LP version. USA exclusive cream color vinyl. The Daydream Library Series record label has confirmed Thurston Moore's new full-length album Flow Critical Lucidity, his ninth solo recording. Some of the songs were written and arranged in Europe and The United Kingdom and include lyrical references to their environments and inspired by nature, lucid dreaming, modern dance and Isadora Duncan. The album was arranged at La Becque in Switzerland and recorded at Total Refreshment Studios in London in 2022, and mixed at Hermitage Studios in London with Margo Broom in 2023. Flow Critical Lucidity comes from a lyric in the single "Sans Limites" and the album sleeve cover art features Jamie Nares' "Samurai Walkman" -- a helmet befitted with tuning forks. Jamie Nares (born in Great Britain) is a life-long friend of Thurston Moore from his New York No Wave days and the two have often collaborated in art and music. In 2023, Thurston released two singles: the energetic Isadora Duncan inspired "Isadora" with a music video starring Sky Ferreira. "Hypnogram," which press called "one of the most intensely cerebral cuts Moore has ever released, [in which] he blends the more melodic moments of his former band with the layered, heady flourishes of his bassist Deb Googe's main band, My Bloody Valentine. Emphatically conveying the feeling of dreams, the new material has fans excited for what the American has in store with his next album." In April of 2024, Thurston shared the stirring Earth Day anthem "Rewilding." The musician delivered chilling lines as he ruminated on the removal of the human hand from nature. Moore sang about renewal, and a period for friends of the Earth to sleep and realize a natural way by "coralmorphologically dreaming." The musician said the U.K.'s rewilding movement aspires to reduce human influence on ecosystems. The players on Flow Critical Lucidity: Thurston Moore (vocals, guitar); Deb Googe (bass); Jon Leidecker (electronics); James Sedwards (piano, organ, guitar, glockenspiel); Jem Doulton (percussion); Laetitia Sadier (backing vocals on "Sans Limites").

"On the cover: Keiji Haino. Inside: Shamica Ruddock, Seppuku Pistols, Jabu, Gregory TS Walker, Viktar Siama?ka. The Primer: John Butcher. Invisible Jukebox: Wolfgang Voigt. Epiphanies: Mark Webber on Spaceman 3. The Inner Sleeve: Céline Gillain on Leonard Cohen. Global Ear: Nicosia. Unlimited Editions: Nashazphone, and in the reviews sections: Wendy Eisenberg, Ivo Perelman, Yellow Swans, Meshell Ndegeocello, Tristwch Y Fenywod, Byard Lancaster, Zdeněk Li?ka, Dr John, Supernormal, Heroines Of Sound, and much more."

LP version. Wewantsounds presents the release of BAG's first album since 1973, For Peace and Liberty, recorded in Paris in Dec. 1972 when the musicians had recently arrived from St Louis. BAG only released one album during their existence. This long-lost performance, recorded at Maison de l'ORTF in optimal conditions just a few months previously, was thought lost until recently unearthed from the vaults of INA (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel). Here the group unleashes an incandescent 35-minute set mixing free improvisation and spiritual jazz with funk grooves. Released in partnership with the band and INA, the album features sound remastered from the original tapes, plus a 20-page booklet featuring words by Oliver Lake, Joseph Bowie, and Baikida Carroll plus Bobo Shaw's and Floyd LeFlore's daughters as well as extensive liner notes by BAG scholar Benjamin Looker and previously unseen photos by cult French photographer Philippe Gras. The Black Artist Group (BAG) was founded in St Louis, USA, in 1968 to promote local artists from the burgeoning Black Arts movement, including musicians, playwrights, dancers and poets. The BAG quintet heard here pulled together key musicians from the larger organization, including Oliver Lake on sax, Baikida Carroll, and Floyd LeFlore on trumpet, Joseph Bowie on trombone and Charles 'Bobo' Shaw on drums. The musicians emerged from the organization to become a vital force within the late '60s free jazz revolution. Modelled on the AACM and the Art Ensemble of Chicago with whom they had close ties, this subset of BAG musicians followed in the footsteps of their Chicago colleagues, relocating to Paris in the early '70s on the recommendation of Lester Bowie, Joseph's older brother. Arriving in the French capital in Oct. 1972 the group made an instant impact on its underground music scene. In December of that year, Andre Francis, ORTF's jazz supremo invited them onto his "Jazz sur Scene" radio show, which showcased four groups live over two hours. Arriving onto the stage of the prestigious Studio 104 auditorium of the Maison de la Radio, the group delivered a jaw-dropping 35-minute set that left the audience mesmerized. Only thanks to a chance listening of another concert -- where the BAG live set was buried within -- was the recording unearthed making this historic release possible fifty years on. The release counts as an invaluable document, shedding fresh light on one of the most fascinating groups in modern jazz history.

LP version. Among the figureheads of French disco, Bernard Fèvre, better known as Black Devil, probably had the shortest-lived career but was the most brilliant and unique mind of them all. Although his first album Disco Club, released in 1978, went unnoticed at first, it has since become a must-have, a collector's item which has led a lot of listeners to further investigate into his extensive work. From rock music to music hall, sound illustration to disco, pop to reggae, through film music and advertising, Bernard Fèvre has experimented with so many genres that it has been hard not to lose track. One of his best albums even has such an unambivalent title as The Strange World of Bernard Fèvre. Please make your way to a cosmic dimension, verging on the unknown.

