Since the release of II, Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas have remained more than busy with their respective solo careers, but work on III was taking place behind the scenes the whole time—slow and steady by sending files back and forth. "There's a different process with every album," Thomas explains. "With the first two albums, we had a door between separate rooms in the studio, so I could open my door and play him something. We also toured together a lot after the first album, and after that experience we realized that we work better together at a distance. We're doing our best work by not worrying too much about what the other one of us is doing."

Eventually, the bulk of III came together over the last year, as Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas teamed up to craft a lush and lovely work that recalls the hazy atmospherics of Air, the loose-fit jazz of Lonnie Liston Smith, and the genreresistant electronic music that both artists have made their name on over the course of their impressive careers. "Our partnership is very democratic—we never turn down each other's ideas. And if it goes wrong, we blame it on the other guy," Thomas says with a laugh. "The tracks that Lindstrøm sent me this time were almost like standard house tracks. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do, so I forced those tracks into new shoes and dresses."

Above all else, III is a testament to the adventurousness of Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas when it comes to soundcraft. Both artists have established separate careers on bodies of work that feature infinite twists and turns, thrilling their audiences with the suggestion of where they've been and where they're about to go. Together, they've crafted what might be their most beguiling and inviting work yet, a jeweled box of electronic music ornately crafted but never losing the sense of playfulness that so many have come to love from them.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There are few better collaborations I could imagine than these two veterans of the electronic music landscape. We get the housey styling of Lindstrom perfectly invigorated with the beachside balearic groove and airy ambient bliss of the Prins. Exacty as gorgeous as you would expect.

In 2007 Lindstrøm had just created his masterpiece Where You Go I Go Too, a 3 track long disco epic. Just for fun he made a version of Little Drummer Boy in the same style, with his signature cord-stacking cosmic disco/kraut. The result - a 43 minutes version - he just gave away through Soundcloud. It has since become something of a X-mas cult classic. And in 2019 The Guardian voted it the 20th best X-mas song ever. So we though it was finally time to put it out on vinyl. The original is now 21 minutes, shorter and more concise, and B-side comes with a brand new 13 minutes long bonus disco-remix version.

Not content with somehow topping her debut LP with last week's superb "Inner Song", K-Lo keeps us cooking with a limited 'Love Record Stores' white label of disorienting club cut "Melt!" with a completely ketty mix from Coby Sey. 

On the A-side, Kelly's OG comes on strong at a rushy 130BPM, twisting our melons with the crystalling cascade of its leadline and sumptuous sub pressure of an interlocking bassline. When taken with the fact that the hard hitting drum programming sounds like it's thumping out of an unlikely "fortress of solitude" rave, this has entirely hallucinatory effects. 

Meanwhile on the flipside Whities affiliate and NTS standout Coby Sey puts on the brakes / downs the benzoes to slow the track to a shuffling 104BPM before slicing and dicing that signature synthline into an intoxicated stutter. Essential listening for fans of Madteo me thinks.

Kelly Lee Owens' masterful second album "Inner Song" finds the convention-blurring techno producer and singer/songwriter diving deep into her own psyche—excoriating the struggles she's faced over the last several years and exploring personal pain while embracing the beauty of the natural world. It's a leap in artistry from a musician who burst forth on the scene with a confident, rich sound, and "Inner Song" is endlessly enticing when it comes to what Owens is capable of.

"Inner Song" follows the star-making debut of her 2017 self-titled album, a quixotic blend of body-moving beats and introspective songwriting that garnered numerous accolades from the music press. Owens has indeed come a long way from her background as a nurse, since then she has remixed Bjørk & St Vincent, released an indelibly clubby two-tracker, 2019's "Let It Go" b/w "Omen," and teamed up with likeminded auteur Jon Hopkins on the one-off "Luminous Spaces."

Her latest album also comes off of what Owens describes as "the hardest three years of my life," an emotionally fraught time that, in her words, "Definitely impacted my creative life and everything I'd worked for up to that point. I wasn't sure if I could make anything anymore, and it took quite a lot of courage to get to a point where I could make something again." So while the lovely cover of Radiohead's "Arpeggi" might strike some as an unconventional way to open a sophomore effort, to Owens the winding take on the classic tune—recorded a year before work on "Inner Song" properly kicked off—represents the sort of sonic rebirth that's so essential to Inner Song's aura.

"Inner Song" was largely written and recorded over a month last winter. As with her debut, Owens holed up in the studio with co-producer and collaborator James Greenwood —and letting loose in the studio and being open to whatever sonic whims emerge was essential to Owens' craftwork. The evocative title of the album is borrowed from free-jazz maestro Alan Silva's 1972 opus, which was gifted to Owens by Smalltown Supersound's Joakim Haugland for her 30th birthday: "I'm so grateful for him and his perspectives—he's always thinking outside of the box. Those two words really reflect what it felt like to make this record. I did a lot of inner work in the past few years, and this is a true reflection of that." The hair-raising bass and tickling textures of "Inner Song" drive home that, more so than ever, Owens is locked in to delivering maximal sonic pleasure—as evidenced by the decision to make the album's vinyl release a sesqui album, or triple-sided album: "I'm still obsessed with frequencies that don't do well on vinyl if they don't have the space."

"The power of conceptualizing who you are has really informed this album," Owens states about Inner Song's essence, and her second album is truly a discovery of self— the latest statement from a fascinating artist who continues to surprise, gesturing towards a rich and varied career to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Three years on from her championship season and KLO returns to the long format with a deeper, more refined distillation of her trademark techno pop style. If her debut album delivered on the promise of those early singles, ‘Inner Song’ offers us a dizzying premonition of just how far she could go.

By her own admission, this album emerged after the hardest three years of her life, and even a cursory scan of the lyrics hints at a little darkness before the dawn. “‘On” and “L.I.N.E.” explore the end of a troubled relationship, “Melt” references the climate crisis and “Wake Up” warns against extended screen time. Rather than wallowing in the melancholy though, Kelly strikes an optimistic tone, serving a resilient reminder that we all have the power to overcome adversity, mirrored in the vital beats and healing frequencies which underpin her emotive songwriting.

