 Dream Dream Big In The Sky
9 You're Only Harmless When You Sleep
10 Flame Thrower
11 Said Goodbye To That Car

‘The Path Of The Clouds’, Marissa Nadler’s ninth solo album, is the most stylistically adventurous, lyrically transfixing, and melodically sophisticated collection of songs in her already rich discography. Gripped by wanderlust while suddenly housebound at the start of the pandemic in 2020, Nadler escaped into writing and came back with a stunning set of songs about metamorphosis, love, mysticism and murder. Blurring the line between reality and fantasy and moving freely between past and present, these 11 deeply personal, self-produced songs find Nadler exploring new landscapes, both sonic and emotional.

While she’s always been a brilliant guitarist, Nadler challenged herself to expand her palette for ‘The Path Of The Clouds’, experimenting with synthetic textures that make the album feel untethered from time and space. A majestic grandeur sweeps through songs such as ‘Elegy’, shooting the listener into the stratosphere as synths swirl and entwine with Nadler’s celestial mezzo-soprano. Nadler also learned to play piano during the pandemic’s isolation and she composed many of the songs on the album on keys rather than guitar, which further contributed to their exploratory feel. These songs are unmistakably Marissa Nadler’s, but they sound free to go places she’s never gone before.

Nadler tracked the skeletons of the songs at home and then sent them to some choice collaborators, including experimental harpist Mary Lattimore and Simon Raymonde, the Cocteau Twins bassist and her Lost Horizons collaborator. Multiinstrumentalist Milky Burgess, having recently worked on the soundtrack to the film ‘Mandy’, adds intricate melodic power throughout the album. Jesse Chandler, Nadler’s piano teacher (as well as a member of Mercury Rev and Midlake), plays winding woodwinds and plaintive piano to luminous effect. Fellow singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle contributes a slinky guitar solo on ‘Turned Into Air’, while Black Mountain’s Amber Webber steps in as a vocal foil to Nadler, a ghostly apparition in the distance of ‘Elegy’.

Seth Manchester, known for his work with Lingua Ignota, Battles and Lightning Bolt, mixed the album at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Manchester added dimension to the songs’ atmospheric beauty with screeching feedback and distorted guitars. Stripped of the ethereal reverb that often swaddles her resonant vocals, Nadler’s delivery now stings and pierces with newfound immediacy and confidence.

As a songwriter, Nadler is as direct and urgent as she has ever been. There’s no coded language amid the bleak lows and exalted highs of songs like ‘Elegy’, ‘Lemon Queen’ and ‘Storm’. Memories are painted with highly detailed imagery and Nadler, also a visual artist, uses that eye not only to tell a story but to transport the listener there.

‘The Path Of The Clouds’ showcases the power of an artist at the peak of her powers nearly 20 years into an acclaimed career as a songwriter and singer. Coming a long way from the spare dream folk of her earlier work, she has remained inspired and continues to evolve, open to new ideas and directions.

TRACK LISTING

Bessie Did You Make It
The Path Of The Clouds
Couldn’t Have Done The Killing
If I Could Breathe Underwater
Elegy
Well Sometimes You Just Can’t Stay
From Vaport To Stardust
Storm
Turned Into Air
And I Dream Of Running
Lemon Queen

For more than 12 years Marissa Nadler has perfected her own take on the exquisitely sculpted gothic American songform. On her seventh full-length, Strangers, released 20th May on Bella Union , she has shed any self-imposed restrictions her earlier albums adhered to, stepped through a looking glass, and created a truly monumental work.

Today Nadler has shared “Janie in Love”, one of her most texturally rich songs to date and one that updates her signature sound with some of the most prominently featured drumming of her career. Her talent for powerfully juxtaposing the ominous and the beautiful is on full display. 

In the two years since 2014’s elegiac, autobiographical “July”, Nadler has reconciled the heartbreak so often a catalyst for her songwriting. Turning her writing to more universal themes, Nadler dives deep into a surreal, apocalyptic dreamscape. Her lyrics touch upon the loneliness and despair of the characters that inhabit them. These muses are primal, fractured, disillusioned, delicate, and alone. They are the unified voice of this record, the titular “strangers.”

