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ROB

This new and heavyweight 12" from Robot84 is a fresh fusion of Italo and house vibes that are defined by lively percussion, lush pianos, 808 drum fills, and an irresistible vocal hook. The original of this has already garnered attention with high praise from Manchester legend Justin Robertson who dropped it at a Hacienda 51 gig for its 30th anniversary. Sean Johnston, Heidi Lawden, Laurent Garnier and more have all also been playing it out recently which tells you all you need to know, really. Flip it over for a dubbed-out headwrecker that is just as good.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: The last Robot84 record has been flying off the shelves and I have a feeling that this one might prove similarly popular. The title might be slightly misleading though as Robot84 abandons the cosmic tinged sounds of 'Get It Right Next Time' for a prime time electro house pumper complete with piano theme and hands in the air breakdowns.

TRACK LISTING

Cosmic Accident (Full Vocal)
Cosmic Accident (Dubbed Out)

ROBOT84 Vs. The RAFF

Get It Right Next Time

London producer Scott Ferguson is the man behind the Robot84 alias. He has a love for 80s gear that very much defines the sounds he makes, from proto-house to darker disco. His self-titled label is back with more of that good stuff here as he faces off with The Raff for 'Get It Right Next Time'. This one has a creeping groove and warm chord sequences that tease and please beneath sweeping Balearic synths and celebratory melodic sequences that build to a crescendo. The drums get the hips swinging and the sprinkling of cosmic magic finishes it off in style making it a perfect cut for open-air dancing by the beach.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Proper cosmic hands in the air tune this. It's been flying out on preorder so get your hands on it quick!

Rob Mello

Electric Dreams / Oh La La

Rob Mello really needs no introduction, but you're getting one anyway. Rob has been instrumental in putting UK House music on the map since the early 90's. Numerous legendary projects and collaborations, including the enormous Disco Elements project with Zaki Dee & Reel Houze plus the exceptional, way-ahead-of-their-time, psychedelic disco / house jams via Sensory Productions; not forgetting his later, superb work for Classic.Oh and did we forget Black Science Orchestra? Yeah, he was there too.

So what do we have here? Rob revives his No Ears moniker for a duo of perfectly crafted dancefloor delights. Pieced together with diligence and more than a little trademark Mello funk, this is up there with his best work.

House hero, master craftsman and absolute gentleman. Get on it!



STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Rob Mello returns (coincidently the same week we get a new album from X-Press 2)! Reminding us why he is clearly one of the UK greats, two incendiary and highly grooving tracks that I challenge your gran not shake her hips to! I'm especially liking "Electric Dreams" which starts off a bit like "I Feel Love" but quickly transforms into a concentric carnival house frenzy!

TRACK LISTING

A. Electric Dreams (NoEars DUB)
B. Ohh La La (NoEars DUB)

Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek

New Future City Radio

    New Future City Radio, the first duo collaboration of longtime creative partners Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek.

    In a hyperactive 40-minute, 18-track suite that runs like a boombox mixtape, the two prolific multi-media artists contemplate community, transformation, and the future through the programmatic format of a pirate radio station for the people.

    These two artists have worked together from the peak days of the late 90s / early 00s Chicago music scene up through the present day, which has seen Locks featured as lead vocalist of the multiple critically-acclaimed Exploding Star Orchestra albums composed/produced by Mazurek. In recent years, Locks has also earned great renown from his revolutionary, expansive latter-day gospel/jazz project Black Monument Ensemble.

    New Future City Radio finds the duo creating a natural but innovatively-assembled blend of the sounds of those two projects, with Locks’s BME-style sample-based sound collage creating compositional beds underneath the signature Orson Wells-like vocal delivery he’s developed through his work with ESO, alongside Roland SP flourishes and arresting brass improvisations by Mazurek. The album is also filled with vignettes as fractured radio transmissions, featuring contributions by guests including Roberto Lange (Helado Negro) and Mauricio Takara (Sao Paulo Underground). It’s a deep avant-garde echo of the legendary Bomb Squad (Locks even sounding a bit like a tape-delayed Check D on the vox), with beat artifacts spanning the whole gamut from pre to post golden era hip-hop - mixing OG Brooklyn boombox sound with the sci-fi boom-bap of late 90s Def Jux and/or Dan The Automator’s 75 Ark.