Much like Arthur Russell, an early inspiration, Owens revels in the space between genres, providing a fresh perspective on established styles. Crystalline electronics sit beneath a shoegaze shimmer on “Night”, the bastard offspring of the Cocteau’s and Kraftwerk in a fresh pair of dancing shoes. “Re-Wild” splits the difference between futuristic RnB and taut Detroit techno, a new Minimal Nation woozy on lean, while “Jeanette”, a celebration of the life of her nan, renders an organic landscape in precise electronics.

On this complex yet cohesive album, Owens tackles serious subject matter with poetic sensitivity, pop hooks and thunderous beats, all the while retaining the ethereal beauty of her Welsh heritage.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLove Record Stores LP Info: LRS Purple Vinyl.

2xColoured LP Info: White vinyl edition.

A lot has been written about seminal Norwegian black metal band Mayhem but André Bratten’s new record for Smalltown Supersound surfaces a little known story about the group

In 1986-87, years before their 1993 debut record, guitarist Øystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous) took a musical pilgrimage to Germany to solicit collaboration with one of his musical heroes. Øystein, who tragically was destined to be murder by former member Varg Vikernes in 1993, bought an Interrail ticket and travelled from Norway to Germany to seek out experimental musician Conrad Schnitzler. Conrad was the founder of West German Krautock incubating club the Zodiac Free Arts Lab in West Berlin in 1968 and a former member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster (key experimental groups in the development of industrial music and Kosmiche electronic music).

Øystein sat outside Schnitzler’s house and refused to leave until he was allowed in to talk. His persistence paid off, with Schnitzler surprisingly agreeing to write a piece of music for Mayhem. The piece of music became “Silvester Anfang”, the first track and introduction to Mayhem’s classic debut “Deathcrush”. A detailed percussive number, Mayhem still open their heavy live shows with this music today.

When Mayhem founder Jørn “Necrobutcher" Stubberud told the story behind “Silvester Anfang” to Bratten at a party, they immediately had the idea that Bratten should remix or rework this little known track. Totally absorbed in the sounds of Schnitzler and its strange and unusual pairing with Mayhem, Bratten started out with a plan to make one remix. He ended up with a series of tracks inspired by both Schnitzler's intro and the sounds of teh debut record “Deathcrush”. The results transpired into a mutation of Conrad Schnitzler, Mayhem and André Bratten.

“Silvester” is Mayhem and Schnitzler reimagined. Or deconstructed and then rebuilt. However you term it, a remix turned into a new André Bratten unlike any he has recorded before, haunted by the echoes of Mayhem’s grisly legacy as well as Klusters early industrial music’s concrte looped experiments. 5 new tracks and 50 minutes of new music. An album of abstract freeform structures morphing elements of kraut, techno, ambient, black metal, industrial, minimalist and drone. A perfect fusion of two dystopian extremes of Norwegian underground music.

Matt Karmil's fifth album is a meditative collection of woozy loops and soft focus house. STS371 is the follow-up to IDLE033, - - - -, ++++ and 2018’s acclaimed Will.

Matt Karmil is British born – growing up in the rural town of Salisbury, near Stonehenge. Suffering a prolonged illness as a child, he spent much time indoors whiling away the long hours by playing with a classical guitar. Eventually he was well enough to see the world that had almost left him behind, and he spent his early twenties as an international traveller, DJing, record collecting and working as a producer-engineer in London, Paris, Stockholm and Berlin. In 2012 he decided to settle on Cologne – a city famed for its excellent club scena and ultra-minimal take on techno via the collective of artists and producers around the Kompakt label.

With a studio established in Cologne, Matt made his LP debut with the well received (but hard to Google) ‘----‘, combining dusty samples and elegant tape hiss with scuba-diving grooves and minimalist vibes. In the same year he released the jubilant club anthem ‘So You Say’ on Tim Sweeney's Beats In Space label and remixed John Talabot and Axel Boman's (Talaboman) single ‘Sideral’. Recent years have seen a raft of new releases from Matt, remixing XPress 2 for Skint, the albums idle 033 and ++++, as well as 12”s for Yumé Records, Idle Hands, Endless Flight and Studio Barnhus, received with great reviews in publications from The Wire to Resident Advisor and beyond. 2016 also saw Matt much in demand for his skills in engineering, mixing and mastering, working extensively with Matias Aguayo for Crammed Discs, Kornel Kovacs for Studio Barnhus and Talaboman for R&S, among many others. At the invitation of artist Christine Sun Kim, Matt composed a sub-20Hz piece for Bounce House at Sound Live Tokyo 2015, while his video collaboration with Boston’s MIT Media Lab, Time Moods, was premiered in late 2017.

Norwegian producer Carmen Villain follows up last years cosmic beauty - Both Lines Will Be Blue - with a remix mini-album. Curated by Carmen, she asked some of her favourite producers to pick a track from the album to remix, which resulted in this collection of 6 tracks and 31 minutes of cosmic/dubs, featuring club ready tracks by Parris and Karima F., deep atmospheric reggaetón by DJ Python, fourth-world jams by D.K. and Yu Su and a far out dancehall dub by Jay Glass Dubs

Tokyo's Yoshinori Hayashi lent his unique approach to sound design (think Romare as experienced through granular lens of a K-hole) to a slew of fire labels (Going Good, Jinn, Gravity Grafitti and Disco Halal for instance) before arriving on Smalltown Supersound for his debut LP "Ambivalence" in 2018. Now the Scandinavian label return to that experimental assemblage of library sounds, electronic textures and fringe dancefloor arrangements with a pair of remixes from Scando legends Prins Thomas and Bjørn Torske.
The Full Pupp impresario is first to the oche (we've been watching the PCD so apologies to any non darts fans) twisting "0208" into a suitably extensive, expansive and heady slice of hypno-house. The cosmic leanings of Thomas' early days remain but transformed into a super deep house chugger, built around an acid bassline and shuffling polyrhythms. As the story breaks, Thomas lets loose with the lysergic and organic elements of the original, Japanese microtonality and strange sound design, before layering an uplifting bed of synth strings to take us soaring through the mid-point. But the ecstasy only lasts so long, and soon we're wheeling through spooky idents and shadowy synth tones, heads down for a spell before the final burst of serotonin rinsing happiness.
Flip it for another long form freak-out, this time from the always brilliant Bjørn Torske. Tackling "Geckos", Torske turns out a cooly cosmic caper around the 100 bpm mark, locking in the hypnotic combo of stabbing keys, simple perx and infectious bass early, then playing with frequency manipulation, sound design and dub fx to take us to the Dagobah swamp lands. Chiming bells add their own spaced out shimmer, particularly in the chakra cleansing breakdown, before the second half spirals up into the heavens.

