‘Reflection’ explores uncertainty in times of loss and war, times McLoughlin believes need to be met with compassion, honesty, understanding and connectivity. It brings together elements of classical chamber composition and intense improvisation. This mix contributes to the thoughtful and cinematic narrative of the pieces, creating intimacy and allowing the group to explore sound and silence. The decision not to have percussion helps to create this space for contemplation, in keeping with the Japanese concept of Ma, a pause in time, an emptiness, an interval in which to process and grow. Quiet and brooding, serene and uplifting, with influences from Keith Jarrett to Bartok, The Casimir Connection upholds the integrity of both classical and contemporary jazz traditions, whilst creating something new and authentic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Forgiveness
2. Breathe
3. Everyday Heroes
4. Lost Time
5. A Difficult Conversation
6. The Slow Walk From Home
7. The Spirit Of Birds
8. Dark Matters
9. Kaitiaki Anahera

Aussie new disco surgeon Dr Packer has remixed T- Connection's "At Midnight" on the esteemed High Fashion Music.  He skilfully undertakes the task of capturing and updating the distinctive Bahamas-Miami T.K. Disco sound, infusing it with his own flair and sass. Seamlessly blending nostalgia with contemporary elements and revitalising a classic disco vibe. Dr. Packer manages to retain the uplifting and energetic brilliance of the original. A refreshing take on a classic sound that solidifies its place as a standout in the rich tapestry of disco history.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: More top drawer edits from High Fashion who draft in Glitterbox star Dr. Packer to do the business on T-Connection's formidable disco anthem.

TRACK LISTING

1 At Midnight (Dr Packer Remix)
2 At Midnight (Dr Packer Pianola Dubstrumental Mix)

Presented here is Francoise Hardy's debut studio album released in France in December 1962 by Disques Vogue.

Originally issued with no title, except for her name on the cover, the album became colloquially known by the title of its most successful song, Tous les garcons et les filles.

This sensational album compiles the twelve original French versions from her first three EPs. Hardy would also record ten versions of the songs in Italian, English and German. Four of the Italian versions are included here as bonus tracks.

This iconic LP combines rockabilly, folk, jazz and blues, and has been noted for its simplicity, featuring a minimalist jazz percussion, bass, acoustic and electric guitar sound palette.

TRACK LISTING

Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles
Ca A Rate
La Fille Avec Toi
Oh Oh Cheri
Il Est Tout Pour Moi
J'ai Jete Mon Coeur
Quelli Della Mia Eta
L'eta Dell'amore
Oh Oh Cheri
Le Temps De L'amour
On Se Plait
Ton Meilleur Ami
Il Est Parti Un Jour
J'suis D'accord
C'est A L'amour Auquel Je Pense
Ci Sto
E All'amore Che Penso 
Il Tuo Migliore Amico
Una Ragazza Come Le Altre

Back in 1975 Parliament found the perfect groove releasing two seminal albums in the same year. First up was “Chocolate City” that celebrated the love of the band generated by Washington DC and this was followed up by “Mothership Connection”, widely considered to be the perfect example of P-Funk. George Clinton led his Funkadelic/Parliament troops into the galaxy long before Star Wars came along to join in on the fun.

Featuring a galactic line-up that included Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Maceo Parker, Fred Welsey, Gary Shiner, Glen Goins and even the Brecker Bothers on horns this album kicks funky butt from the opening blast of ‘P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)’ right to the very last drop of ‘Night Of The Thumpasorus Peoples’.

It’s a joyous album and as well as spawning the ‘Star Child’ character on the title track saw the band start to tour with a spaceship as a stage prop paid for by record label Casablanca. “Mothership Connection” went top 20 and platinum stateside. Three singles were taken from the album including an edit of ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off That Sucker)’ that sold a million copies.

As time has passed and the legend of Funkadelic, Parliament, George Clinton and the entire P-Funk stable has grown new generations of fans and musicians have bought, enjoyed and sampled “Mothership Connection”. Today it is seen as a classic and essential album.