"The Light Is Leaving Us All is one of the C93 albums that haunts me the most. I was OverMoon and Blessed to work on it with the astonishing aeonic beautiful talents of Reinier Van Houdt, Alasdair Roberts, Ossian Brown, Rita Knuistingh Neven, Andrew Liles, Aloma Ruiz Boada, Michael York, Davide Pepe, Ania Goszczyńska, and Giulio Di Mauro. Once again, the voice in the mask of one of my favorite authors, and longest colleagues, Thomas Ligotti, also joined C93. The album's title was given to me in a dream, in which I saw the souls of humans pouring out of their eyes, and returning to God. On The Light Is Leaving Us All, I brought together my studies of specific Akkadian and Biblical Hebrew texts that I was translating with my friends and teachers Professor Martin Worthington, Ola Wikander, and Professor Seth Sanders, and also channeled my fascinations with The Red Barn Murder of 1827 and The Witchcraft Murders of Bella in Hagley Wood, and Charles Walton in Lower Quinton in 1945. All this time, the birds were sweetly singing, the kettle was on, the milkmaid was singing, and the policeman was dead -- all this while the birds were softly singing, and The Light Was Leaving Us All. Remastered by The Bricoleur at Bladud Flies!, and with the original artwork refreshed and reborn by Rob Hopeye, this 12" vinyl picture-disc comes in a full-color die-cut sleeve, which is printed on both the outside and inside. This is one of the first four reissues of the entire back catalogue of C93 on picture-disc and standard vinyl, in the lead-up to the publication of my autobiography at the end of 2025, whilst I also work on many other recording, publishing, and painting projects! Each release in the picture-disc vinyl reissues series is limited to 1,000 copies, and the titles will not be repressed as picture-discs once they have sold out." -- David Tibet

"Reeling in the weeks -- which felt like years -- after my first Current 93 album, I had started on the difficult second C93 album, Dogs Blood Rising. Having been asked to appear on both Top Of The Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test 93 times in the same week after the release of Nature Unveiled, I realized that God was telling me that I had hit on a winning formula of Christian eschatology and Apocalyptic Christian texts over a Soundscape as cool as flies, but that I was missing the vital ingredient of a Simon & Garfunkel song. Dogs Blood Rising -- which I described to myself in a vision as an album which hoped, wished, and made bad trips sound like good trips -- was essentially the mirror night of Nature Unveiled, although only half of it was recorded at Roundhouse Studios. Squats were calling, and 8-track studios were all I was able to afford. Dogs Blood Rising didn't chart, except in my night sweats. Listening to it now, it makes me as restless as I was then, staring beyond the windows there, watching and praying for something, someone, anything, anyone. Remastered by The Bricoleur at Bladud Flies!, and with the original artwork refreshed and reborn by Rob Hopeye, this 12" vinyl picture-disc comes in a full-color die-cut sleeve, which is printed on both the outside and inside. This is one of the first four reissues of the entire back catalogue of C93 on picture-disc and standard vinyl, in the lead-up to the publication of my autobiography at the end of 2025, whilst I also work on many other recording, publishing, and painting projects. Each release in the picture-disc vinyl reissues series is limited to 1,000 copies, and the titles will not be repressed as picture-discs once they have sold out." -- David Tibet

"Swastikas For Noddy is possibly, probably, maybe, or not, a seminal and sidereal masterpiece, the inspiration for 93,000 Masks On Nothings, none of which were groovy. For me, well, it was my first hallucinatory pick-nick, and the skies turned pixie red for it. I was given the album's title during an acid trip: seeing Noddy crucified in the sky, I asked God what the most inappropriate birthday present for Noddy might be. God answered me from the acid whirlwind: "Swastikas!" I recorded her in a run-down basement studio in West London, whilst I was simultaneously recording Imperium. On playing the finished album to certain well-chosen friends, I was told by them that I had 'destroyed Current 93,' and that it sounded like 'demented children on drugs singing Simon & Garfunkel in a playground.' I then knew the album sounded exactly as I had dreamed it to sound, and as God had intended it to sound. Had I ditched the earlier darkness, and skipped into flowered fields? Remastered by The Bricoleur at Bladud Flies!, and with the original artwork refreshed and reborn by Rob Hopeye, this 12" vinyl picture-disc comes in a full-color die-cut sleeve, which is printed on both the outside and inside. This is one of the first four reissues of the entire back catalogue of C93 on picture-disc and standard vinyl, in the lead-up to the publication of my autobiography at the end of 2025, whilst I also work on many other recording, publishing, and painting projects. Each release in the picture-disc vinyl reissues series is limited to 1,000 copies, and the titles will not be repressed as picture-discs once they have sold out." --David Tibet

LP version. Posthumous collaboration between Michael Chapman and Andrew Tuttle. Release includes Michael Chapman's original recordings, unfinished and never released (Another Fish). Sleeve notes by Andru Chapman. When Michael Chapman passed away in September of 2021, at the age of 80, he did so -- as he spent much of his life -- as both a pioneer and a legend. A veteran of the British blues/folk/jazz scene, Chapman emerged in 1966 and continued working throughout his life, always pushing the boundaries of his creations while collaborating with a slew of similarly heralded musicians along the way: Bert Jansch, Mick Ronson, Elton John, Thurston Moore, Steve Gunn. It's the latter of those -- Brooklyn guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn -- who Chapman flourished alongside in recent years, the two collaborating on 50 and True North, two of Chapman's final and finest records. It was through that friendship that Chapman's music found Andrew Tuttle, the Brisbane-based multi-instrumentalist who has toured Australia several times alongside Gunn. In the aftermath of Chapman's passing, his partner Andru discovered Tuttle's Fleeting Adventure LP, describing it as "one of the albums that kept me sane during that first brutal winter on my own." The pair met in Australia shortly after, and before Andru had even made it back home to the north of England, Tuttle had begun working on the recordings she shared with him at that time. Those recordings were part of a project Chapman was working on at the time of his death, called Another Fish -- what would have been a companion piece to his previously-released LP, simply called Fish. Though there was little intention in terms of how to finalize the project, Tuttle spent valuable time with those recordings. What materialized, eventually -- with time, care, and diligent attention -- is Another Tide, Another Fish, something both unusual and completely distinctive. Another Tide is centered around Tuttle's own work, which shaped all seven of Michael's songs and ideas into new songs of their own, and the second disc which simply incorporates the recordings that Michael left behind. What's left is indeed a hybrid: part remix album, part cover album, both a solo work and a collaboration, of sorts. Inspired by Chapman's original ideas and with new track titles directly referencing the numbered but otherwise untitled source material, Tuttle adds his own flashes of colors throughout, including editing, sampling, MIDI transposing and signal processing that twists these songs into beautiful new shapes.