All killer, no filler, cosmic dancers.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Yoshinori Hayashi has become a go to producer for outer realm house music, and Smalltown Supersound could hardly have chosen a better pair of remixers. Thomas drops acid and ecstasy on a hypnotic cosmic house stomper, while Bjørn Torske keeps the tempo low and the vibe swampy on a stunner for the slo-mo crowd.

Prins Thomas released his 6th solo album" Ambitions" in 2019 - and as always with Prins Thomas the album is just the beginning of the journey. Now he is releasing two 12"s with remixes from the album. On this, the second 12", Isolée has remixed the title track "Ambitions" into one of his idiosyncratic, cerebral house movements; accentuating the hypnotic nature of PT's original with new digital interferences and glitched percussion. There's also another 12" version of "Urmannen" by Prins Thomas on the flip side that rides soft 303s and dreamy atmospheres into a searing air guitar solo; utilizing a cushioned sonic play area for maximum enjoyment and sensual play.

Mega mega mega, as always from the Smalltown Supersound crew! Tip! 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: 2nd volume of "Ambitions" remixes and old glitch house royality Isolée is invited in for fun times. That new version of "Urmannen" ain't half bad either - gerrit in the bag pronto!

This EP is Hayashi's release sincehis debut LP Ambivalence. Hayashi has studied under Japanese avant-classical composer Mica Nozawa. When not DJing,he works in a record store in Tokyo. Thus far, Hayashi has released a string of 12”s on labels including Going Good Records, Jinn Records, Lovers Rock, Gravity Grafittiand Moscoman’s Disco Halal. Previous work by Hayashihas been called “a complex patchwork of studio gear, live instruments, dusty jazz records and smartly cut library sounds, whose textures are soft and inviting. But its arrangements are constantly ruffled, squeezed, brushed and pinched—which is to say, nothing stays still for long”.

“I felt totally unrestrained making this album” says Lindstrøm about his 6th solo album On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever (a title inspired by the 1970’s musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever starring Barbra Streisand). “I’ve listened to Robert Wyatt’s solo albums and his Matching Mole’s debutalbum a lot lately. It so effortless, fearless and free. And not insisting. I was very inspired by this”

In the autumn of 2018, Lindstrøm composed a commissioned piece for Norway’s premiere art centre Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. Sketches from the three sold-out performances became the foundation for the new tracks. “I decided to keep some of the initial ideas and develop them further. All the songs are based on long one-take recordings”, says Lindstrøm “Also I’ve been very conscious about the music on the album not exceeding the length of the physical limitations of the vinyl-format, finding that 2 long tracks on each side were the perfect balance for this album”

This is also the first time ever Lindstrøm has made an album entirely with hardware instead of computer-plugins. He utilised thirty plus synthesizers and drum-machines during his performance at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. The experience inspired him to embrace a similar set-up when making the album. “The joy of making music on actual physical objects and devices makes a lot of sense to me now. After working on a computer for over 15 years, I don’t think I’ll ever look back” he says with an almost childlike excitement.

It was the accessibility to his enviable collection of music gear – largely consisting of sought after synthesizers – that allowed Lindstrøm to experiment so freely with ideas and soundscapes. “The title track is a 10-minutes improvisation on the Moog Memorymoog. I liked the loose feel so I decided to keep everything unedited. The other tracks were written and arranged prior to the recordings. I then set up the instruments needed for my sessions, then recorded more or less everything in a single take. I’m really happy with the way this album came together.”

Lindstrøm has cited classical music as an inspiration the last couple of years “I used to study classical music at school. Back then I was listening to a lot of Opera, orchestral music and solo music on the piano. Listening to classical music again has been a revisit to my childhood days, just like I did when I embraced the 80s in the early 2000s”. Once embracing the freedom and the joy of making music without inhibitions, immersing himself in to the physical realm of making music with hardware, Lindstrøm learned something new not only about music – but about himself. “I guess I've been trying to re-educate myself”.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Clear vinyl.

Following 2017’s Infinite Avenue and 2013’s Sleeper, Both Lines Will Be Blue is Carmen’s first full instrumental album. A 7 track collection of cosmic excursions and dubby ambient-jams, the album is written, recorded, played, produced and mixed by Carmen in her Oslo studio. The soothing atmospherics are made up of tapestries of field recordings, synths, piano, drum-programming, zither and modular sounds. Throughout, Carmen’s music is colored by experimenting with different sounds and learning new techniques or by adding new instruments to the mix

"I’ve been playing around with instrumentals for a long time, and it was something I wanted to do more with after I finished Infinite Avenue,” says Carmen. “Leaving out my voice and lyrics got me out of my own head a bit, which I needed. Working with sound is to me the ultimate meditation and is a more unconscious way of expressing whatever is going on inside.”

The flute, played by Chilenean-Norwegian Johanna Scheie Orellana (formerly of Sassy 009), is a central part of this new album. Carmen got her in to the studio to both record melodies that she had written, as well as making plenty of room for impro/freeform. Prins Thomas also appears on the record, playing percussion on “I Could Sit Here All Day.”

“I made this track based on a Roland SH-101 sequence run through various processing,” says Villain. “The whole thing came together kind of like a jam, I wrote the flute in one take, and it just felt right. I wanted real flute on this, so asked Johanna if she'd like to come in, and we've been collaborating ever since.”

