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HI-RYZE

A highlight of the post-millennium Underground Resistance catalogue, "Hi Tech Dreams" is composed by Mad Mike and is meant to inspire inner city kids to shun previous idols that further the capitalist manifesto, and instead look towards the future for increased information flow and social-political improvement. As usual, it's a wonderfully hard hitting message from the always political and pioneering Detroit camp.

"Hi Tech Dreams" on the A-side is rightfully celebrated as a pure vision of techno - even though it completely neglects tropes that would go onto inform the modern version of business techno that tastelessly fills stadiums of clueless phone-gazers devoid of soul and feeling. It's a true mastery of machines, squeezing ounce upon ounce of funk out of a reduced array of instruments.

On the flip "Hold My Own" slows the tempos and deploys a dystopian sound palette, tearing down the past and reducing all preconceptions to almost tangible audio-rubble. It's a stark contrast to the view of futuristic optimism displayed on side A and somehow perfectly encapsulates the political fire of Mike Banks and company without voicing any (comprehensible) lyrics. He lets the machines do the talking, and they speak a thousand words!

"Lo-Tech Reality", featuring vocals from Agent Chaos puts a definitive full stop to the philosophy; utilizing humming circuits and neck snapping drums to really hammer home the message of inequality and deprivation in certain urban areas.

Real top drawer tackle from 2007, repressed and ready for today's interstellar fugitives.


STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Peak Mad Mike business here. One of my favourite releases by the Underground Resistance figurehead. "Hi-Tech Dreams" is the very epitome of Detroit techno - funky, futuristic, and draped in a moody shadow. Perfecto!

TRACK LISTING

A. Hi-Tech Dreams
B1. Hold My Own
B2. Lo-Tech Reality

Waajeed’s 2022 long player, "Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz", was an aural love letter to his hometown of Detroit; an amalgam of the city’s history, coalescing the personal, political and, of course, musical past.

From the Motown soul assembly line to J Dilla’s musically dense hip-hop to The Stooges’ proto-punk to the birth of techno, the music of the Motor City has spread across the globe inspiring countless artists who in turn went on to create their own forms and genres.

Emulating this movement and transmutation, the "Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz Remixes "12” sees artists from three continents repurpose elements from across the LP, transforming them into productions stamped with their own trademark styles whilst retaining the spirit of each original:

The UK’s Mark Broom loops sections of "Right Now" while speeding up the BPM for a classic UK-style techno remix. Ghana-born Yazzus takes on "The Ballad of Robert O’Bryant" adding a surprising number of twists and turns for a five-and-a-half-minute piece. Australians Jensen Interceptor and Assembler Code close the 12” out with their take on the album’s title and opening track neatly closing the loop, bringing us full circle to the start of the LP.



STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Techno heads got plenty of get excited about here as three producers get to grips with tracks off Waajeed's seminal LP. Hard to pick a favourite but the uplifting glow and tribal energy of that Yazzus remix certainly has me bum shuffling in my seat this afternoon.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Right Now (Mark Broom Remix)
B1. The Ballad Of Robert O'Bryant (Yazzus Remix)
B2. Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz Ft. Black Nix (Jensen Interceptor X Assembler Code Remix) 

Second one from the Omar S signed, Detroit bass supergroup Hi Tech who seem to be piquing the interest of DJs and music lovers right across the board - including one Mr. Luke Unabomber! An intoxicating mix of booty, bass, tech and Motor City attitude; it's both alluring, cheeky and arresting in equal measure. It features a wealth of talent from the D - including Fullbodydurag, JMT, DJ Killa Squid, Quikkash, Milfie and many more. Some of the subject matter might seem a bit dated to us Woke UK residents, but the production chops more than make up for it. Especially in the thick, claustrophobic, inner city air smothering tracks like "Nu Munni", "Clap That A$$" and "Zooted".

Other tracks like "Shrimp N Grits", "Birthday Pearls" and "WhyYouFuggMyOpps" probe that skitty footwork / juke vibe wonderfully; with ghetto raps to make you blush. Then there's the totally batshit ones like "Glitch N Ass" (!!), (apologies) "Pocket Pussy" and "TakeOffOnnaPorsche". It's certainly an explicit and divisive selection from these rising street superstars! 