"Back with another selection from the Don, one of Digikiller's favorite artists. This one is the only tune he voiced for Bullwackie's, and it is of course killer. Only ever released on a compilation, now on 45 for the first time backed with dub of the rhythm, well-loved from the Love Joy's tune 'Studio Man.'"

"New twelve inch of vintage Wackie's on City Line. The A-side features two of the best Wackie's deep roots tunes previously only released on compilation, which have long needed single release. Stranger Cole's somber 'Capture Land' about the reality of squatting in the ghetto, followed by Wanachi's instrumental cut of the brilliant rhythm you might know from Azul's 'Black Rose.' The B-side features a really unique previously unreleased tune from one Moon Dread. Operatic, semi-acoustic and haunting, if you like early Ras Michael & The Sons of Negus, this tune offers a maybe less spiritual and more theatrical but still compelling take in that vein from about a decade later in the late 1970s. Comes in new Wackie's company sleeve."

LP version. A sanctuary of adoration, creation and imagination, duo White Hills' lair in Brooklyn is also the nerve center of their record label Heads on Fire Industries. It's the site where the final mixes of Beyond This Fiction took shape. For nearly two decades, White Hills have been blowing minds with their sonic alchemy: a unique mix of neo-psychedelia, art rock, and post-punk -- at once original and recognizable. Their cult reputation emblazoned in celluloid following their performance in Jim Jarmusch's sultry vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), the duo has toured vigorously since their inception. With a vast catalog that astounds and a relentless punk ethos, time seems to energize the duo, making them increasingly daring and prolific. Founding member Dave W, whose signature other-worldly guitar sorcery defines the White Hills sound, grabs his Les Paul to record a melody lingering in his head from last night's dream before it escapes. Outside, the sound of passing sirens, honking horns and bits of conversation remind you that you're in the middle of New York, a city so flush with rock legacy and artistic innovation it would take lifetimes to drink it all in. Committed to a vocation marked by extremes, doubt, struggle and moments of ecstasy, Dave and Ego Sensation Sensation (drums/bass/vocals) continue this torrid affair with music bearing their latest fruit Beyond This Fiction. Inspired by the ideas of Joseph Campbell, the writer/philosopher known for the book The Power of Myth (1988), the album explores the idea of "riding between opposites" -- forging one's own path unrestrained by the dualistic constraints of society. Recorded with Martin Bisi, known for his iconic NYC sound developed through his work with no-wave titans Sonic Youth, Swans, and Lydia Lunch, Beyond This Fiction sees Dave W (guitar/vocals/synths) and Ego Sensation (drums/bass/vocals) orchestrating their distinct guitar heavy meditations into songs with a stronger focus on vocals than previous albums. The album harnesses the seductive accessibility of 2015's Walks For Motorists while evoking the tempestuous soul of the band's seminal H-p1 (2011). Notorious shapeshifters, White Hills make Beyond This Fiction a familiar surprise. Back in the lair, Dave draws eyes on his hands in preparation for the day's video shoot. Ego reaches in the closet pulling out the red velvet jacket she wears on the cover of Beyond This Fiction where she stands in a NYC alley holding a glowing orb.

"A late period hard-rock, proto-punk entry in Zambian guitarist and bandleader Paul Ngozi's extensive catalog. LP includes oversized eight-page booklet detailing Ngozi's arc, rare photographs, discography and annotations. Zamrock was a bona-fide rock scene: on the African continent, only Nigeria can claim one so comprehensive, and Nigeria's was largely catalyzed and funded by subsidiaries of the European major labels. Zamrock was as independent as the newly-named country, formerly known as Northern Rhodesia. Zamrock is starting in its completeness, especially for a scene that emerged, unfurled and disappeared so quickly. From Musi-O-Tunya's fusion of Fela's Afro-beat, Hendrix's rock, South African jazz and traditional Zambian melodies and rhythms to Salty Dog's acid folk/rock, Zambia's rock scene contained all of rock's subgenres. Zamrock was much more than an imitation of American and European rock music: it quickly became a uniquely Zambian movement, befitting of its name. WITCH, Paul Ngozi, and Amanaz sound nothing like other rock music from the African continent -- or elsewhere. Zamrock came from a nation's youth carrying forth the momentum of a political and social revolution with a musical revolution that maintained the fiery power of early rock -- in the mid-to late-'70s. From that era, Zamrock's energy is matched only by the punk and hip-hop scenes of England and America."

LP version. Following his highly acclaimed 2021 album Atotal (AES 004CD) and 2022's Magnetoscope (R-M 200CD), Franck Vigroux returns with eight heavyweight tracks composed in 2023 and 2024. Vigroux states about his current work: "I am not very talkative about my music unless I am specifically questioned, the immaterial dimension of music partly spares us from the major questions which are the prerogative of theatrical forms for which I am also very active, in this sense for me music is a real outlet where things are done intuitively, for pleasure." Always pushing forth and expanding his now classic rigidly cold analog sounds and rhythmic structures entwined with lush atmospheric synth compositions, Grand Bal is another milestone in his ever-growing discography.

Gwendoline is the project from Micka (a.k.a. Mikoune) and Pierre (a.k.a. Daniel). Based in Brest in France, musically influenced by the classic cold wave which originated in their country, precarious and aimless, they shape Gwendoline to their own image. Pure DIY ethics, quick recordings at their home studio. Dark lyrics, self-mockery, criticism, sarcasm derived from the world's mediocrity. Après C'est Gobelet is their first album. Melodic but dark, ironic but direct, sophisticated but absolutely minimalistic. A testimony of today's world viewed under a grey prism of sarcasm and wrapped around beautiful melodies and rhythms.