"Ambitions" is Prins Thomas’ 6th album and his second solo album for Smalltown Supersound (plus two duo albums with Bjørn Torske and Bugge Wesseltoft). "Ambitions" picks up from were he left off with "Principe Del Norte". Still ambitious, but the tracks are shorter, more melodic and more concise. Prins Thomas also offers up his first vocal track, lead single "Feel A Love." Or to be precise, it's based around a sample of the track "Feel A Love" by one of the biggest pop-stars in Norway in the 70s and 80s, the late Alex (Naumik).

”The sun rises, the sun sets. This collection of new songs wasn't intended as an album at first. It gathers up loose ideas sketched down on my computer or hummed into my handheld recorder in the last 2 years with a shifting work environment, from hotel rooms in San Francisco, backstage in Osaka, on a plane from Miami to Chicago, my garden patio, and finally my B15 Studios in Asker.

The common thread was found later during overdubbing and reworking these sketches under the critical ears of label boss Joakim Haugland. Most of the tracks were finalized in the studio at the same time as my previous collaborative album with Bugge Wesseltoft. Bugge even kindly joins in on the album's closing track "Sakral".

Ambitions is my 6th album and I would like to thank the following people for their direct inspiration: Jon Christensen, Jaki Liebezeit, Haroumi Hosono, Daniel Lanois, Eberhard Weber, Shinichi Atobe and Ricardo Villalobos." - Prins Thomas, February 2019

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Quickly joining John Dwyer and King Gizzard (probably a real name) at the top of the 'prolific musicians we love' chart, Prins Thomas releases his gazillionth LP this week. A more succinct and potent set than his last solo outing, 'Ambitions' offers us cosmic, kosmische and Balearic jams, along with a surprising vocal number based around Alex's Norwegian pop hit "Feel A Love".

Wøllo, who has been a professional artist since 1980, has covered a wide range of styles, from rock and jazz to experimental electronic and classical music. He was one of the first Norwegian composers who adapted a minimalistic style, building a bridge between grand symphonic realms and gentle, serene sounds. His musical statements range from slowly-drifting kaleidoscopic passages to epic soaring guitar melancholy, to upbeat ever-changing sequences and compelling melodies. Possessing a sense of drama and storytelling, Wøllo has been composing and performing music for films, theatre, ballets, and art exhibitions. As well as music for string quartets and large orchestras.

He has collaborated with some of the most respected artists in the ambient music world: Steve Roach, Ian Boddy, Byron Metcalf, Bernhard Wöstheinrich, amongst others. Sources joins Wøllo’s nearly 40-album catalogue.

Comprised of 10 previously unreleased tracks, Sources was originally recorded surrounding the album sessions that spun Dreams Of Pyramids(1984), Traces (1985), and Silver Beach (1986). This was the start of a very fruitful and inspired period for Wøllo, thanks to modernized technology like MIDI and inspiration from music from all over the globe.

“There was lots of new equipment coming out during these years, and this reflects the music I made at the time.” Wøllo says. “There was also a lot of great electronic music released. I was inspired by artists like Hassell, Eno and Budd. Also a big influence was Klaus Schulze after seeing him at the legendary Oslo club, Club 7 in 1984.”

The spacey sounds on Sources show a clear line of cosmic excursions between Wøllo’s early releases to modern day fellow Norwegian travellers Lindstrøm, Bjørn Torske, and Prins Thomas.

Sources remained untouched, transferred from tapes that Wøllo had made years ago, before Helge Sten (Deathprod) mastered the material in his Audio Virus Lab. The collection was mostly created with a Roland MSQ 700 sequencer, in real time with several MIDI synths/modules recorded directly to either a 2-track stereo recorder or 4-track Tascam Portastudio.

“I am very happy that the album feels like one whole. I do not often looking back, and I rarely listen to my own releases after they are released,” says Wøllo. “Sometimes I get positively surprised discovering new aspects of my older material. This is music made on impulse and with an eager to create, and not so much a big thought about releasing the material. At least this is the way I remember it.”

Smalltown Supersound drop the first of three 12"s by esteemed producer Andre Bratten. "Lim" is a very techy growler, given a fresh outlook through an ingenious beat and advanced synthesis. "Recreation 26B" hits the nitros, thrusting up to 140BPM like it ain't no ting and deploying some rattling 909 snares and gliding metallic washes. Expertly produced and providing more energy than much of the UK's off-shore wind farms.

Officially NO represses on this series guys n girls, so get ya skates on if you want in on the action!

The performance artist and saxophonist’s mesmerizing debut takes listeners on a true journey through the euphoria and wanderlust of nights spent clubbing - using little more than his voice, saxophone, his instrument of choice, and more than a few well-placed microphones.

Giske finds a natural home in Smalltown Supersound as he cites Lindstrom’s arpeggio sounds and Evan Parker’s circular breathing as references, both of whom have released on the label. By combining the two extreme sides of the scale, he seamlessly fuses freeform jazz and club music. 'I take the building blocks of electronic music and play it live - without layering or looping, to the best of my ability. All the faults of being human come through. It’s an exercise in something impossible: to be a machine.'

Surrender as a verb is a key concept to Giske’s debut and the word itself takes on multiple meanings to him. 'I consider myself a queer performance artist - the queer perspective is always there,' he states.'In gay culture, we have the terms ‘top’ and ‘bottom,’ with ‘bottom’ referencing an act of surrender and trust. Creating these repeating structures, relying on muscle memory for these sequences, and seeing what happens - it’s also an exercise in the act of surrender.'

With breath, steel and muscle Giske is transmuting his clubbing experience through the saxophone.

Neneh’s new record pointedly asks the question; how do we conduct ourselves in extraordinary times? In an era where the signal-to-noise ratio is more uneven than ever, what are the measures we must take to retain and remember our own personhood? It searches for answers, patiently and with great care, and with a fearlessness to acknowledge that sometimes the answers don't even exist. It’s a record that’s equal parts angry, thoughtful, melancholy, and emboldening, as Cherry and her collaborators continue to expand her ever-widening sonic palette to craft truly singular and potent music.