TRACK LISTING

1. Nu Munni
2. Money Phone
3.Clap That A$$
4. Shrimp & Grits
5. Zooted
6. Whyyoufuggmyopps
7. Glitch N Ass
8. Birthday Pearls
9. Pocket Pussy 
10. Takeoffinnaporsche
11. Teetees Dispo
12. No Games 

Following the intergalactic odyssey of their first release, Hi Quality Records are back for round two. Switching to hyperdrive for another blast round the sun with two feel-good, cosmic channelling, disco burners from the mighty More Amour aka Artwork and Jon Solo.

Cruising out across the cosmos ‘Solar Flair’ is a sublime slice of boogie brilliance, with an infectious bassline and keys to match. Turning the heat up to 10 with Jon Solo on the solos, spiritually working those keys as Artwork conjures up his magic at the production controls. If you could drop the top on this spaceship and roll those windows down, this is definitely the groovin’, head bobber you’d have soundtracking your beam across the interplanetary highways.

With that non-existent breeze flowing over your spacesuit, ‘Heatwave’ ramps up proceedings on the B side. A funk-fuelled trip where sweltering Rodgers-esque riffs and slap basslines dance around string stabs and smile-inducing chords, with a signature spellbinding synth solo to top it all off. Break glass in case of emergency, this is your ticket out of any subdued dancefloor.


TRACK LISTING

A1. Solar Flair
B1. Heatwave

Thievery Corporation

Sounds From The Thievery Hi Fi - 2022 Reissue

    The debut album from Thievery Corporation was released in 1997 as a first-of-its-kind electronica record. The phrase “trip-hop” was coined in 1994 during the influx of alt-rock techno music and perfectly describes the acid-jazz tracks that make up the album. With a blend of lounge, electronic, and folk influences, this is a listening experience that caters to everyone. The remastered album features signature track “Shaolin Satellite” and bonus tracks “Sun, Moon, and Stars” and “Sleeper Car.”

    TRACK LISTING

    Side A:
    1. A Warning
    2. 2001 Spliff Odyssey
    3. Shaolin Satellite
    4. Transcendance
    Side B:
    1. Universal Highness
    2. Incident At Gate 7
    3. Scene At The Open Air Market
    4. The Glass Bead Game
    Side C:
    1. Encounter In Bahia
    2. The Foundation
    3. Interlude
    4. The Oscillator
    5. Assault On Babylon
    Side D:
    1. .38.45 (A Thievery Number)
    2. One
    3. Sun, Moon, And Stars
    4. Sleeper Car

    More Amour

    Nightshift / Don't Look Down

    Hi Quality Records hit the grounding running with their first release, a spellbinding, full frontal, double disco workout of original material from More Amour.

    A melding of the minds of two longtime friends, Artwork and Jon Solo, More Amour kick things off with the peak time cosmic warper ‘Nightshift’. A cross-Atlantic cocktail of intergalactic synthwork, beefy drums and celestial pads with an extra shot of disco in there to keep you grooving till the early hours.

    Flip it to find a Balearic boogie beast in the form of ‘Don’t Look Down’. Full of brain-spangling synths and blissful chords that will have your mind riding off into the sunset before that keytar solo blasts you into another dimension.

    Package includes free peel off kiss-cut sticker.

    TRACK LISTING

    A1. Nightshift
    B1. Don't Look Down

    Mungo's Hi-Fi X Kiko Bun

    Miss Burnett

      After his silky-smooth vocal feature on Eva Lazarus’ Light As Feather, it was inevitable that Mungo’s Hi Fi would pursue a project with London-based pure sing-jay Kiko Bun.Ms. Burnett is an ode to a lady friend of distinction, atop a dreamy major key rhythm whose bass-heavy clarity could have come out of Jamaica’s Channel One studio in its glory days. 

      TRACK LISTING

      A1 - Mungo’s Hi Fi X Kiko Bun - Miss Burnett
      A2 - Mungo’s Hi Fi - Burnett Version

      Ty Segall

      "Hello, Hi"

        The man in the tree has a guitar, he’s gonna sing. But the sun shining through the branches— are those rays yellow or hazy gray? What day is today? When are you not going to feel this way again? “Hello, Hi”: welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again.