Once again partnered with July producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Black Mountain) Nadler has created an album equal in sonic quality to the apocalyptic lyrical tone that covers its 44 minutes. In places her voice and guitar play off subsonic synths, while elsewhere, a pulsing drumbeat launches the songs off into an intense, confrontational place. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Following 2014's 'July' is this outstanding offering from Marissa Nadler. Seamlessly segueing between melancholic off-kilter pop and plucked acoustic anthems without skipping a beat, this is an accomplished and startling stylistic journey, and a formative expansion of Nadler's already breathtaking musical palette.

Startisha introduces Naeem as a restlessly creative artist with an impressionistic, genre-bending album. As a complete work, Startisha exemplifies artistic daring and emotional intelligence while exploring new ideas and sounds, and philosophically excavating the artist’s histories. Startisha may be loaded with impressive collaborations and left-field sounds, but don't get it twisted—this music comes straight from Naeem's heart, representing the journey he's taken to get to this point as well as what lies in the future for him.

Baltimore-hailing Naeem Juwan has spent much of the last decade stretching his creative legs in a variety of ways: he's hit the road with artists ranging from the Avalanches and Bon Iver to Big Red Machine and Mouse on Mars, took part in a 37d03d residency in Berlin, and was selected as the music resident in 2019 for New York's Pioneer Works space. Through it all, he's been building the songs that make up Startisha, a record a half-decade in the making that featured Juwan pulling from creative circles all across the U.S. to craft a truly unique document of sound.

After studio sessions in Philadelphia and New York, Juwan decamped to Minneapolis and holed up in Justin Vernon's home studio, where Startisha continued to come together with contributions from Vernon, Ryan Olson (Gayngs, Polica), Swamp Dogg, Velvet Negroni, Francis and the Lights, and regular collaborators Amanda Blank and Micah James. The guest spots came together "very organically. I originally didn't want any features at all. Over time, meeting people and sharing the record with them, things just kind of happened."

For Juwan, the challenge inherent in Startisha was to “write songs from a personal place, and to write love songs – both things I’ve never done before.” The album kicks off with a gorgeous cover of the Silver Apples classic "You and I," reinterpreted for today's fraught times. He describes “Stone Harbor” as “a simple love song to my boyfriend, written in and name after the shore town he and his family spend their summers, Stone Harbor, NJ.” On “Simulation,” the album’s first proper single, Juwan offers a kind of treatise of creative resistance on art and culture. “I had been reading a few books, such as Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, and they helped me solidify feelings I’ve had all of my life about surviving a society of institutions that presents fictions as fact, and often use these fictions to diminish my worth, or to convince me to join their gangs. So I wrote this song to remind myself, and hopefully everyone that hears it, that nothing is real, and our greatest defense in this life is our own creativity, and finding great faith in whatever sigils and icons we choose to guide us.”

TRACK LISTING

A
01/ You And I
02/ Simulation (feat. Swamp Dogg, Justin Vernon)
03/ Let Us Rave (feat. Velvet Negroni)
04/ Woo Woo Woo (feat. Amanda Blank, Micah James)
05/ Us
B
06/ Stone Harbor
07/ Right Here
08/ Startisha
09/ Tiger Song

‘There are dreams that I still remember. Although it has been decades since I had those dreams, they continue to pulsate, circulating their pellucid blood, vital and fresh as if dreamt just last night’. Singing bowls, bronze bells and gongs resonate through the mindful layers of Japanese percussionist and ambient producer Kazuya Nagaya’s music. In Zen Buddhism, bells are believed to wash away the cares of the mortal world, as the listener follows the resonance of the bell into the silence and stillness within all beings. It is a penetration into the depths of one’s self.

Nagaya’s music is rooted in Buddhist (Zenzhu) philosophy and sensibilities unique to Japan. Concurrently, his work and interests are also contemporary and traverse a broad spectrum of cultures. ‘There are dreams that I still remember. Although it has been decades since I had those dreams, they continue to pulsate, circulating their pellucid blood, vital and fresh as if dreamt just last night. There is one thing I have known all along. Someday I will have to face the messages from my unconscious. I will have to decipher their meaning and change my life accordingly. The messages from my unconscious are like a knocking on the door of my mind. For many years the sound reverberated, but I payed it no attention’

