The Voice of Love is a collection of British sophisti-pop and jazz-funk from the 1980s - ten songs ranging from unreleased demos to scarcely pressed 12”s attempt to define the scope of the British underground scene during that era.

The music presented on this release juxtaposes polished aesthetics with a punk ethos; while some bands sported sophisticated looks reminiscent of travel destinations and designer fashion, they also embraced gritty influences from iconic British acts like The Clash, Sex Pistols, and early Factory Records acts. This dynamic interplay between refinement and rebellion lies at the heart of the compilation. Artists like Jakatti, Berlin-Randazzo Band, and Xpertz offer a raw energy akin to Colourbox, Maximum Joy, and A Certain Ratio. Meanwhile, Inheritance, World Series, and Ocean evoke the sound of 52nd Street (Inheritance members went on to form that group) and Freeez (including After Eight’s notable "Southern Freeez" cover). The Goodbye Look and Sonjah & Ian introduce a smoother jazz-pop vibe, drawing inspiration from Sade and the sun-kissed allure of Ibiza.

Curated in collaboration with Michael Patricola, a pioneer in uncovering rare private pressings and obscure recordings, this project is a labor of love. This selection of long-elusive discoveries is a tender ode to the rainy melancholy of English adolescence.

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Charles Bals, the curator behind the America Dream Reserve compilation, continues his journey into a wasteland of obscure recordings sourced from previously unknown tapes and vinyl of the 70s and 80s. This collection is made for an overcast, rainy night. Where the nocturnal ramblings of wandering silent types can be heard over an endless stretch of asphalt.

This time, Bals has put together a compilation that contains a darker, more solitary narrative—a collection of reclusive, ‘sigh-chedelic’ folk. The anthology sources rare moments that feel like they were pulling-the-paisley-thread of a dying psychedelic folk movement. Although it passed from the mainstream, the genre continued to percolate in bedrooms, kept alive through unsigned bands and mysterious individuals. Despite recording in different countries, these artists found there way to a kindred feeling. When heard together, the feeling of an era’s aftermath comes into focus. Charles’ compilation brings out the potency of these disparate selections.

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**Limited edition single-sided LP 300 copies**

David Horridge's unreleased bedroom studio tape material (1982).

Shortly after releasing the inimitable Light Patterns, David Horridge recorded a handful of demos. These sole artifacts from Dave capture the same Mancunian melancholy presented on
Light Patterns, and offer an insight into David’s contributing piece of the puzzle. It comes as no surprise that every track laid to tape from that era is an absolute gem.
David’s playing comes in the form of well-timed melodies and carefully placed basslines.

Nothing forced or rushed, and each movement really sits with a mood. Journey Within is an even more sedated, mellow effort than Light Patterns. The songs were perhaps even sketches for a
follow up that never manifested. The album’s greatest strength is in setting a peaceful, pastoral mood that allows for a relaxed listen all the way through. Hypnotic stuff.
The only deviation is the final song, One Note Bossa, which came as a surprise with its use of a drum machine. A feature that demonstrates what might have been were David have continued to
experiment and release albums...

RIYL: Durutti Column, Woo, Pat Metheny, and Steve Hiett.

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** Repress in grey sleeve **

New label Smiling C starts off with a compilation LP of released and unreleased works by the Arabic rapper, Shams Dinn.

For their first ever reissue, Smiling C connects with the Arabic rapper Shams Dinn to release a compilation his best songs, including the hit "Hedi Bled Noum". The compilation covers his entire career of with songs made between 1985-1990, most of which went unreleased at the time. One of the few Moroccan rappers to ever be recorded on vinyl back in the 80s, Shams Dinn was a pioneer of Arabic flow. Starting his career because he wanted to be a positive light for the Arabic immigrants living in France. He earned his status participating in freestyle competitions, and performing in small clubs around Europe. His career came to a turning point when he was asked by a major label to record a full LP. Unfortunately, the label decided they didn't want to promote Arabic music (largely because of the Gulf War) - and asked Shams to translate the Arabic to French. Shams Dinn wouldn't stand for that, and he was dropped from the label. The following years he worked at a school, teaching kids how to rap and express themselves through words.

The reissue comes with newly imagined art, and an inner sleeve with interview and photos.

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Kevin McCormick's unreleased bedroom studio tape material (1982-1984). Moods similar to Durutti Column, Woo, Crosby’s spacey moments, and Boards Of Canada’s nostalgia.

Following the release of Light Patterns in 1982, Kevin recorded a series of songs onto tape that explored the sonic possibilities of a solitary guitarist. Shedding the acoustic sound of his previous effort, he adopted a swelling electric palette to apply his moods to. These recordings are a shift in direction to a sparse and ambient style, and their hazy, repetitive movements create room for evocative melodies.

Kevin fills a deficiency of guitar-forward music with his minimalistic approach that is somewhere in the space between ambient, rock, jazz, and avant-garde. On Sticklebacks, he casts away the morning elegance of Light Patterns and leans further into the introverted feelings of the small hours. It is a nascent springtime journey that shows just what Kevin is capable of with six strings.

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2023 edition with new artwork and sleeve. Come with insert/liner notes.

"Welcome to the America Dream Reserve, home to husband & wife duos, pub legends, one-man-bands, preachers’ sons, and country-lounge entertainers..."

About: America Dream Reserve is a home for kindred souls. An hour-long journey into the world of lo-fi drumcomputer folk, disco-pop-lounge, haunting ballads, obscure vanity pressings, and synthesized string ensembles. A collaborative compilation between Charles Bals, creator of the inimitable Club Meduse, and Smiling C.