Work on Broken Politics began as touring wound down behind Cherry's previous full-length, 2014's Blank Project, and she felt a drive to continue creating after collaborating on that record with Kieran Hebden (Four Tet). "That last album was much angrier and forceful, whereas this one is quieter and more reflective," she states. "I haven't always been so good at getting things out so quickly, and it still took a while—but that's okay."

Cherry, writing partner Cameron McVey, and Hebden decamped to Woodstock, New York for a week-long recording session at the Creative Music Studio, a recording space founded by jazz pianist Karl Berger—who, in a stroke of providence, was a band member of Neneh's stepfather and Don Cherry as well as being friends with her mother Moki. "Being in a studio with them was like being in a familiar space. It was easy to reach into myself for the feelings I needed to be in tune with a song—and at night, Cameron and I would have dinner with Ingrid and Karl and they'd tell stories about my father. There were deep threads."

"It was one of the best writing periods I've had in a really long time," Cherry continues while discussing the creative process behind Broken Politics. "I got out of the waiting room and into the inner sanctum.”

"I'm very shy about taking on big themes with the airs that I've got a solution—who has the fucking solutions?" Cherry admits while talking about the album's title. "I like writing from a personal perspective, and the time we live in is so much about finding your own voice. People have been left feeling misheard, misunderstood, and disillusioned. What the fuck can I do? Maybe politics starts in your bedroom, or your house—a form of activism, and a responsibility. The album is about all of those things: feeling broken, disappointed, and sad, but having perseverance. It's a fight against the extinction of free thought and spirit."

"I have a name. You have a name. We're not just these faceless mounds you can put in the ground," Cherry proclaims when talking about her worldly vision that seeped into Broken Politics. "We're human beings with lives and stories." Art can often remind us of how it feels to live in the moment, and it can also be instructive in helping understand how to preserve that moment. Broken Politics finds Cherry at her most generous and benevolent towards a world that is often anything but. She puts it best in the chorus of LP track "Fallen Leaves," in her own defiant way: "Just because I'm down/ Don't step all over me.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Neneh Cherry's unmistakable vocal style and soulful leanings are harnessed here by the dreamy, otherworldly percussion and electronic momentum of Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) on production duties. His impeccable ear for sonic space only accentuates her flawless songwriting skills, making for a brilliantly listenable and absorbing outing.

As much as is said of our current times being new lows, where things have changed for the worse and we're unsure of the future, it's worth returning to study the past to understand how steadily low we remain. "Nothing's changed," says a younger Barack Obama in a sample for the opening track for the second album from Tokyo-based, American musician, writer, and photographer Will Long. The album is released as three separate 12” singles, and CD. Since 2005, Long has produced ambient music under the name Celer, and is a member of the pop music band Oh, Yoko with Miko. He curates and manages the label Two Acorns, and is also involved with the Normal Cookie and Bun Tapes labels.

Third and final twelve in the tryptich. You know what to expect by now - a simple housey beat with atmospheric pad present weaving and winding through some hard hitting Barak Obama soundbites. 

As much as is said of our current times being new lows, where things have changed for the worse and we're unsure of the future, it's worth returning to study the past to understand how steadily low we remain. "Nothing's changed," says a younger Barack Obama in a sample for the opening track for the second album from Tokyo-based, American musician, writer, and photographer Will Long. The album is released as three separate 12” singles, and CD. Since 2005, Long has produced ambient music under the name Celer, and is a member of the pop music band Oh, Yoko with Miko. He curates and manages the label Two Acorns, and is also involved with the Normal Cookie and Bun Tapes labels.

Second 12" in this album series, split across three discs, we get more Obama tit-bits segued into a flawless skeletal deep house groove. Introspective and political, but with a delicate, sparsely populated sonic environment... 

Lost Girls, the new project by Norwegian avant-pop artist Jenny Hval and multi-instrumentalist Håvard Volden, conjures sounds and moods displaced from specific moments in time, existing purely in the moment but tantalizingly just outside of one's reach. The project's inaugural release, the two-track “Feeling” EP, presents a pair of extended compositions, alternately contemplative and crackling with energy, that complement each other in sound and approach while offering a unique and cohesive vision. It is out March 2nd via Smalltown Supersound.

Hval and Volden have known each other for more than a decade, the latter playing regularly in Hval's live band; in 2012, they released an album together as Nude on Sand, but instead of resurrecting that moniker, Hval and Volden opted for a fresh start, taking nomenclatural inspiration from the 2006 graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and comics artist Melinda Gebbie.

The two compositions that make up the “Feeling” EP, "Drive" and "Accept," are the results of ongoing work that took place over the past three years. The first track, "Drive," is the final recorded version of an extended composition that's been a staple of Hval's recent tours over the past several years. "It kept changing because we were improvising a lot together," she states, and that shapeshifting nature is reflected in the track itself: over thirteen minutes, frissons of electricity and hand drums give way to a persistent beat and shimmering synths that are as menacing as they are strangely serene. Above it all is Hval's vocals, delivering meditations on the nature of performance, gender, and ownership of one's self and the material things that exist in our lives. The lyrics to "Drive" also underwent many changes during the track's living gestation. "I was using words to make sense of time and music—lyrics as a compositional tool—which I found really interesting, this interplay between words as meaning and words as something that could build musical structures."

"Accept," originally recorded four years ago by Volden, is quite the left turn from the lyrical interplay and relatively formal structure of "Drive"; the eleven-minute composition is atmospheric bliss, with jagged guitar tremolo, free-jazz drumming, and intense synths puncturing pockets of silence as Hval's voice wordlessly snakes in and out of frame.

Even though Hval and Volden have played shows in Oslo, parts of the material captured on “Feeling” won't—and, due to the pair's complicated recording setup in Oslo, for the moment can't—be replicated live: "This is the death of the material," Hval explains cheerfully, "and the transcendence from being something ever-changing to something we can give to others that doesn't belong to us anymore. It's also an opportunity for us to keep making things."