Nagaya started out to pursue his talents in literature and is also an award-winning writer and a connoisseur on Japanese Literature, Buddhist Folktales and Zen Philosophical Works. These interests breathed life into his music, and the sensibilities and philosophical views which he developed during his literary years are now reflected in most of his music today. He spends half the week teaching courses at his University in Tokyo, and the other half composing and writing in his home in the Japanese Alps, where he resides with his wife, and many adopted cats and dogs. ‘Dream Interpretations’ was composed at a difficult time in Nagaya’s life. While he worked, he listened closely to the sound of the knocking that reverberated from the paths of his unconsciousness and transformed that into music. In other words, this music is his dream interpretation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautifully rich and hypnotic combination of traditional Japanese percussion, Buddhist bells and ambient beauty ripple through Naguya's work, which remains in motion without ever feeling hurried. Not entirely ambient, but thoroughly relaxed and wildly transcendent. Just listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. Thanatos
2. Mother Wading In The River
3. Dream Interpretation I
4. Tibetan Philosopher
5. Wolfman's Dream
6. Dream Interpretation II
7. Heathen
8. The Book Of Sunken Memory
9. Dream Interpretation I (Old Theatre Mix)

When it first slipped out in 2015, Manabu Nagayama’s ‘Light & Shadow’ passed most people by. Yet it’s a genuinely overlooked gem a musically expansive and uplifting Japanese deep house workout that first featured on a promo-only compilation back in 2015. A softly spun slab of slow-building brilliance full of fluid piano motifs, heady hand percussion, the track effortlessly sashays between heartfelt dancefloor melancholia and tactile deep house positivity. One DJ to see its potential was Rush Hour co-founder Antal Heitlager, who asked Masalo to remix it. Over ‘a few years’, Masalo worked on the revision in bursts, tweaking it and subtly altering the arrangement until he was happy. The results are undeniably impressive, elevating an already excellent track to whole new levels. DJs seem to agree, too, with Masalo’s fine remix becoming something of an underground anthem following the release of a limited number of white label test pressings earlier last year.

Taking the spiritual end of deep house as his inspiration – and happy memories of attending events while visiting Japan – the Dutch-Japanese producer has delivered a slowly-building epic that subtly ratchets up energy and excitement throughout, while effortlessly eking out every last drop of emotion from Manabu’s piano-laden production.

Extensively road-tested at the Brighter Days parties he runs with long-time DJ partner Kamma, Masalo’s remix settles into a chugging groove before introducing Manabu’s tactile hand percussion – a staple of spiritual deep house cuts – and melancholic piano refrains, as well as his own lilting chords and cascading synth sounds. By the time the original’s bouncy piano riff drops midway through, you’ll be lost in the music. Fittingly given the quality of Manabu’s original, it’s a revision that showcases the track’s best elements while gently lifting it to new heights.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Beautifully rich, emotive and textured deep house here - it's the Japanese formula alright, but we haven't grown tired of it yet! Masolo is on hand to elevate it to spiritual realms. Yep, we're onto a winner.

TRACK LISTING

Light And Shadow (Masalo Version)
Light And Shadow (Original Version)

First ever vinyl edition of this milestone album, cut at 45rpm in a double LP edition for maximum analogue fidelity. Housed in a heavy tip-on gatefold sleeve with UV gloss, strike-though matte varnish and embossed finishing.

Since their first album in 1995, Japan's Nagasi Ni Te has created an enchanting and deeply personal sound world woven from folk, psychedelia, and rock along with wistful melodies and gentle arrangements. Centred on Shinji Shibayama (Hallelujahs) and Masako Takeda's partnership, the group has created intimate, emotionally resonant music that floats and breathes with an ease that can only come from a sort of telepathic chemistry.

Nai Palm releases this deluxe reissue of ‘Needle Paw’ via Brainfeeder Records.

Naomi ‘Nai Palm’ Saalfield is the composer, guitarist and tour de force frontwoman of three time Grammynominated group Hiatus Kaiyote.

Nai and her group have been co-signed by Erykah Badu, accompanied by Q-Tip, and sampled by Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Anderson .Paak.

Upon its original release in 2017, Pitchfork gave ‘Needle Paw’ an 8.0, saying of Nai, “her performance as vocalist, producer, arranger, and musical director confirms her talents - and, in her interpretive care, reaffirms listening as an act of love.”

For fans of Erykah Badu, Moses Sumney, Little Dragon, Jordan Rakei, Nick Hakim.

“On her solo debut, Nai Palm abandons her band Hiatus Kaiyote’s expansive future-soul aesthetic in favor of acoustic intimacy; it is, above all, a testament to the power of the voice.” - Pitchfork (8.0).