LP version. "With Anchors, Chicago-based bass clarinetist-composer Jason Stein arises from a six-year hiatus as bandleader with his most personal, nuanced, and expansive album to date. A masterful player on this difficult-to-master reed instrument (Dolphy did it, too), Stein created Anchors together with bassist Joshua Abrams (Natural Information Society, of which Stein has been a member since 2017), drummer Gerald Cleaver (whose bona fides run deep and wide), and guest artist/co-producer Boon. Anchors is a suite of great beauty and potency, moving from meditative calms to lyrical buoyancy to gripping intensity and again to a transformative peace found in unity. Anchors are, so often, symbolic of strength and stability. They reflect peoples' capacity to steady themselves in turbulent waters, allowing them to traverse the deepest seas. With anchors aboard, listeners can quell their fears, weather the storm, and chart forth. In all their looming weight, anchors allow then to be free. With Anchors, Jason Stein emerges with a luminous tribute to anchors of his own. Amidst the discomfort of transformation, he reaches into a reservoir of resilience and invites listeners to do the same. Stein's purposefully chosen trio partners on this work, Joshua Abrams and drummer Gerald Cleaver, are two illustrious improvisers rooted as much in the jazz tradition as they are in contemporary experimental approaches. Abrams' grounding in multifarious music traditions gives way to a visionary synthesis of styles, perhaps most apparent in his acclaimed Natural Information Society. Stein has recorded and toured with the group since 2017, and the unmistakable intuitive interplay between these long-time collaborators is a through-line on Anchors. Gerald Cleaver, a definitive stylist in the international creative music community, works with Stein for the first time here, shaping the record with a skillful prowess as impressive as his distinctive sound."

LP version. Limited blue crystal clear color vinyl. Gatefold sleeve. Includes four-page booklet. For years, Manu Chao has been travelling the world to meet his fans in unusual venues, villages and small festivals. Elusive, but always accessible to those who cross his path, Manu now presents his new studio album Viva Tu, a collection of songs written at the heart of daily lives and struggles, and a fresh take on the state of the world, singing sunny, universal songs in Spanish, French, English and Portuguese, painting an unforgiving picture of social imbalances. The lead song "Viva Tu," a heartfelt rumba dedicated to the daily life heroes, has already made its mark. The second single, "São Paulo Motoboy," is a colorful, sunny ode to the two-wheeled delivery people venturing the Latin American metropoles every day. The album also features some memorable collaborations, including "Heaven's Bad Day" with country legend Willie Nelson and "Tu Te Vas" with rising French rapper Laeti. Also available as CD (BEC 5613918), black color vinyl (BEC 5613919), and picture disc vinyl (BEC 5613921).

2024 repress. "Purple Mountains is the new nom-de-rock of David Berman. Purple Mountains is also the name of what will be known as one of his greatest albums -- full of double-jointed wit and wisdom, up to the neck in his special recipe of handcrafted country-rock joys and sorrows that sing legendary in cracked and broken hearts. The songs are produced impeccably by Woods' Jarvis Taveniere and Jeremy Earl, buffed up like a hardwood floor ready to be well-trod upon for an evening of romance and dance. The songs of Purple Mountains are a potent brew, stitched together from lifetimes, knitting the drift of the years with the tightest lyric construction Berman's ever attempted. Honesty is archly in the air, but lines of incredible bleakness somehow give way to playful distraction and the hiding of surprises for close listeners. Even still, as the songwriter once wrote, 'every single thought is like a punch in the face.' It won't take long after slapping the record on the platter for you to hear that this is one of THOSE albums. The portrait is David Berman's most to-the-bone yet, very frankly confessing a near-total collapse from the first moment, then delving into the layers of nuance with twin lasers of personal laceration and professional remove. This etches a picture that cries to be understood in the misbegotten country that made everything great about Purple Mountains. America's fate is that of its treasured icons: the cowboy, the outlaw, the card sharp and the riverboat gambler, who all face simple resignation in the end. There are no perfect crimes. Berman's poet-thief of so many precious moments, now stripped and chastened, recalls his latest lowest moments in perfect detail, hovering ghostly above the tumescent production sound as it echoes with tragic majesty and the sound-fragments of former glory, evoking the defeated-king era of late Elvis, southernfried and sassy still on his countrypolitan way down, and somehow still solid-gold at the bottom. Berman's songwriter's bone's never been laid more-bare, either. Where are you tonight, America? The things that used to be have slipped away into the darkness without you knowing it, and your children are wandering in a blasted landscape, with only Purple Mountains left to comfort them, and David Berman's shattered fables for company."

"Smoky hustler music by North Memphis's Skinny Pimp, a former member of Three 6 Mafia recorded in 1993 and originally released on cassette. This is part of Now Again Records multiple LP series on the history of Memphis rap, which attempts to capture Memphis and its underground rap scene as it began to produce some of the most distinctive music of the '90s. This was a unique hip-hop strain -- visceral and often vicious. It was a local, low-fi, cassette-tape based movement -- yet it went on to change the course of rap music. These albums have never been pressed on vinyl - until now. From Skinny Pimp and Carmike to Gangsta Blac and Shawty Pimp, these albums have been relegated to the proverbial bins of history and bootlegged, with unofficial copies still fetching top dollar on the secondary market. These albums were all licensed directly from their original creators, and come on limited edition colored vinyl with artist-approved imagery for their first LP iterations. You can read the story of the Memphis rap scene in a 12-page, oversized booklet with notes by Torii MacAdams. It captures the story of Memphis rap starting with the city's founding and ending with an auto supply shop that sold these albums over the counter, with all points in between. Pressed on galaxy ice-colored vinyl with a 12-page booklet."