Ace are delighted to have been able to licence this beauty and are proud to serve this classic on 180gm vinyl. Be warned, once you drop the needle you’ll want to wear this sucker out. 

TRACK LISTING

Side One
1. P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)
2. Mothership Connection (Star Child)
3. Unfunky Ufo
Side Two
1. Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication
2. Handcuffs
3. Give Up The Funk
(Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)
4. Night Of The Thumpasorus Peoples

Strut revives a lost recording from the archives in January with a 2002 collaboration between acclaimed South African folk singer Vusi Mahlasela, singer songwriter Norman Zulu and Swedish jazz / soul collective Jive Connection.

The links between South Africa and Sweden have long been strong with Sweden one of the most supportive European nations in the struggle against apartheid; the government helped to fund the ANC for decades and Mandela visited the country on one of his first European stops following his release from prison in 1990.

Sotho folk singer Vusi Mahlasela, dubbed “The Voice” Of South Africa, performed at Mandela’s inauguration in 1994 and has enjoyed his own long relationship with Sweden, regularly embarking on cultural exchanges and forging a strong bond with the Jive Connection band, featuring guitarist / bassist Stefan Bergman and Little Dragon drummer Erik Bodin within its line-up.

Although touring regularly, the collaboration has rarely been documented beyond a lone studio album in 1994. This “lost” recording, discovered in the archives of producer Torsten Larsson, also features songwriter / vocalist Norman Zulu and showcases their natural musical chemistry together. Vusi’s songs have traditionally addressed the struggle for freedom and the need for reconciliation and, here, his lyrics are as powerful as ever, ranging from parables (‘Prodigal Son’) to an unflinching lament on child abuse (‘Faceless People’). Jive Connection vary the soundtrack, bringing in hints of reggae, jazz and post-punk alongside traditional township arrangements.

Face To Face is mastered by The Carvery. Artwork features unseen photos from the album sessions along with full lyrics. Produced in association with Torsten Larsson. 

TRACK LISTING

1. PRODIGAL SON
2. UMZALA
3. FACELESS PEOPLE
4. INKOMO
5. FACE TO FACE
6. THEMBA LAMI
7. INTOMBI YE MBALI
8. PUSH
9. ABANTU ABANGANA BUSO
10. ANASTACIA
11. B4 THULULALELE
12. ROOTS
13. STILL
14. SON OF PRODIGAL SON

On their third album Constant Connection, West Australian-based Erasers create hypnotic compositions of synth, guitar and voice, evoking the vast expanse of their native landscape and the shrouded emotions behind the senses. Comprising of vocalist, synth player Rebecca Orchard and Rupert Thomas on guitar and synths, Erasers have developed their earthly kosmische music into an open language based on drone, variation in repetition and minimal song structures. Based in Perth, regarded one of the most isolated cities in the world, Orchard and Thomas’s music has brewed in the city’s vibrant DIY/Outsider community and evolved into a meditation on landscape, power, the shadow-world of human emotions and stream of consciousness. Constant Connection, with its waves of sound and chant-like vocals evokes a trance that suggests an infinity just beyond the senses.

At the heart of each Erasers composition is the interplay between the instrumentation, played with stoic restraint and recorded directly with minimal effects and the transcendental states induced in the listener. It’s a magic that is performed in plain sight and all the more powerful for it. The recognisable vibrato of Fender Rhodes keyboards and simple drum machine loops, the subtle strands of analog synth melodies that snake in and out of the ear, above all the towering encantations of Rebecca Orchard’s undeniably Australian-accented hymns; all of this is presented with minimal ostentation and yet it instantly engenders a dream state, hints at an infinity beyond the material.