“‘Needle Paw’ is a sea of vowel runs and stressed syllables, interwoven throughout angelic backing vocals and gospel-like notes.” - Billboard.

TRACK LISTING

Wititj (Lightning Snake) Pt 1
Atari
Crossfire / So Into You
Haiku
Mobius
Molasses
Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
Atoll
When The Knife
Blackstar / Pyramid Song / Breathing Underwater
Borderline With My Atoms
Homebody
Wititj (Lightning Snake) Pt 2

Geins't Naït returns to Offen, this time he enlists Scanner (living experimental electronics legend , Robin Rimbaud) to join him in his land of loop. These two veterans have clocked up many combined decades of experimentation between them, and this their first jointly composed material, has the feel of wisdom at work. It's a huge pleasure for Offen Music to release this special record.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Slow
A2. 65
A3. 63
A4. Slo1
B1. Miki
B2. Gilles
B3. OB

Surrender yourself into Naked Lights’ dark and intense orbit! From the first few seconds through to the end, On Nature is intensely addictive and welcomely unpredictable. Shades of post-punk, dub, even anarcho-punk are thrillingly blended into wholly futuristic shapes that defy easy categorization.

The cross-talking guitars speak their own thorny language, the atmosphere is wide-focus and carries a subtle tang of danger, and it’s topped off with unique vocals that are as in-your-face as they are intriguing and foreign. An altogether refreshingly vital listen, Naked Lights’ On Nature comes courtesy of Castle Face Records.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Carrion
2. Pictus
3. On Nature
4. Nicht Leiden
5. Hedges
6. Mechanical Eye
7. Blue Ink
8. Mostly Bag
9. Pool On A Platter
10. Clock Support
11. Silouette
12. Barrel
13. Peep Hole
14. Trepanning
15. Undo

An abrasive mix of the explosive and the melodic, the level of agression hints at a powerful live performance where the full naked spectacle can be appreciated.

Tight dynamic guitar driven songs from this local four piece who met at a Queens Of The Stoneage gig. There's an obvious influence from Josh Homme and co., but the songs are by no means derivative.

Vivien Goldman-style dubby post-punk synth pop.

With a handful of twitching insta-sketches, each addled with late-nite D.I.Y. quiver, the duo’s side-hustle sprouted in classical easy/cheap fashion [see the demo tape on their Public Nipples imprint for evidence].

As “global” concerns slowed, compatriots Michael Zamora (a superbly slanted multi-instrumentalist late of BAD BAD) and Alejandra Alcala (the region’s one true bass supervisor, also of bright lights BLUES LAWYER and PREENING) joined Sermeńo & Jordan as additional exposed flesh.

In full form, Naked Roommate has not only become a must-see, ever-evolving live act, but architects of Do The Duvet, one of the most intriguing and inspired recordings to come out of 2020’s American subterranea.

Do The Duvet proffers leftfield hijinks via punk execution, answering all the questions posed by questionable post-punk revivalism with sour lemon sneering and cherry-sweet smiles. It’s a fever dream, really…A flailing, sparking wire of hyper-compressed rhythms (breathing and synthetic), devolved guitar work and minced electronic compost. The resultant congealed groove is suitable for club situations and/or living space pulsations alike. Either way, the landlord is pissed.

Jordan’s beat programming, presumably inspired in part by recent obsessions with unjustifiably discarded electro sounds, manages to elicit physical response without veering into genre clichés like decay dance or Armageddon rave.

Instead, movement is prompted by sheer playfulness and high humour: see the sleepily sampled City sax on “Fondu Guru” or the comically taut bassline from “Credit Union”, itself a dreamwork born straight from a lovingly held-tight 99 Records 12”.

Thematically, Do The Duvet bounces between dissections of bourgeois trickery, the absurdity of domestication and the recognizable insanity of living in this particular age.As narrator, Sermeńo’s vocal presence is time-capsule great: a commanding grand-slam performance, alluring yet switchblade-dangerous in terms of wit and gaze. So totally wonderful.

What do you really own, anyway? What if your home does not even exist? Why not simply Do The Duvet and answer these queries yourself?
Mitch Cardwell 

TRACK LISTING

01. Mad Love
02. We Are The Babies
03. Fondu Guru
04. Credit Union
05. Je Suis Le Bebe
06. Fake I.D.
07. Fill Space
08. (Do The Duvet Pt. 2)
09. Repeat
10. (Re) P.R.O.D.U.C.E.