After joining forces on the collaborative album “Square One” earlier this year, Bjørn Torske & Prins Thomas are now ready to share their brand new 12inch named “Arpa”. The new 12inch is the perfect continuation of the album. Prins Thomas explains:

”After the initial "Square One"sessions we felt that "Arpa" was less of a "teamplayer"and one that would be difficult to shoehorn naturally into position on the album. Where the album sounded more like breaking new(old) ground between the two of us, "Arpa"is the one that felt most like an expected outcome from these sessions. Purpose made for adventurous dancefloors, either on earth or in a parallel universe you'll find "Arpa"in 3 versions. The original with it's sparse BUT "all hands on the desk"arrangement, the chopped up and reassembled remix with it's static energy cranked up to the max and last but not least the "Plastikman BUT in the 60's..." version in "drum version". Once again utilizing a giant mixing desk for the arrangement, 4 hands(+ other free limbs), the percussive elements are let free to roam in what we call a "dj-unfriendly tool"”

Every year/year and a half, Smalltown Supersound founder Joakim Haugland puts together a label compilation to see where the labels at and where it`s heading. To see it from the outside sort of. To find the flow, and the red thread. This year's compilation became a 2016 Best Of Compilation, with tracks from all of the albums and EPs released in 2016. 9 tracks from Biosphere, Prins Thomas, Dungen, Supersilent, Kelly Lee Owens, Lindstrøm, Mr Tophat & Robyn, Mungolian Jetset and Dan Lissvik.

We hope you like these auteur jams!

In between the release of Dungen’s most recent two albums (2010’s Skit I Allt and 2015’s Allas Sak), the beloved Stockholm quartet was asked to create an original score to Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 touchstone The Adventures of Prince Achmed, understood to be the oldest surviving full-length animated feature film. Inspired by the work and the characters – Prince Achmed, Peri Banu, Aladdin, the Sorcerer, and most of all, the Witch – the members of Dungen immersed themselves into the groundbreaking visual language of this landmark film.

Häxan (translation: “The Witch”) is Dungen’s first all-instrumental album. Produced by Mathias Glavå, and recorded, mixed, and edited by hand to tape entirely in the analog domain, Häxan was sequenced away from the linear narrative of the film. This process helped to create a path of its own, fully capturing the rawness and spontaneity present in the sessions, as well as a loose, abstract, and fragmented collage feel. Dense with dissonant free-form rock-outs, haunting ambient passages, and gorgeously cinematic soundscapes present in the work, Häxan is a record that stands on its own outside of the presence of its primary inspiration. Moody, evocative, stormy, and brimming with life, Häxan provides both a tacit summation of the Dungen journey until now, and gives the beloved group a chance to stretch out like never before.

Experience the possessed prowess of "Jakten genom skogen,” the first single from Häxan bearing all the marks — from Mellotron to mood — of a classic Dungen composition.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: From serene post-rock passages to lengthy psychedelic freakouts, and flowing jazzy interludes, Dungen pull out an instrumental stunner. Progressive and profoundly varied, this has something for everyone.

You can’t accuse Supersilent of keeping the noise down. Ever since the Big Crunch of 1997, when Norway’s finest free music outfit came together for the first time, their unpredictable noises and rapturous textures have been heard all around the world – and maybe somewhere outside the stratosphere too. Currently a trio featuring Helge Sten, Arve Henriksen and Ståle Storløkken, Supersilent ’s album number 13 marks a turning point in the group’s two-decade career. After a dozen recordings under the umbrella of the diverse Rune Grammofon label, Supersilent have now signed to Oslo based Smalltown Supersound, where they join the likes of Lindstrøm, DJ Harvey, Prins Thomas and Andre Bratten as labelmates.

Supersilent is a platform for a highly physical improvised electronic music, made by a trio that’s a kind of supergroup of Norwegian players in their own right. Arve Henriksen’s hypnotic trumpet has been heard with everyone from David Sylvian and Laurie Anderson to Jan Bang and the ice music of Terje Isungset, as well as releasing a string of acclaimed solo albums on Rune Grammofon. Keyboardist Ståle Storløkken has worked with Motorpsycho, Elephant9, Terje Rypdal, and the Humcrush duo with Sidsel Endresen. Helge Sten uses a complex array of homemade electronics, samplers, sound processing and analogue effects – cumulatively known as the ‘Audio Virus’ – in his solo ambient music as Deathprod, as well as having worked with Motorpsycho and producing artists like Susanna.

Supersilent was born when Sten injected the audio virus into a pre-existing late 90s free jazz group called Veslefrekk. Originally featuring drummer Jarle Vespestad, Supersilent slimmed to an electronic three-piece core in 2009, with all three often handling their respective instruments as if they were percussion, stabbing buttons and keys in real time. Recently Supersilent threw the legendary Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones into the mix for a series of improvised concerts and recordings.

Most of 13’s nine tracks were taped in an Oslo studio at the end of 2014. The band record everything live, while blasting their sound through a PA system, so that they can feel the physical air moving as if they were on stage. Tracks 1 and 5 date from 2009, immediately after their drummer’s exit. ‘They were tryout sessions to see how we should proceed,’ says Helge. ‘It was a kind of research for the band to feel how is to be three, not four, and to blow off some steam.’

All of Supersilent’s music is entirely unplanned, with all three experienced musical adventurers throwing themselves into the moment and riding the emerging maelstrom. They always manage to surprise you, whether it’s the Indonesian ritual music heard from a Scandinavian mountaintop on the opening track ‘13.1’, to the demonic organ blasts at the end of ‘13.5’; or from haunting, pastoral atmosphere pieces (‘13.6’) to all-out splatter-improv (‘13.7’) and the compressed digital labyrinths of 13.9.

The trio swap instruments with abandon: percussion, trumpet and woodwind, electronics and Storløkken’s collectable assortment of vintage keyboards. In this technologised environment, sounds are passed around, distorted and spat out again in tantalising splurges. ‘It takes time to shape a band from the beginning,’ says Helge, ‘but for us now the trio is working really well’. With Supersilent’s lucky 13, now you can be the judge of that.