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Martin says: Locks & Mazurek's ongoing collaboration results in an endlessly transforming dialogue, expertly crafted by these avant-garde jazz pioneers. It's free-flowing nature and organic drift is offset by the pirate-radio static and electronic glitch, a fascinating and terrific adventure.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. 5-4-3-2-1
    2. Yes!
    3. The Sun Returns
    4. Breeze Of Time
    5. Your Name Gonna Ring The Bell
    6. New Future
    7. Droids!
    8. The Concord Hour
    9. Future City
    10. 10mins Past The Hour
    11. Support The Youth (With Sound)
    12. The Beat
    13. Las Niñas Estan Escuchando (The Children Are Listening)
    14. Flitting Splits Reverb Adage
    15. Twilight Shimmer
    16. Suspense In The Grip Of Suspense
    17. Polaris Radio
    18. Drop

    Rob Grant

    Lost At Sea

      The father of Lana Del Rey.

      Rob Grant's debut album, Lost At Sea. An accidental recording artist, Grant has never had a lesson on any instrument in his life. No kind of formal musical training at all. He can't read sheet music. But when he sits down at a piano, something magical happens. Notes flow from him and out pours composition after composition.

      The father of international icon Lana Del Rey, he enlisted an array of talent to contribute to the making of the album. Features and writing credits include his daughter Lana Del Rey, while production credits include Jack Antonoff, Luke Howard, Laura Sisk, and Zach Dawes.

      TRACK LISTING

      Moon Rise Over The Ocean
      Setting Sail On A Distant Horizon
      Lost At Sea (feat. Lana Del Rey)
      The Texture Of Dreams
      The Poetry Of Wind And Waves
      A Beautiful Delirium
      Deep Ocean Swells
      My Deep Blue Dream
      Reflections Of Light On Water
      In The Dying Light Of Day: Requiem For Mother Earth
      A Delicate Mist Surrounds Me
      The Mermaids’ Lullaby
      Song Of The Eternal Sea
      Hollywood Bowl (feat. Lana Del Rey)

      Much about “Beat Bop” is shrouded in mystery. Who really produced it? Why was Jean-Michel Basquiat relegated from rapper on the track to drawing the cover and labels? What are they actually rapping about for most of the ten-minute length? These questions, however, are all part of the enigma and rich legend surrounding a song that is an undisputed piece of true hip-hop genius. The combination of graffiti artist Rammellzee and rapper K-Rob is a potent one, with each MC adopting a persona - hustler and B-Boy respectively - that they maintain against an unusual swirling backdrop that must be one of the best instrumentals ever committed to wax.

      The original Tartown Record pressing was limited to 500 copies, a mere test pressing in the eyes of the assembled artists, with scarcity further driven by Basquiat’s rising rep in the art world. Those few hundred copies - and a subsequent re-release on Profile Records (the same label where K-Rob played out the rest of his brief career) - punched well above their weight in terms of lasting influence.

      Consider the early vocal tones of the Beastie Boys (who also sampled the track), or the huge part it played in the sound of Cypress Hill and B-Real. His voice is almost homage to Rammellzee’s on “Beat Bop”, while they also lifted the chorus of “Shoot ‘Em Up” and even a sample of ‘Cypress Hill’ from the track too. It’s unsurprising - this is a multi-layered, complex song that reveals a little more of itself each time you play it but remains damn funky. This reissue boasts the vocal and instrumental versions in full, as well as both the full cover and label artwork from the original Tartown Release.