Compiled by: Charles Bals & Henry Jones.

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Inimate British pop for fans of Spike, The Cleaners From Venus, Felt, Durutti Column, Black Ark Studios and Aladdin. Charming lost tapes from the early ‘80s, treasured only by family members until now.

"Jim and I met at university in Liverpool in nineteen seventy-five and immediately began making music together. We both had rooms in the same big Victorian house in the centre of town and our evenings were spent hanging out in the nightclubs of Toxteth, like Dutch Eddie's where the DJ played Trinidadian music all night long.

Liverpool has always been somewhere with its own distinctive culture, poetry, and music. In the nineteen seventies it was absolutely magical. The city was still bathed in the afterglow of the Beatles and there was a kind of creative anarchy about the place. There was this band called Death Kit who used to put on multi-media events with people in fancy dress and random bits of theatre. We'd turn up completely out of our heads and it felt like we were deconstructing ourselves as individuals.

After we left college, Jim began living in Cambridge and I returned to London where I'd grown up, but our musical relationship continued. We knew people who were making commercial sounds and having success with them but that wasn't what we wanted to do. We performed occasionally, albeit very erratically, mostly as a duo but sometimes with other musicians.

What we were really interested in was musical exploration. Jim built a studio in his back garden, bought some multi-track recording equipment, and began experimenting. We wanted to produce something that was just for ourselves. We were undoubtedly very naïve but naivety and innocence were hallmarks of that time.

In my childhood, I'd been fascinated with the story of Aladdin. Now that fascination began to be reflected in the music we were making. Here was a story about a boy who transforms his world and enters the magical realm. That seemed to be exactly what was happening to me. For all sorts of reasons, I hadn't particularly enjoyed my childhood but now I had managed to step out of the everyday reality, to find a place where I belonged and where I had a kind of power.

The name we used for the band came from a song recorded in 1949 by a singer called Mel Torme. There's a line in that song that goes, "Careless Hands don't care when dreams slip through." That seemed appropriate since dreams were part of the territory we were exploring.

I had got married immediately after leaving college and by now I had a daughter who was afraid to go to sleep at night. She wanted me to be present in her dreams with her. That became the inspiration for a period during which Jim and I tried to recreate the shifting landscape of the night-time imagination.

Unfortunately, the choice of name turned out to be horribly prophetic when in a freak accident Jim fell into a lake and was drowned. It seemed to me that for some time, he had not been paying enough attention to his own life. So I wasn't exactly surprised when I heard the news but I was completely devastated. After Jim's death, I put away his guitar and never played again. I went on to make a career as a novelist.

Most of the recordings we produced were lost over the years. A bunch of master tapes was accidentally thrown into a dumpster and others were left in the attic of a house I lived in at some time during the nineteen nineties. This album has been pieced together from fragments that somehow survived the cull."

- Brian Keaney November 2020

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Sixteen unheard works from Mexican jazz synesthete, Germán Bringas. Bringas plays with a delicate balance between experiment & pastoral spaciousness, sounding like Coltrane scoring a Tarkovsky film. To Accompany this release, we’ve made a documentary about Germán’s life.

Tunel Hacia Tí (Tunnel Toward You) is a collection of early compositions by Germán Bringas of Portales, Mexico City. This album features songs from his lost cassette ambient jazz opus, "Caminatas" (Hikes), it’s spiritual successor, "Exposción Al Vacio" (Vacuum Exposure), and unreleased works created between '91-'00. Every instrument heard on this release was played by Bringas, and recorded in a studio in the back of his home.

Germán’s pieces are informed by his synesthetic experience. As he plays, he witnesses color coordinating with each note. His earliest experience of this cross-sensory ability came from playing his parents piano when he was young. Exploring the keys, a spectrum of color presented itself, and he began searching for colors he preferred. He discovered an enticing shade of blue, which unbeknownst to him at the time, was a jazz chord. In the following years, he attended school at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música and was classically trained in piano and composition. The Conservatorio was extremely demanding, and didn’t appreciate his innate talents to play by ear. He was fed up with the indoctrinating way they taught, which coincided with a lecture he attended by Carlos Casteñeda. Inspired by the teachings, he left school behind to start a group with his friends to practice meditative exercises loosely based off Casteñeda’s Tensegrity movements to expand the body and mind. His friends and he spent years going into the woods and training as quasi-disciples of the Castañedian path. In those times, Germán developed a new approach to music, letting go of the formality of his classical training, and rediscovering his childhood experience to play from feeling. Learning trumpet, saxophone, and native Mexican instruments all to his own design, he followed his synesthetic experience to guide his compositions. He was compelled to record the discoveries he was making, so he produced a string of cassettes, only enough to pass around to friends & local collectors.

In his earliest works, you can hear the influence of his time spent in the tranquility of the woods colliding with the frenzy of the city he grew up in. Combining inspiration he obtained from ECM Records virtuosos, Mexican Rock-in-opposition, visionary jazz artists, and otherworldly sci-fi films like Blade Runner and Stalker, his songs ebb and flow between serene synths and chaotic bursts of emotive horns. In addition to these compositions, he started an experimental music club in his house in Portales called Jazzorca. At Jazzorca, which is still running to this day, he would share his pensive movements with a small group of dedicated music lovers. Germán truly created a world of his own through these works, and his sound is singular when held up to Mexican music from the same era.

Currently, Germán makes drums out of propane tanks in his backyard, he produces experimental CDs under his own label, and plays live regularly at Jazzorca. You might catch him strolling through his neighborhood in Portales at sunset, soaking in the influence of the city sounds and their associated colors he witnesses.

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