Sole Aspect takes us around the world and to the studios of artists based across Madrid, Switzerland, Los Angeles and Detroit on The Mystic Embrace EP. Opening it up is Ernes Joey & Robbin Hauz with 'U Should Know' (feat Shea Doll - Age Of Rage remix) which is a version by Dubbyman alongside Dan Piu with some delightfully jazzy keeps, seductive deep house drums and aching vocals full of heart. The original is a stripped-back sound with less melodic luxuriousness but the still superb vocal front and centre. Dubbyman then mixes Klima Project's 'Sweetback' into a mid-tempo, cuddly back room deep house sound and Patrice Scott Reshapes it with some crystal-cut synth lines that bring cosmic charm.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Ernes Joey & Robbin Hauz - "U Should Know" (feat Shea Doll - Age Of Rage Remix)
2. Ernes Joey & Robbin Hauz - "U Should Know" (feat Shea Doll - Original Mix)

Side 2
1. Klima Project - "Sweetback" (Dubbyman Mix)
2. Klima Project - "Velvet Moon" (Patrice Scott Reshape)

Fresh off a rework of Papa Levi with single Ribena, London’s jungle pioneers 4am Kru drop their highly anticipated debut album “Incognito Rhythm” featuring all the tracks that have cemented their reputation as the go-to act for raw, live jungle music.

Having already taken the 2024 festival circuit by storm with appearances at Outlook Origins, Boomtown, Boardmasters, Reading+ Leeds, The Blind Tiger, Parklife Waterworks, Boundary and a milestone Saturday night closing set at Glastonbury’s Temple Stage, 4am Kru continue to draw audiences into the madness of their raucous blend of 1993-1994 influenced jungle. First bursting onto the scene post-lockdown, the falling monitors and flying bodies of their shows were particularly thrilling for ravers who had turned 18 in isolation.

Originally developing their live sound in indie bands while sharing a studio in Tottenham, the duo quickly realized that the traditional DJ set couldn’t contain the energy of their act. They have since surrendered to the chaos of their incredibly physical performances, nursing chipped bones and back injuries, deep finger taping, chalking up and wearing shoes designed for skipping rope whilst rewiring what it meant to move their bodies. Their innovation extends to the equipment, with the duo reinventing a way to deliver their signature throbbing basslines with a Roland SPD SX drum pad as thick as a car tire. Their upcoming UK tour this October promises to further showcase their immersive, disruptive sound.

4am Kru’s latest single “Ribena” breathed new life into Papa Levi’s iconic British reggae classic “Militancy” following the release of hard-hitting “Wutt” this past July, setting the stage for their most ambitious project yet. Their debut album draws from a wide range of influences in addition to 4am Kru’s signature blend of 90s jungle flavours, from obscure slow jam R&B like Angela Bofill, Janet Jackson and Prince, early hardcore bands like Hüsker Dü, off kilter Scottish folk, and even classical music. The project is a snapshot of the incognito, nocturnal world that the duo have dwelled in for the past two years, a time capsule of well-worn songs played between midnight and 4am. An extraordinary debut, 4am Kru’s” Incognito Rhythm” is an immersive, razor sharp, face melting journey through their show-stopping live sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Do not sleep on this one junglists! The most arresting live act the scene's had a for a while (just check out their vids on youtube). Igniting freshness and fun into a genre oft accused of taking itself to seriously. This is the dog's bollox!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Incognito Rhythm 
A2. Things To Do Remix (With Drama1) 
B1. Just Saw Johnny 
B2. Deepest Darkest Jungle 
C1. High Time 
C2. Ribena (With Papa Levi) 
D1. Beautiful Thing (ft. Pinty) 
D2. All I Need In This World Is You 
E1. Wutt 
E2. Pianos Raining Down (165 TO 134 BPM MIX) (With McDonald & Jannetta)
F1. Ooh Boy 
F2. Sound System Love 

Limited Edition of the UK #1 2004 album ‘Out Of Nothing’ by Embrace. The band’s first release signed to London’s Independiente label includes UK top 20 singles “Gravity” (no. 7), “Ashes” (no. 11), “Looking As You Are” (no. 11) and “A Glorious Day” (no. 28). Embrace’s highest selling album certified at 2 x Platinum in the UK, will be reissued as a limited edition – 20th Anniversary - red and black splatter 1LP for National Album Day 2024. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Ashes
2. Gravity
3. Someday
4. Looking As You Are
5. Wish 'Em All Away
6. Keeping
7. Spell It Out
8. A Glorious Day
9. Near Life
10. Out Of Nothing

Embrace have quietly created an admirable body of work without fuss or the internal friction that has dogged so many bands of the era - They were founded by the McNamara brothers, singer Danny and guitarist Richard in 1990 in Baliff Bridge, West Yorkshire - Joined by bassist Steve Firth, drummer Mike Heaton and keyboard player Mickey Dale, the line-up has remained stable ever since.