      TRACK LISTING

      Beat Bop (Vocal)
      Beat Bop (Instrumental)

      Robb Johnson & The Irregulars

      Pandemic Songs

        Packaging will be a gatefold card wallet & will include 16 page lyric booklet. Pandemic Songs is songwriter Robb Johnson’s chronicle in song of the unprecedented events of the first half of 2020. His critically-acclaimed family histories of the 20th Century Gentle Men & Ordinary Giants use song to dramatise past lives & narrate significant historical events & processes. Pandemic Songs uses songs to provide a media-free perspective of contemporary history, with thirteen tracks written between March & June of this year, that record & comment on the global pandemic, from Robb’s local UK perspective. The songs are angry, sad, affectionate, elegiac, satirical, anxious, & compassionate. They celebrate our lives in lockdown & the endurance of our keyworkers, & catalogue the vanities, incompetence, hypocrisy & failures of those in power. Pandemic Songs was recorded with a socially-distanced pared-down version of The Irregulars; John Forrester on bass & vocals, Arvin Johnson on drums, percussion & Spanish guitar, & Fae Simon on vocals. The result is a powerful, visceral album, a significant creative response to these very significant times. Robb Johnson is now widely recognised as one of the UK’s finest songwriters: 

        TRACK LISTING

        1. Saint Mary (a Fable About The Origin Of A Virus),
        2. Monday Afternoon In The Paris House (March 16th, & A Last Gig Before Lockdown),
        3. 422 (lockdown Has Begun),
        4. One More Lockdown Day (lockdown Continues),
        5. 5373 (the Number Of Deaths From COVID 19 Continues To Rise),
        6. 89p (the Government Responds By Promoting A Care Badge),
        7. Disinfectant (President Trump Promotes A Cure),
        8. The Highlight Of My Week (the Weekly Lockdown Shopping),
        9. All The Bells Were Ringing (the Nightly Lockdown Dreaming),
        10. Lockdown Jokes & Stories (three Sad Stories- Belly Mujinga, Railworker, Mervyn Kennedy, Bus Driver, Louisa Rajakumari, Teacher, & One Bad Joke – Dominic Cummings Drives To Durham) 
        11. Victory In Europe (May, & The UK Achieves The Highest Rate Of COVID 19 Deaths In Europe),
        12. The Days We Don’t Forget (a Proper Remembrance)
        13. In Palmeira Square (June 17th, & Lockdown Is Ending)

        Rob Burger

        The Grid

          R.I.Y.L. Harmonia, Roedelius, Cluster, Dustin O’Halloran, Goldmund, Popol Vuh, Brian Eno.. Rob Burger’s talents as an arranger, composer, and keyboardist have been nurtured by morethan two decades of contributions to a diverse roster of recognizable names, at the very least including John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, and Iron & Wine with whom Burger presently records and tours.

          His new album The Grid combines neo-classical soundscapes, ‘70s kosmische, and jaunts of 20th-century exotica into a completely unique genre-quilt that synopsizes his long musical trek through multiple cities, scenes, and sounds. A lifelong musician, Rob began learning piano at age four and would go on to study under jazz luminaries Max Roach, Archie Shepp, and Yusef Lateef at the University of Massachusetts. As if his formal education weren’t impressive on its own, his informal one consisted of frequent visits to New York City creative hubs The Knitting Factory, and The Kitchen, where Burger became a fly on the wall to the likes of Arthur Russell, David Byrne, and Laurie Anderson (Burger would go on to contribute to Anderson’s 2010 album Homeland). Anderson appears on The Grid’s ninth track “Souls of Winter”).

          With the avant-garde door having long been kicked open, Burger relocated to the Bay and made a lasting impression upon the area’s music scene with his group Tin Hat Trio, while furthering his session and film-score work adjacently. When that group disbanded in the early ‘00s Burger found himself back in NYC where playing a Neil Young tribute show would entwine his path with that of Sam Beam (Iron & Wine). From then on, Burger has been an inextricable component of Beam’s live band and discography. Somewhere in the interim the growth of Burger’s family and his yearning for quieter climes led him to Portland, Oregon, where he built a studio, amassed an enviable collection of vintage keyboards, and began sowing the seeds of The Grid. Burger’s mysteriously upturning chord-changes express depth and melancholy without ever fully straying from a sense of curiosity and charm making the somber moments believable and palatable, as indicated in the album’s first moments. The Grid rolls in on a cloud bank of old-world sorrow with its piano and accordion prologue “Alternate Star,” but by the initial note of the second-track “Harmonious Gathering” all the sonic elements, dusty drum machines, choral keyboard patches, and rubberized synth bass seem to be smiling in glorious unison. This song, as well as the title track that shortly follows it, hint at what it might sound like if Harmonia had stayed intact and were scoring A24 films. 