Shades of John Cale’s 70s work with Nico, early 70s German synthesists Kluster and even fellow Australians Fabulous Diamonds can be seen as stylistic touchstones for Constant Connection. Where Nico hinted at the macabre and gothic, Rebecca Orchard’s similarly gliding vocal is more zoned in to a kind of oceanic openness, with words becoming chants and spells that suggested themselves to the singer during recording sessions. It’s this hidden hand of improvisatory, automatic writing that lends a sense of expanse to the music. On opener I Understand, while the lyrics might hint at discontent the emotional spectrum it opens up is far more rich and complex, as layered as the waves of droning chords that are the bedrock of each Erasers track. The title track talks of flow, continuum and balance, the protagonist in the song seemingly weightless, gently pulled through a walking reality that borders on dream. In Erasers’ world, it seems, the borders between reality and dream, consciousness and sub-consciousness are blurred and eroded.

On Constant Connection, Erasers’ music might be deeply evocative of landscape but it’s never clear which one. The vast, open terrain that surrounds Perth is dusty, burned by the sun into desert and Constant Connection feels like the product of the heat and relative isolation, the altered states these elements can create. But it’s these altered states of mind that appear to be the real landscape described by Erasers. It’s a landscape that’s hazy, in-and-out of focus, with emotional undertows pushing and pulling you into a weightlessness. On album closer Easy To See the band dispense with percussion all together, field recordings of the water at the edge of their native city ushering in two duetting synths. Orchard’s vocal undulates with the flow, viewing both the geographical and psychological landscape from the perspective of a consciousness not bound by bodies and from a timescale measured in millennia. The album ends as it begins, with field recordings of the real world that the music seeps out from, temporarily, before regressing back into the other realm it feels like it belongs to.

Between these two recorded hints of reality, Erasers manifest a deeply sensual dreamscape that constantly feels like it’s dissolving at its seams. A desert psychedelia emanating from a real world that might not be that real in the first place.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Understand
2. You See
3. Constant Connection
4. Tending To Twenty
5. Folding
6. A Breeze
7. Away From It All
8. Easy To See

An extremely rare album left by Detroit-based jazz keyboard player Johnny Griffith known for the album "Together, Togetherness" on RCA. An album covering "From The Music Connection" with Freddie Redd Quartet and Jackie McLean. The Music From "The Connection" was composed by jazz pianist Freddie Redd for Jack Gelber's 1959 play The Connection. This first recording of the music was released on the Blue Note label in 1960. It features performances by Redd and Jackie McLean Jack Gelber originally planned for the play to feature improvised music performed by jazz musicians who would also play small roles in the production. Freddie Redd, however, persuaded Gelber to include his original score. Redd re-recorded the score later in 1960 as Music from the Connection.

In 1974 The pianist Johnny Griffith, who was a member of the prestigious Motown rhythm section "Funk Brothers", covered the album "The Connection" by Freddie Red as a whole album, playing electric piano here, which really changes the vibe of the music - and the players are supposedly a host of Motown studio musicians - playing jazz here, but with a nice funky soul undercurrent. Originally released on Detroit Geneva Label.

Pianist Johnny Griffith can be heard on classic Motown sides, as well as on recordings from other Detroit-area labels. Like Motown's other pianists, Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke, Griffith's had an extensive musical background.

Signed to Motown's Jazz Workshop label, he recorded the albums "Detroit Jazz" and "The Right Side" of Lefty Edwards. When the march of the Motown hits began, Griffith started playing on sessions for their R&B/Pop acts. But rather than signing a work-for-hire contract with Motown like other musicians, Griffith remained a freelancer, doing other dates and sessions in New York and nearby Chicago.The Motown hits that Griffith played on include: Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", his celeste trills are heard on "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", adding Wurlitzer electric piano on both Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", organ on the Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love and organ and shotgun effects on Junior Walker and the All Stars' "Shotgun.