        Absurdity again. It happens everyday. “Hello, Hi” is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. Busting out of the endless gridlock into open space, these spirits pass on through. “Hello, Hi”’s flickering awakening to this trip: the opening three tracks’ train of sweet and salty reflections, before the abrupt crunch of the title track electrifies the senses. Good morning’s turned to good mourning in nothing flat, but there’s still a way up from the doldrums, to try again. Why can’t it be just as simple as “Hello, Hi”? What to do with yourself when love triggers loathing? How many more times do you have to go back there again?

        Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater favored for warmth, comfort, protection, rejection, denial, blindness etc, Ty Segall dives from a clear, open sky, down through the marine layer and the shimmering waves of all the years. Radiating from the same mind fields as Goodbye Bread and Sleeper, mixed with shard edges of contrast and contradiction from things like Freedom’s Goblin, Manipulator, and First Taste, “Hello, Hi” is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout “Hello, Hi,” Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.

        STAFF COMMENTS

        Barry says: It's clear that Ty Segall have always been, and always will be one of the most propulsive and groundbreaking forces in modern music. 'Hello, Hi' looks to continue this streak of excellence, both wildly inventive and highly intricate, it's a riff-lovers dream.

        TRACK LISTING

        1. Good Morning
        2. Cement
        3. Over
        4. Hello, Hi
        5. Blue
        6. Looking At You
        7. Don't Lie
        8. Saturday Pt.1
        9. Saturday Pt.2
        10. Distraction

        Daniel Johnston

        Hi, How Are You - 2022 Reissue

          Remastered for vinyl and re-released by Daniel's own label Eternal Yip Eye Music. This is a limited pressing.

          ‘Hi, How Are You’ is best known for its artwork - from a mural in Austin and on to a T-shirt worn by Kurt Cobain.

          ‘Yip/Jump Music’ was amongst Kurt Cobain’s most beloved albums of all time.



          TRACK LISTING

          1. Poor You
          2. Big Business Monkey
          3. Walking The Cow
          4. I Picture Myself With A Guitar
          5. Despair Came Knocking
          6. I Am A Baby (In My Universe)
          7. Nervous Love
          8. I'll Never Marry
          9. Get Yourself Together
          10. Running Water
          11. Desperate Man Blues
          12. Hey Joe
          13. She Called Pest Control
          14. Keep Punching Joe
          15. No More Pushing Joe Around

          R.E.M.

          New Adventures In Hi-Fi - 25th Anniversary Edition

            25th-anniversary edition of R.E.M.’s tenth studio album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi. First released in 1996, the album was R.E.M.’s last studio recording with founding member Bill Berry who left amicably the following year. As the band’s fifth collaboration with long-time producer Scott Litt (Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People and Monster), the album experiments with new sonic textures, filled with cinematic imagery, dissonant notes and haunting effects. The platinum-selling title includes the singles “Electrolite,” “E-Bow the Letter” (featuring Patti Smith) and “Bittersweet Me,” and represents R.E.M.’s longest studio release with a total run time of 65 minutes. New Adventures in Hi-Fi grew to cult status years after its release, with several press retrospectives—and band members themselves—ranking it among the top albums in R.E.M.’s recorded catalogue.

            Various Artists

            Hi Tide Groove

              THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AS PART OF THE SEPTEMBER 26TH DROP DAY AT 6PM.
              LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.


              Kickin presents Hi Tide Groove, DJ's choice 1969 - 1981, selected by Daisuke Kuroda.A collection of Hi Records singles from the famous Al Green and Ann Peebles, to the obscure African and Jean Plum.180 gram color vinyl

              Chie Mukai & Justin Simon

              Hi Tsuki

              Mesh-Key treats the open minded listener with a lavish, limited edition run of this heretofore unheard collaboration, finally seeing the light of day 15 years after its recording. Acoustic instrumentation and synthesizers meet Mukai’s haunting voice for four sparse, minimalistic compositions unlike anything in either artists’ previous output.
              Chie Mukai is a composer and musician from Osaka, Japan, best known for her underground improv-folk group Ché-SHIZU (PSF), which she founded in 1981. In addition to her song-based work, Mukai has been an active improviser since 1975, when she joined the East Bionic Symphonia group under the leadership of Fluxus violinist-composer Takehisa Kosugi at the Biggako Art School of Tokyo. She has since collaborated with Keiji Haino, John Duncan, Agata Morio and many others. Her primary instrument is the bowed Chinese er-hu, but she also plays piano and percussion.