          Rob

          Rob

            The Accra-born pianist and frontman only released a few albums in small quantities, yet two of them are among the most sought-after records from 70’s Africa. This was the first.

            So what do we know? After learning his craft in Benin and playing with the likes of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, ROB returned to Accra to write his own material and find a sound. Hooked on the driving funk and raw soul of stars such as James Brown and Otis Redding, he would often imitate his heroes on his father’s piano during school holidays.
            The title track sets the pace with a JBs-like rhythm, ROB almost shamanic with his sparse yet commanding vocal. The organ and wah-wah guitar spin us out before those imperious horns bring us back in.
            And what better way to close this set than with ‘More’, swept up in a call and response between Rob and his backing singers as a ‘Blow Your Head’ synth flares and the brass blasts. Good times guaranteed. As the man himself says, “Funky music is in my blood. What you hear is the coming out of my mind.” No one sounds like Rob, because there is no one like Rob.

            STAFF COMMENTS

            Patrick says: Mr Bongo come through with an official reissue of one of the finest Afro-funk records ever - Rob's 1977 self titled winner. Arguable the hottest Ghanaian record of all time!

            TRACK LISTING

            Funky Rob Way
            Forgive Us All
            Boogie On
            Just One More Time 
            Your Kiss Stole Me Away
            More

            Rob

            Make It Fast, Make It Slow

              Soundway re-issue Rob’s second album for the first time outside Ghana.

              Rob was an enigmatic recording artist from Ghana who cut two albums for the legendary Essiebons label in 1977. Neither of these were big domestic hits at the time and have since become prized amongst collectors in recent years. The title track from this LP was always one of the most popular on the first Soundway release "Ghana Soundz" and over the years the label have been asked many times to re-issue the LP in its entirety. A stranger, slower offering than his more dancefloor funk-laden and Spartan first LP, this record sees Rob in similar territory but with the tempo switched down and the introspection turned up.

              Rob’s trademark horns dominate and are supplied by the Mag-2, an army band founded by leader Amponsah Rockson, who named it after the army unit the band played for - the “magnificent” second battalion. In 1977, Rob traveled to the coastal town of Takoradi in search of Mag-2, which had an entire section of its line-up dedicated to horns, with the intension of laying out his proposal to them. Luckily for Rob, the band took him up on it.

              With religious overtones and a broody, slightly off-key atmosphere at points it’s certainly one of the stranger Afro-funk records to come out of West Africa but with tracks like "Loose Up Yourself" and "Make It Fast, Make It Slow" he nails it for sure.


              In the true maverick spirit of being modern young men with modern young fringes and fresh open minds Rob The Rich say they are influenced by what they are currently listening to, which happens to be Rihanna, Beyonce, Yeasayer, Arcade Fire and Phoenix. More specifically Rob The Rich say, "We think Born Ruffians and Beirut are really good and like to think we have a wee bit of both in our quietly aggressive tropical pop music." Wise words indeed. And it is this very tropical pop music which has seen them nab support slots with Jack Penate, Pete & The Pirates, Everything Everything and other such fragrantly inventive spirits.

              Rob Marr

              Addicted To Drama

              "Addicted To Drama" is Rob Marr's debut. Produced by Lou Reed's musical director Rupert Christie and Gorillaz bassist Al Mobbs, these four stunning tracks offer up a thick slice of Rob's unique take on love triangles, safety pins and dirty weekends. With its dynamic use of piano-based melodies, soaring harmonies and eloquent lyrics, "Addicted To Drama" is as crisp as a freshly laundered pillow case.


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