Griffith's non-Motown hits are with Edwin Starr, Jackie Wilson, The Chi-Lites, and Young-Holt Unlimited's "Soulful Strut" In the '90s, Griffith was still active on the Detroit club scene.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sister Salvation (5:01)
A2. Music Forever (3:46)
A3. Who Killed Cock Robin? (5:04)
B1. Wiggling (4:26)
B2. OD (Over Dose) (3:23)
B3. Time To Smile (3:43)
B4. Jim Dunn's Delama (4:03)

The third release on U-TRAX in 1993 was also a third debut, this time by Natasja Hagemeier and Jeroen Brandjes. Early in their career, they used several artist names, but became most commonly known as The Connection Machine. With their debut mini-album The Dream Tec Album they more or less described their style: dreamy techno. It became an instant Dutch techno classic and U-TRAX is proud and delighted to offer a fully remastered re-release, including three never before released bonus tracks (one of which is digital-only).

Natasja and Jeroen resided in Utrecht back in the 90s. In 1991 they assembled all their ideas and recorded the track "24 Hours" with DJ Paradize. Soon after this experience, they started to buy their own gear, all strictly MIDI (which wasn't too obvious in those days). In their early recording years, they had three producer-names (Syndrome, The Connection Machine and Bitch&Bites), that were all collected under the The Utroid Machine Missions umbrella, which was used for their debut on U-TRAX.

All tracks on The Dream Tec Album are The Connection Machine's earliest works, from the 1991/1992 years.

"An Overflow of the Mind" is a beautiful, dreamy track with almost divine sounds and strange voice-samples that serves perfectly as an introduction to their entire repertoire.

Their first production was "24 Hours", and what a brilliant one it is! A well-known jazz-musician talks about a "24 hour party going on", on top of a sinister and trancey rug, woven of sampled sounds from pioneers in electronic music and nailed down to the floor with a deep pounding bassdrum. At the time they made this track, 141 bpm was unbelievably fast...

"Evilish Cosmos" is all about a very sad and personal emotion, so everything we say about it will be absolutely wrong. Just listen to the meandering piano line, distorted voice samples - and feel it.

The first bonus track on this release is "Recognized Pain", which was intended to be part of the original The Dream Tec Album. It had appeared on the Phuture Classical Section C cassette in 1993, on the famous Drome Tapes label that formed the roots of U-TRAX. It truly is an amazing track: pure sonic terror with haunting rhythms, psychedelic synth lines and shards of voice samples that make the listener feel slightly uncomfortable.

"X_Manray" is many electronic music lover's favorite track. It is sooo deep that it is hard not to get hypnotized by it. Warm strings are coupled with deep beats that show up and disappear every now and then. Could serve perfectly to start off any DJ's set, as long as she or he has the guts.

Though "Braindrain" is probably the most danceable track on this album, it is carefully designed to tease the listener. Everything in this track drops in too late and every tone, melody or loop last exactly a few bars too long. Designed as a DJ-teaser and so it is.

The second bonus track, "Cafe d'Anvers", is another previously unreleased work, of which unfortunately no master recording was saved. All that is left, as far as we know, was an old VHS Hifi tape from the U-TRAX Archives. And that is where this bonus track was taken from. Mastering engineer Thee J Johanz managed to restore the quality of the recording somewhat, while at the same time maintaining its dark, clubby sound, a tribute to the famous club of the track's name in Antwerp, Belgium.

"Dream Affected Dream" is one of the most recent productions on this album. It was recorded with CNN playing live on top of it. At this exact moment, CNN was having an interview with David Koresh, the leader of the infamous Branch Davidians sect from Waco, Texas, while they were under siege by an armed police force. Natasja and Jeroen were just ready to record Dream Affected Dream, and spontaneously decided to mix in the audio from CNN. Not very long after that, the cult members set fire to themselves. A very strange and oddly funky track, that also serves as a time-document.

The final track is another bonus track. Like Cafe d'Anvers, "Voight-Kampff" is taken from on old U-TRAX VHS Hifi tape and masterfully mastered into a lovely relaxed dreamtech piece. Very suitable to start the Sunday after a long night of clubbing. This track is available for free to buyers of the complete digital album only.

TRACK LISTING

A1. An Overflow Of The Mind
A2. 24 Hours
B1. Evilish Cosmos
B2. Recognized Pain
C1. X_Manray
C2. Braindrain
D1. Cafe D'Anvers
D2. Dream Affected Dream