              TRACK LISTING

              1. Sugita Hi No
              2. Hi Tsuki
              3. Nami No Hate
              4. Untitled 

              Prince Fatty Versus Mungo's Hi Fi

              Prince Fatty Versus Mungo's Hi Fi

                Mr Bongo is extremely proud to announce the much-anticipated release of the next installment from the legendary Prince Fatty. This time Prince Fatty is up against the mighty Mungo's Hi Fi Soundsystem.

                Prince Fatty is a group put together by producer and engineer Mike Pelanconi, (whose credits include Lilly Allen's smash 'Alright Still' and Little Barrie 'Stand your Ground' ). The group also includes; Little Roy, Bubblers from the Ruff Cut Band, Style Scott from the Roots Radics, Winston Francis and Hollie Cook. Prince Fatty has worked with the likes of Bukky Leo, Nostalgia 77, Prince Buster, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Studio One and won't disappoint the lovers of the early 70s sound.

                Mungo's Hi Fi champion the evolution of reggae, dub and dancehall music and are re-invigorating soundsystem culture. They have developed formidable live shows, collaborating with foundation legends like Ranking Joe, Sugar Minott and Sister Nancy as well as top vocalists on the scene at the moment including Charlie P, Solo Banton, Mr Williamz, YT and Scotland's own lyrical lassie Soom T.

                Stagecoach is a pop rock band from the south of England, with a smashing debut album and UK tour coming in May. Huw Stephens span their single 'Map To The Freezer' exhaustively on both his Radio 1 shows. He then invited the band to play the BBC Introducing stage at Reading & Leeds 2010, before naming Stagecoach one of his BBC Introducing acts of the year. In February 2011 the band recorded a live Radio One session at Maida Vale. You may have heard Stagecoach on BBC One's ‘Gavin and Stacey’ Christmas & New Year specials. Channel 4 also used them on season 2 of ‘Skins’. Two of the band’s tracks feature on the international trailer for this year’s breakout British comedy ‘Killing Bono’. The band recently toured with friends Johnny Foreigner, Glaswegian rockers Twin Atlantic and opened for Jimmy Eat World. With a handful of singles and ep's released through indie labels Alcopop! and This Is Fake DIY the first full length album (produced by Rory Attwell) is due early 2013.

                For fans of: Johnny Foreigner, Pavement, Fight Like Apes, Wilco, Los Campesinos, Prefab Sprout Big melodic gutsy slacker pop!

                TRACK LISTING

                1.) Work! Work! Work!
                2.) Action
                3.) 56K Dial Up
                4.) A New Hand
                5.) Threequel
                6.) Kings Resolve
                7.) First And Last
                8.) Nothing Leads You Astray
                9.) We Got Tazers
                10.) I’m Not Your House
                11.) Video Shop

                The Visitors

                Hello Moon / Hi

                The Visitors are a four piece from Manchester. Hooked on a 70s rock groove, watching you through Bowie's eyes and fuelled by a Muse injection. They are smooth, racy, melodic and spacey.

                The Hi Pass

                Tin Pot Orphan

                  An unsigned band, of whom we know very little i'm afraid!!

                  Agents Of Groove

                  EP 1

                    Three tracks of pith and vinegar - punky but not punk, funky but not funk, heavy but not rock - but a bit of all three - all at once - all the time. On the Manchester / Bolton label Team HiFi.

                    Hirameka Hi Fi

                    Sprezzatura

                      Debut full length album from Hirameka Hi-fi. Great Sonic Youth / Gang Of Four influenced, jagged, dischordant guitar songs.


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