After teasing us with the "Shuvit" 12" in 2015, Smalltown Supersound treat us to a brand new instrumental LP from Dan Lissvik (formerly of Studio), composed in 2015, the year Lissvik became a father for the first time. The title refers to the time he would start his recording sessions after his wife and newborn baby went to bed. "Midnight" is filled with the Dan Lissvik signature sounds; gentle guitars, laidback bass, dubby disco, lush Balearic and sun-drenched psychedelics. The album was recorded at home with a stripped back setup of an analog graphic equalizer he found at a flea market, a bass guitar and a mic. He worked at night with a thermos of coffee, while his young family slept in the room furthest away from his studio. His process was to press record and let the midnight jams unfurl, resulting in a sound and mood that has shifted since his previous release, 'Meditation', under the moniker Atelje in January 2015. Ten years ago, Dan Lissvik was instrumental in kicking off the midnoughties Balearic revival alongside his partner in the group Studio, Rasmus Hägg. Both came from the frozen coast of Sweden (rather than Ibiza) and their debut "West Coast" was hailed as one of 2006’s best releases, and a true Piccadilly Records classic. Their sound was a blissful, effortless, laidback afrobeat-kraut-disco-pop and won a legion of fans. Now, ten years after the release of "West Coast", as the influence of Studio’s work reverberates up through a new generation of producers (Jamie xx sampled a beach-blissed loop from it for “Girl”), Lissvik’s "Midnight" is right on time.

Nordic disco / house hero and Piccadilly Records favourite Prins Thomas is back, gracing Smalltown Supersound with his fourth solo LP. Here is a little message from Thomas about the album:

"There's a certain risk some of you are already overfed, with the 'Paradise Goulash' still piping hot on the stove…but anyway, here it goes… I've known Joakim (Mr. Smalltown) professionally for quite a few years now and I've worked on many projects for him, mainly doing remixes like Nissenenmondai, Lindstrom, Alf-Emil Eik, Idjut Boys and so on.

A couple of years ago he asked me to consider doing an album for him. At the time I was busy concentrating on gathering material for what would become my 2nd album (Prins Thomas II) on my own label Full Pupp and I was not entirely friendly to the idea of giving away my solo material to somebody else's label. However, the possibility of doing something different seemed an option but at the time I had no “different" in mind and I generally try not to force ideas.

Then, roughly a year ago an Instagram-post and a recommendation of a posthumous release by Swedish producer Joel Brindefalk, sparked an idea. I likened his "Doobedoo Dub’e'dope" release under the moniker Ü’s to KLF's "Chill Out” and The Orb's "Peel Session EP". That had Joakim and me enthusing about those early 90s electronica releases. So I set off on the task at hand, making an ambient album, leaving conventional drums and drum machines out of the equation.

So that's basically it, a few tracks loosely inspired by the braindance of the 90s and its themes and components reworked into slightly more danceable counterparts. The song "titles" refers to the sides of the vinyl version. Matching tracks up with their melodic partners is up to the listener. How you listen to this album is entirely up to you but I'd recommend finding center position in front of your speakers, a comfortable couch or chair and dedicate yourself to the music for a long hour" - Prins Thomas,

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Thomas Moen Hermansen always drew his influences from a broad musical palette, even if at first he confined his genius to the seemingly oxymoronic Norwegian disco genre. It is no surprise then that Mr.Hermansen might want to express his talent in other areas - he has injected psyche and kraut rock into the beats in more recent work; in Principe Del Norte he explores more meditative electronic territories, although consistency is maintained here with nods in the direction of Harmonia, Manuel Göttsching and Cluster.

“'Gode' is a personal album. It's the album I have always wanted to make” says André Bratten.

The album was made between 2012 - 2015 in Oslo and Bratten sites artists like Giacinto Scelsi, Arvo Pärt, Gescom/AE, Brian Eno and Norwegian compatriot Biosphere as inspiration. “Gode" has a dual meaning in Norwegian. It’s a Middle English word that gave us the modern English word “Goad” (meaning to provoke or annoy). On the one hand it literally means “cattle prod”, a farming tool used to, er, prod cattle. But it also came to mean “a right or privilege” as the cattle prod came to symbolize the indentured labour of the Norwegian rural working class. The land owning aristocrats would exploit the people as if they were so much livestock. Like a stark black & white film, the record is a meditation on the darker days of Norway’s past, before the country discovered its oil wealth. From 1900 - 1939 it was one of Europe’s poorest countries, beset by illness and starvation even. Rural poor depended completely on their families and had more children to work the land. Only the privileged could afford to make art, and Bratten thinks of the void all the music and art from the poorest families that was lost. “Gode” is a hymn to those people.

“Gode” is Bratten giving free rein to his imagination and further deepening his unique musical practice. His previous work was made with synthesizers, drum machines and computers but this album is recorded through tape machines, layered with field recordings, heavily modified piano, string arrangements and even vocals (amongst others Susanne Sundfør).

FORMAT INFORMATION

Vinyl comes with CD version of the album enclosed.

Dungen frontman/mastermind Gustav Ejstes has been making music for nearly twenty years—at first for himself, then eventually and inevitably for all of us. As a teenager in rural Sweden, he became obsessed with hip-hop and sampling. Digging through crates and searching for obscure source material provided him with an informal education in ‘60s pop and psychedelia, and soon he learned to play the bits and pieces he was sampling. He took up guitar and bass, drums and keyboard and even flute, then took to his grandmother’s basement to put it all on tape.

When Ejstes recorded his first album, he released it in 2001 under the name Dungen, which means “The Grove”— a nod to his village upbringing or perhaps a deeper reference to American folk songs like “Shady Grove.” While his music has routinely garnered comparisons to acts like Love, Pink Floyd, the Electric Prunes, and Os Mutantes, he has always emphasized a strong sense of songcraft. The music has deep roots in the past, but it blooms in the present.

With 2004’s breakout Ta Det Lugnt Dungen garnered an avid fanbase outside of Scandinavia. Only on the road did Dungen blossom into a full band, with a rotation of musicians joining Ejstes onstage and eventually coalescing into a fully democratic band that includes Reine Fiske on guitar, Mattias Gustavsson on bass, and Johan Holmegard on drums. Starting with 2007’s Tio Bitar and 2009’s 4, the band members helped Ejstes realize his own vision while adding flourishes of their own. As a result, Dungen grew into something bigger and more formidable: one of the best and most consistently inventive psych rock bands in the world.