Signing to the ultra-cool Fierce Panda label, the group's debut single All You Good Good People was to become a UK Top 10 hit in October 1997, eight months after its first release, when it was reissued by Virgin offshoot Hut Records. As a result, their debut album, The Good Will Out was eagerly anticipated. Released in June 1998, over its hour, it showcased a range of styles and approaches. From the tender ballad Fireworks to the anthemic title track, the singles My Weakness Is None Of Your Business and Come Back To What You Know, the album's 14 tracks represent an accomplished, beautifully crafted body of work. It is easy to see why Chris Martin of Coldplay (who supported Embrace on tour in 2000) is such an admirer, among many others.

In many respects, Embrace form a trilogy with two other great northern groups of the time, Oasis and The Verve – yet they were no junior partners: The Good Will Out fully captures the scale of their ambition.

It is presented with scrupulous attention to the detail of the original UK first pressing and available in audiophile 180gm vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. All You Good Good People
3. My Weakness Is None Of Your Business
4. Come Back To What You Know
5. One Big Family
6. Higher Sights
7. Retread
8. I Want The World
9. You've Got To Say Yes
10. Fireworks
11. The Last Gas
12. That's All Changed Forever
13. Now You're Nobody
14. The Good Will Out

Talking about the album, Richard said "Whenever we put out a new album it's always a really big deal to us, we put everything we have into it. We know that there's something about what we do that people love, that they just don't get from other bands. It's like a pact, they want us to be intimate and personal and autobiographical, but they also want us to be confident and rousing and anthemic. It sounds like a contradiction, but I think when we're at our best we somehow pull it off. I think in that sense this album is the most Embrace album we've ever made".

Meanwhile the band have announced tour dates in support of the new album, including their biggest London show in over 17 years at Brixton Academy on Friday 9th September, a venue the band last played in 2005. Produced and mixed by Richard McNamara at Magnetic North Studios the new album is the follow-up to the band's 2018 Top 5 album, Love Is A Basic Need.

TRACK LISTING

Death Is Not The End
We Are It / Up 
Remember Me
The Terms Of My Surrender
Run Away With Me
Rubble
How To Be A Person Like Other People
I Miss You
For Kate

20 years into their recording career Embrace are making an epic and emphatic return with their seventh studio album. With three #1 albums, six Top 10 singles, sold out arena shows and over two million album sales behind them, Embrace returned to the music scene three years ago with their Top 5 self-titled album Embrace. Already being hailed as a return to “classic” Embrace, new album LOVE IS A BASIC NEED was recorded in the first half of 2017 at the band’s own Magnetic North Studio, produced by Richard McNamara. With tracks such as the emotive and powerful Never, LOVE IS A BASIC NEED sees Embrace return to the classic sound that first made us fall in love with them. The album’s overriding theme is one surrounding love and Danny McNamara says; “We set out to make an album where every song on it would stand up against the best songs we’ve ever written, and I’m pretty confident we’ve done just that.”

Three years have passed since Correatown released the critically acclaimed dream-pop album ‘Pleiades’. Highline are proud to announce the release of her follow up, ‘Embrace The Fuzzy Unknown’.

Having built a fanbase with her debut album ‘Spark. Burn. Fade’, Correatown’s listeners continued to grow through her work in TV and film music and her collaboration with Tom Brosseau as Les Shelleys. ‘Pleiades’ saw Correatown expanding both her global audience and her sonic horizons.

Correatown’s new album reflects and revels in change and evolution. Songs wonder about purpose, wonder about the future and wonder if this is all that there is. Without answers to these questions, the music implores us to ‘Embrace The Fuzzy Unknown’.

The album was produced by Angela Correa and Dan Long (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Son Volt, TV On The Radio).

Correatown’s music has appeared on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, ‘Ugly Betty’, ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and ‘Private Practice’ and films ‘The Lucky One’ and ‘Admission’.

Beautifully crafted ethereal pop music that will appeal to fans of Feist, Regina Spektor and Best Coast.

TRACK LISTING

Eyes To The Sky
Longshot
Small Hours
Bonfires
True North
Lucky Ones
All Horizon
Wind Sprints
My Girls
Babybird (Wonder And Dream)

For the returning Embrace, a 7 year hiatus was precipitated by the most commercially successful high-point in their career, having notched up another No.1 album and scored their highest placing in the UK singles chart, the band simply decided to head back home to their roots in West Yorkshire and take a clean break. Curious behaviour, for a band whose debut The Good Will Out was one of the fastest-selling British albums ever.

With the self-titled new album Embrace, the band have mined their very essence and delivered a piece of work that unearths the core of what Embrace have always been about – skyward-bound music of the soul that reaches far beyond life’s parameters. As a group, Embrace have always inspired a fervid and devoted following –not because fashion dictated but because theirs was always a sound and a voice that elevated while, paradoxically, grounded that feeling in something that was real – the band simply would not compromise on their output, not anymore. It had to feel right.

While the new record does contain the kind of soul-bearing honesty and vertiginous, life-affirming choruses that typifies their music – with the new album an element of raw darkness lurks with almost conspiratorial glee beneath – with The Good Will Out as their songs of innocence, Embrace encapsulates their songs of experience.