WRWTFWW Records furthers its collaboration with Japanese electronic/ambient group Interior by releasing their never-heard-before soundtrack for environmental artist NILS-UDO's 1987 Laserdisc Sculpture of Time (Apocalypse). The intriguing sound design/kankyō ongaku/new age album is available as a limited-edition LP housed in a heavyweight 350gsm sleeve and comes with a obi strip. In 1987, Intermission published a Japan-only Laserdisc showcasing one hour of works created by renowned German environmental artist NILS-UDO. To accompany the visuals, they commissioned electronic music group Interior, fresh off their Haroumi Hosono-produced self-titled debut (also available on WRWTFWW Records) and their Windham Hill Records-released sophomore album Design. For the first time ever, the soundtrack is now available in full HD glory, demonstrating Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto's precise, subtle, and spellbinding approach to ambient sound design. Calming nature sounds, ritualistic synths, meditative atmospheres, and eruptive forays into darker territories mesh superbly in a four-part soundscape that flirts with oeuvres such Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass and Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green, making Sculpture of Time one of one of the best kept secrets of kankyō ongaku -- a must have for mystery hunters and levitating music lovers.

"The music of New York trio Weak Signal (Mike Bones, guitar and voice; Sasha Vine, electric bass, violin, and voice; Tran, drums and voice) is a masterclass in simplicity and economy but these aspects aren't present for their own didactic sake. Rather, their art is world-building in the most essential of ways, subtly spinning out in an enveloping, rich haze from a clear, architectural core. There are sections of knife-like collective squall and dialogic drift that glance at improvised music; while not strictly pop, the tunes are incredibly catchy with wry, keenly memorable lyrics that easily stick in one's craw. With associations including Endless Boogie, Sian Alice Group, and Soldiers of Fortune, Weak Signal formed in 2017. They waxed two full lengths in the period leading up to the pandemic, and during that unsettling year -- plus without many gigs to speak of, the trio kept busy and unleashed a handful of choice digital EPs and a couple of split 7" singles. Fine is their fourth full-length to date, its tight ten-song program fleshed out with sonic icing from keyboardist Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip) and guitarists Doug Shaw (Gang Gang Dance; White Magic) and Cass McCombs. Fine is an unhurried jewel in the trio's discography, partly the result of the time it took to write. Even if the vibe and structure is familiar -- and one can easily pick out their stripped-down jangle, like the lovechild of the Rain Parade and Lungfish -- there's a clear evolution over the course of their records, each one more finely-tuned and comfortable. Fine was recorded by Jon Erickson and mixed by Rupert Clervaux, whose expertise has been called in for records by Spiritualized and pianist Matthew Shipp, among others, keeping just enough of the SoundCloud lo-fi aesthetic to ensure it's a proper Weak Signal record."

World-renowned drummer-composer Valentina Magaletti teams up with music producer and multi-instrumentalist Zongamin in their East London studio to create an album of dub/post-punk influenced material, featuring Vanishing Twin's Cathy Lucas, Coby Sey, and Venus Ex Machina. Dub postcards, east London boats, reflections in the eye of a cat, swallowing your tarot card, spitting echo from calming substances, yellow paint on the shut-down local brunch spot, post-punk golden rules, shaking metal memories in a glass jar. Absence of sound shaped in summertime 2022.

LP version. "Parisian-by-choice Detlef Weinrich aka Tolouse Low Trax turns the page again. Always willing for a new episode, notion, impulse, idea, ideal. Searching for some light out there. Now Kiosque Versions, a compilation compiled by himself, featuring seven edits by friends and treasured artists. They renew some rare TLT tunes, as well as hits, that never took the charts by storm. There is French legend and Tigersushi boss Joakim, edging the TLT winner Rushing Into Water from 2016. A guarded stepper, dancy, trippy, with an enchantress on his shoulder, that haunts your body and soul. The 2020 TLT tune "Dawn Is Temporal," taken from his album Jumping Dead Leafs, comes as an old school hip hop leaning track, re-fashioned by New York's Beat Detectives, including Amen-Break and nod-your-head vibes. Producer Ido Plumes from Bristol took "Tristeros Empire" home and worked it club-wise. A nervous beating modification, Detroit machines, motorway funk, cosmic gasps - pure driller killer. Glasgow's Dip Friso stays tense too. Echoes, tribal bounce, manic loops. Another driller in dub heaven. Like Paris based digi-dub explorers Froid Dub, who bring a great wave of warm grooves, making baroque-esk dub friends with "Make Friends," a TLT track from his legendary three-volume strong 2016 Antinote sampler compendium. Their fellow countryman Simo Cell nervously metamorphoses "A Song and a Photo Novella," a TLT soundtrack for a film by artist Nicolàs Guagnini. His version has all that bass, vibrates on an experimental subconsciousness, and aims the dancefloor with a stirring bouquet of rhythmic ideas. The dot on the I comes from TLT himself, remixing his very own music, translating the Gamelan melancholy of "Subghosts," a tune from his 2010 debut album Mask Talk, into today, refined with dubby upsetting notes, a speed lift, and a very playful TLT groove. Let's turn the page." --Michael Leuffen

Epic, grooving, dazzlingly creative, perfectly attuned blends of complex mbalax drumming, field recordings, thumping kick-drum, and cosmic, bubbling, jamming synths and electronics. The opening is suitably liminal, haunted by a diachronic sense of times past, present, and to come: ancestral ghosts, scratched playback, scraps of old recordings, voices strangulated or just out of range; puttering drums; futuristic, kosmische keys. Part II picks up the pace; III gives the drummers some, and heightens the atmosphere of enchantment. Jon Hassell's Fourth World music courses through a kind of Dream Theory In Dakar. "Toco SOS," the second side, is a thumping, throbbing, mesmeric future-classic. Expert hand percussion, call-and-response singing, bin-trembling foot-drum, spaceways keys. Sleekly funky as prime Popol Vuh. Both sides range expansively by way of Berlin, where Lamin resided for a few years. Half an hour of stunning music; in a beautiful sleeve, with mirror lettering, and an intricate spot-gloss rendition of salt crystals, laid over a photograph of the salt mines at Lac Rose, outside Dakar.