At the height of their powers, however, the band took a step back. It’s been five years since the last Dungen album, 2010’s Skit I Allt, which is by far the longest interval between releases for a band that proved especially prolific and inspired during the 2000s. Allas Sak picks up where Dungen’s previous album left off, but somehow it sounds bolder and livelier, feistier yet more focused. The quartet jam with greater purpose and principle on songs like the otherworldly instrumental “Franks Kaktus” and the stately “En Gång Om Året,” while the prismatic “Flickor Och Pojkar” and closer “Sova” reveal subtle nuances in the band’s arrangements.

The band brought in “a good friend of ours” named Mattias Glavå to produce the record. In addition to helming records for the Soundtrack of Our Lives, Sambassadeur, and the Amazing, Glavå worked with Dungen on 2005’s Stadsvandringar, which made these sessions a reunion of sorts. “Mattias is a true wizard of analog sound engineering, but he’s more than a technique nerd,” says Ejstes. “He’s the ultimate hand between my vision of a sound and reality.”

Glavå suggested the band work out songs before they entered the studio, rather than writing during the sessions. It was a different way of working, but one that Ejstes found invigorating. “He suggested we come to his studio with finished songs, and we did live takes directly to tape—the old-school way. It has truly been a quite different experience from the earlier records.” Allas Sak is about everyday matters: family, friends, the fine texture of life. Common but never mundane, these subjects anchor the music in the here and now, while the music lends a certain grandeur to ordinary moments. “Lyrics are very important to me,” says Ejstes. “These songs are my everyday experiences, my thoughts and stories from the life I live. I hope people can create their own stories around the music and maybe we can make music together, the listener and I.”

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

This is the first taste of DJ Harvey's Wildest Dreams.

Neneh Cherry releases her first solo album in 16 years - a collaboration with RocketNumberNine, produced by Four Tet, and featuring a guest appearance by Robyn. The 10-track album, recorded and mixed over a five-day period is, out on Smalltown Supersound. It follows 2012’s 'The Cherry Thing', a collaborative record with free jazz, noise collective The Thing, which featured new versions of songs by The Stooges, MF Doom, Ornette Coleman, amongst others.

While her energy and demeanor may not have changed since the days of Rip Rig + Panic, musically, 'Blank Project' is a departure from anything Neneh has previously done, initially written as a means of working through personal tragedy. What stands out upon first listen is the album’s sparseness: loose drums and a few synthesizers are the only accompaniment to Neneh’s wildly poetic, sometimes-spoken, sometimes-screeching, soul-flooded and raw vocals. The space created by this minimal aesthetic leaves room for occasional pistes and flurries of rapid, yet throbbing and thunderous instrumentation. Featuring combined elements of beat poetry, avant-electronica and beautiful vocal melodies, it’s a record that uses simple ideas to create something entirely original. And despite the personal struggles Neneh was working through in writing this new material, the songs are far from introverted.

With 'Blank Project', Neneh continues to arrive at moments in musical history when there is an opportunity to subvert ideas of popular culture. She is subverting once again, only this time, although this record is musically bold, Neneh sees the stasis she’s challenging isn’t musical or societal, but her own.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Neneh Cherry follows her collaboration with Nordic free jazz noise collective the Thing with the intense electro-percussive album ‘Blank Project’, first unveiled at the Manchester International Festival. The guttural analogue synths and pummelled kit drumming of power duo RocketNumberNine (brothers Ben and Tom Page) provide the backing for Cherry’s distinctive emotionally vulnerable soul-flooded vocals, while Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden proves to be the perfect producer for the project, stripping tracks back to their essential elements. The first solo record Cherry has made since the death of her mother, ‘Blank Project’ is stark, bracing, brooding and reflective. There is anger and sadness here, but this isn’t a sad record. This is a life-affirming angry howl at the world, a cathartic blast of intensity that leaps from the speakers. In an era of often soulless synthetic emoting, it’s good to have some raw emotion back with us. Raw like, er, Cherry!

For RocketNumberNine, capturing the spirit of the music is paramount and with their debut album, 'MeYouWeYou', the London-based Page brothers - Tom (drums) and Ben (synths) - invite you into their tribal Chingford roots, taking music forwards to reach where it came from. This is hard hitting, modern dance music played live without a single click track in sight. With a name taken from a song by space jazz crusader Sun Ra and musical influences from Detroit to London to Africa and beyond, RocketNumberNine, have spent the last eight years shaping, breaking and squeezing their sound into what it is today.

Let’s get this out of the way right from the start. Carmen Villain used to be a very successful model. Her face has appeared on the covers of Vogue and Nylon, and high profile cosmetic ad campaigns. But as the shutter clicks and the palm trees sway, what’s a cover girl really thinking? Most models are expected to remain mutely anonymous, mere ciphers of a commercial brand. But it turns out, behind the scenes, Carmen Villain (aka Carmen Hillestad) was channeling her frustrations into a set of songs with a defiantly DIY underground free-rock sound. Now at last, she’s stepping off the glossy page and emerging as a new songwriting voice and multi-instrumentalist.

Carmen Villain was born in the USA, lives in London, and is half-Norwegian, half-Mexican - a cocktail of ice and fire that can be heard throughout Sleeper’s tempestuous, dreamlike music. Throughout this debut album, lyrics are plastered over loose, abrasive instrumental tracks, on which Carmen plays guitars, bass, drum machines, keyboards and percussion. 'Sleeper’'s distinctive production was halved between herself and Emil Nikolaisen (Serena-Maneesh), who also played drums and keyboards; and she also collaborated and co-produced one track with Prins Thomas, who sequenced the album. Most of the songs are about escaping an unsatisfying world, with references to sleeping, not being present, displacement, anxiety, feeling trapped, but longing for something more.

Carmen draws on a lineage of sprawling, taboo-busting lo-fi rock: Sun City Girls, Sonic Youth, Royal Trux, Broadcast and Bikini Kill, but equally admires This Heat and the cut ‘n’ paste productions of J Dilla and Wu-Tang Clan.