"Sublime ethereal minimalism from Hiroyuki Onogawa on this retrospective compilation album for Mana, the first dedicated release and remaster of his soundtrack compositions. The album August in the Water: Music for Film 1995-2005 plots a decade of Onogawa's compositions for films by the renowned filmmaker Gakuryū Ishii (formally known as Sogo Ishii). This retrospective publication, sequenced into an album by Onogawa himself, spans a fertile period of collaboration with Ishii, through soundtracks for three remarkable films: August in the Water (1995), Labyrinth of Dreams (1997), and Mirrored Mind (2005). Each feels texturally and sensually linked with the spiritual, ambient, dreamlike quality that lingers in Onogawa's music. The sound Onogawa conjures for these films is elegant and patient, often minimal or essential in form, but saturated in a poetic emotion and atmosphere that feels strange and otherworldly, touched by the metaphysical in subtle ways. Boundaries are crossed between New Age and science fiction, locating a blissfulness, melancholy and paranoia within the same spectrum, and moving toward an enchanting sense of mood and color. New listeners might hear links to Mark Snow's compositional work for the X-Files and Millennium, or other celebrated future-facing and future-fearing Japanese anime or cyberpunk. Onogawa's music adds great depth and tenor to the sensory experience of the films themselves, but it stands just as strongly as a listening experience on its own terms, a virtuosic example of ambient that changes in hue when turned in the light. Remarkably, and in similar circumstances to Ishii, Onogawa's work has never been widely available outside of (always highly enthusiastic) underground fan posts, usually sourced from extremely limited and private CDs limited to Japan. This retrospective seeks to remedy that, and hopes to achieve recognition for Onogawa as one of the great composers of the last three decades. Onogawa continues to work in film, both in the creation of soundtracks, and now as a producer and director. He composed the music for Koji Fukada's Harmonium (2016), which won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as for Fukada's A Girl Missing (2019)."

Monolake: "My studio is my shelter, I feel comfortable there, surrounded by wonderful inspiring machines. A small cozy room where ideas emerge, mature, morph, and solidify into their final shape. Studio is the result of spending time in that space. The album's intention is simple: Presenting a beautiful personal musical journey. The creative process in itself matters to me, the interaction with my instruments, the accidental discoveries, the successful execution of a vision and anything in between. Most of the tracks on this album got revised countless times, and then even more, once I knew in which context and order I wanted to arrange them. I have been living with my music for months now, listening, thinking, changing, diving deeper and deeper into each piece. I love albums, they are a beautiful long-form format where each part has its place, a journey from the start till the end. Each piece has its own story, its own flavor and history. Some of them have been with me since a while already. There is material which I created years ago for installations and music derived from previous audiovisual works, all completely ripped apart and rearranged multiple times. During their creation my pieces often turn into something completely different, they repeatedly shift from one state to another until they become solid. What I consider a core element at the beginning might be later discarded completely, and a little detail in the background might become the essence. Many explorations ended in the trash bin before the results had a chance to be part of Studio. Things did not fall into place, did not feel right. Other compositions had to fill the void instead, some created quickly in a rush of inspiration, some slowly, shy, questioning their significance. This album did not come into existence in a hurry, it took as long as it needed. I used the time to walk around my creations, to listen to them from the distance, physically, mentally, with friends, in all kinds of different contexts. I tried to understand what I just did. I started to see patterns, hidden motifs, things that were buried in between too many layers of sound. What is essential? What is ornament? I reduced, rearranged, added again. The closer I got to the final state of Studio the more clarity I found..." Composed, mixed and produced by Robert Henke, 2024.

2024 repress; LP version. Five years in, with two acclaimed albums and dozens of international performances, Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force announces Yermande, a new phase for this Dakar‐Berlin collaboration. "This time around I was better able to specify what I wanted right from the initial recording sessions in Dakar," says Ernestus, "... I took more freedom in reducing and editing audio tracks, changing MIDI data, replacing synth sounds and introducing electronic drum samples." Rather than submitting to the routine, discrete gradations of recording, producing and mixing, the music is tangibly permeated with deadly intent from the start. Lethally it plays a clipped, percussive venom and thumping bass against the soaring, open-throated spirituality of Mbene Seck's singing. The drumming is unpredictable, exclamatory, zinging with life. Likewise the production: intuitive and fresh but utterly attentive, limber but hefty. Six chunks of next­level mbalax - funky as anything. "Lamb Ji" is traditional wrestling, the most popular sport in Senegal, always introduced by hours of drumming, gris-gris magic and dancing (led by the fighters themselves). Born into the Momori griot clan in Tivaouane, Mbene moved to Pikine on the outskirts of Dakar, where Ndongo Lo was first to invite her to sing at lamb events. Here she pays homage to all the popular fighters of recent times. Evoking the ancient legacy of the griots, "Walo Walo" is also the name of the sabar rhythm underlying this track, which features Ibou Mbaye's percussive synth­work, Mangone Ndiaye Dieng's kit-drumming, and Bada Seck's jolts of lower-pitched thiol drum. "Simb" ("Lion") refers to traditional drumming and dancing events, at which a cavorting "faux lion" frightens the audience members. "Jigeen" means "Woman": "Man should know every woman is your mother. Cherish a woman. Respect a woman's dignity. Look after the people who were there when you had nothing." A tribute to the Baye Fall leader, "Ndiguel" is the most traditional cut, showcasing Assane Ndoye Cisse's insinuating guitar lines, Laye Lo's super‐elasticated snare‐drumming, and Bada Seck playing the khine drums associated with the Baye Fall. "Yermande" takes a former associate to task: "Stop prompting the witchdoctor to curse us. Leave people alone and let them go their own way. Take yours; leave ours to us" Like "Lamb Ji" and "Simb", featuring all four sabar players: Bada Seck, Serigne Mamoune Seck, Abou Salla Seck and Alioune Seck.

2024 restock. This is one from the heart. The unique pre-war music of the Cajun bayous, the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine and Poland, and the American rural countryside has been collected to narrate the human odyssey of love gained and love lost. Early songs of unbridled anticipation and desperate longing color the canvas of love, courtship, dejection and marriage... a never-ending cycle. The accompanying 16-page booklet features many rare, previously unpublished images and comprehensive lyrical translations. Three original artworks by Robert Crumb provide a backdrop for these sublime songs of passion and despair. Respectfully crafted by Christopher King and Susan Archie for Angry Mom Records.

2024 repress. Be With Records present the first ever official reissue of Kimiko Kasai with Herbie Hancock's Butterfly, originally released in 1979. The positively sublime and very rare Butterfly LP, recorded in Tokyo in 1979 by Japanese songstress Kimiko Kasai and jazz legend Herbie Hancock. Due to its super-rare status as a Japan-only release, this exquisite collection of covers never got the recognition it deserved at the time, despite incredibly inspired performances from Kimiko, Herbie, and the supremely talented musicians assembled for the project. From heavenly drummer Alphonse Mouzon and renowned organist Webster Lewis to bassist Paul Jackson, reedman Bennie Maupin, and the master percussionist Bill Summers, the legendary performers crafted amazingly good vocal versions of Herbie/Headhunters jazz-funk. Unsurprisingly, it has been heavily in demand for many years. The LP opens with Kimiko's highly desirable version of "I Thought It Was You", an elegant take on Herbie's own anthem. Other superb re-workings include the delicately soulful "Butterfly", jazzy groover "Sunlight", the smooth and sexy "Tell Me A Bedtime Story", and the beautiful ballads "Maiden Voyage" and "Harvest Time". A wonderful example of perfectly understated and masterful jazz-funk soul fusion that shouldn't be missed, the set closes with a jaw-dropping version of Stevie Wonder's "As". This lovingly curated reissue enables a long overdue reappraisal of this hitherto unavailable masterpiece. The stunning artwork which adorned the original jacket -- complete with obi strip and sumptuous four-page folded insert -- has been faithfully restored. Mastered by Simon Francis, and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.

2024 repress; LP version. 140 gram vinyl; gatefold sleeve; includes 16-page insert with photos and liner notes. For the first time since its inception in 1983, Steve Hiett's elusive Down On The Road By The Beach is finally made available outside of Japan. Most recognized in the fashion sphere as an English photographer and graphic designer, Hiett's transportive audio portraits amplify his serpentine guitar to the infinite blue, recorded across Paris, Tokyo and New York. A career devotee of Brian Wilson's groundbreaking harmonies, Hiett shot The Beach Boys for Rolling Stone -- as well as The Doors, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix -- while establishing himself as a fashion photographer. Decamping to Paris in 1972, he began what would become 20-year collaborations with Vogue Paris and Marie Claire. In 1982, representatives from Tokyo's Galerie Watari visited him to propose a solo exhibition. Asking if he could insert a 7" of original music into the back of the exhibition catalogue, Hiett laid down "Blue Beach - Welcome To Your Beach" in a Parisian radio station, playing all of the instruments himself, and two more cuts in New York with Yoko Ono, The Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan hired-gun, Elliot Randall. Once dispatched, there were requests for him to fly to Tokyo to record; it wasn't until he arrived that he discovered CBS/Sony had facilitated an entire album. Heitt hastily gripped some petty cash, bought a guitar, and retreated to his hotel room to start writing. Entering the studio the following day, he was further surprised by a waiting room of session players known as Moonriders -- one of Japan's most acclaimed rock bands of the 1980s. Intimidated by their indecipherable sheet music, Hiett suggested Randall join them and with money being no object for major labels at the time, his wingman was on the next plane out of New York. Near-ambient arrangements that float in a space between The Durutti Column, Steve Cropper, and Ashra, Down On The Road By The Beach also crowns Hiett the master of recontextualization with his zero-gravity blues visions of "Roll Over Beethoven", Santo & Johnny's "Sleep Walk" and the 1967 Eddie Floyd soul hit, "Never Found A Girl". Produced in coordination between Be With Records, Efficient Space and the artist, this definitive reissue is restored from original masters; extensive liner notes penned by Mikey IQ Jones.

2024 restock, last copies. Frozen Reeds presents the only recorded duo playing of two legendary musical figures. Derek Bailey and Paul Motian -- two longstanding pioneers of distinct strains of improvised music -- came together for a brief period of collaboration in the early 1990s. Tapes of their two known live performances (one at Groningen's JazzMarathon festival in the Netherlands, the other a year later at New Music Cafe, NYC) were recently unearthed in the Incus archives, and their contents will surprise and delight fans of both supremely idiosyncratic musicians. The Groningen concert (1990) is released on vinyl, while the New York date (1991) is included with the digital download, which is included free of charge for all purchasers. A conversation between Bill Frisell and Henry Kaiser on Bailey, Motian, their intertwined backgrounds, and the significance of these recordings is included as sleeve-note insert. Each player bringing decades of crucial experience to their encounters -- with histories taking in vast swathes of the development of jazz and free improvisation -- these fleeting shared moments provide some of the most riveting playing in the career of either. There is precious little recorded evidence of Motian as a free improviser, but his mastery is beyond any doubt in these recordings. From knife-edge precision to textural haze, Motian's palette is astounding, but perhaps even more impressive is his confidence in the non-idiomatic conversation itself. Pushing far beyond the established vocabulary of free percussion, his playing allows a measured degree of repetition to take form, giving rise to almost song-like structures. In turn, Bailey allows some of his most unashamedly melodic passages to unfold without a mote of his trademark contrariness or antagonism. Patterns that would be acerbically disrupted elsewhere are allowed to settle, with variations of note and timbre introduced more gradually than is typical of his playing. When forceful changes in dynamics or tone do arrive, they do so in such close tandem with Motian's rhythmic and textural transitions as to beggar belief. The guitarist's duos with percussionists (Jamie Muir, Han Bennink, John Stevens) arguably provide some of the highlights of his discography. Duo in Concert represents a strong addition to the list. An elegant sense of construction pervades the sets, as the duo ably fulfil the promise of free improvisation: carving out hugely compelling, expertly balanced, and thrillingly paced music as if from thin air.

2024 restock; double LP version. Pioneers in their own musical approaches, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, began their exploration of sound in the evocatively titled V.I.R.U.S series in 2002. After more than a decade from the release of the collection's final installment with summvs in 2011, NOTON reissues all the five albums between June and October 2022. With its impressionistic atmosphere, in this collaborative project two generations met and shared the idea of electronic music as an inspiration source for new musical structures. Over a series of five albums, Vrioon (2002), Insen (2005), Revep (2006), utp_ (2008), and summvs (2011), the duo has explored blending electronic and acoustic sounds into a meditative whole that is at once expressive, breathing and precision-engineered. Remastered in collaboration with Calyx Mastering, the recordings are made available under the title Remaster, accompanied by exclusive, unreleased compositions and housed in a beautifully designed sleeve with original cover art by Carsten Nicolai. In November 2022, a dedicated, limited edition cardboard slipcase will be available as a separate item from the V.I.R.U.S.

2024 repress. "The original cream of the singles crop from the Palace of Brothers, Songs and Music -- covering the terrain from 'Ohio River Boat Song' to 'West Palm Beach,' and adding alternate takes of 'Riding' and 'Trudy Dies,' a live version of Hope's 'Untitled,' and this album's title track, which doesn't appear in any version anywhere else. Fifteen songs all-in, most of which have been out of print on 7' since the mid-90s, and all out of circulation on this double-vinyl edition since the mid-aughts." Gatefold sleeve.

2024 restock. Daphne Oram is best-known for the design of her Oramics system, and also for co-founding the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1957, but until the release of this material, the only easily-available piece of music by her on CD was the 8-minute long "Four Aspects." There was also a 7" EP from 1962 on HMV, released as part of the Listen, Move and Dance series that was specifically designed to help children dance. Although the short pieces on this record are very basic, it could be argued that this is the first-ever electronic dance record! This is a survey of nearly all the major pieces that she produced since her departure from the BBC in January 1959 until her final tape piece in 1977. During this time, she worked independently in her home studio, and thanks to a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1962, she was able to pursue her interests. In Britain there were no state-funded studios other than the Radiophonic Workshop, which mainly existed at the behest of the drama studio and was not generally seen as a place to develop personal artistic ideas. There were also no university studios at this time, so it was necessary for British electronic composers to be self-funded. Throughout this period, she devoted her attention to developing her Oramics "drawn sound" system, which consisted of a large machine that enabled drawn patterns to be converted into sound. This system was eventually fully realized in the late '60s and several pieces here incorporate its use. The two and-a-half hours of music on this 2CD set covers the whole range of Oram's post-BBC output. All of the music is electronic with some occasional use of real instruments, especially small percussion and piano frame. There is also some use of musique concrète techniques. The works fall roughly into the following categories: works for TV and cinema advertising, film soundtracks, music for theater productions, installations and exhibitions as well as concert pieces and several studio experiments. There are also a few short pieces that resulted from an experimental music course given by Oram at a high school in Yorkshire in 1967.

The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now is a ritualistic and expanding collaborative album between Holy Tongue and Shackleton. Holy Tongue are a trio composed of Valentina Magaletti, Al Wootton, and Susumu Mukai. Accomplished musicians in their own right, they combined to create psychedelic, free-form, high energy, spiritual dub-dance music across a trilogy of critically acclaimed EPs and their debut album Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare. Their high energy live performances invoke the experimental dub of On-U-Sound, the frenetic rhythms of 23 Skidoo, Liquid Liquid, and ESG, and the spiritual energy of free jazz. The trio's dynamic collaboration extends in their meeting with Shackleton, one of the most original and critically lauded voices in electronic music. Shackleton has moved from the depths of the early 2000s dubstep underground to a diverse range of international collaborations and commissions over the last two decades. After honing his hypnotic beats on the cult UK record label Skull Disco, his unique rhythmic touch is now heard on some of the most adventurous and progressive projects that have emerged from the European dance scene in recent years. Shackleton's work explores conceptual and spiritual themes with an emotional depth beyond most artists working in European dance music today, and his visions of inner space, apocalypse and dread are more-timely than ever before. This record was conceived after Holy Tongue and Shackleton shared a festival line up in Sweden. Holy Tongue were initially keen to get Shackleton to remix one of their existing tracks but they soon decided to have a project together and work on some fresh new music, allowing Shackleton to do something more creative with it in the studio. Thus, Holy Tongue recorded a collection of raw material in the studio and sent it to Shackleton. The result is far more than the sum of its parts. A psychedelic, ritualistic, dub trip, oscillating between the maximal and the minimal, the internal and the external, the micro and the macro, ecstasy and agony, all The Tumbling Psychic Joy Of Now.

2024 repress; 2017 release. Two seminal 12" mixes of a pair of Michael Wycoff heavy hitters from 1982. One a two-step favorite and one a loft classic, these sought-after versions have never been paired on the same record. Side A features the smooth-gliding anthem "Looking Up To You" whilst Side B houses the legendary Tee Scott dub mix of uplifting boogie gem "Diamond Real".