You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In , which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version).

Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole More

more info soon. More

It got away! The hounds are back on the leash for another session, as Montel makes a bid for better days with this all-out charm offensive of serenades, blissed up patter and emotional blackmail, Palmer-style.

The result is 12 tracks steeped in mind games, romance power plays and neurotoxin rollercoasters, with additional bonus strategies to dissociate with minimum dignity.
Big up Kiwi’s Kiosk..

More

Devon Rexi return with Mini-LP “Biya Ba Man”, a new and improved take on the no wave steppers and post punk grooves of their debut “Tambal EP”.

The five track Mini-LP sees the band expand to a quintet, with originators Nic Mauskovic (drums and vocals) and Nushin Naini (bass and vocals) joined by Tobias Jansen on turntables, Lyckle de Jong on synths and effects and Goya van der Heyden on percussion.

The extra players collaborate to send Devon Rexi’s sound in new directions, amplifying the already extra-dimensional vibe. Synths and vinyl manipulation render a trip hop vibe to the post punk brew, reminding of zoned-out jams like Maxinquaye, or those heady early Mo’Wax.

Opening track “Sjikamo” sets the tone at a deconstructed hip hop tempo, samples spliced up like a classic Celluloid album. “Fargh Nimikoone” ups the pace with a funky 135 bpm lean, and Nushin’s harmonized vocal sounding ever more alien over the conga rhythm. “Marde Pir” closes the first side at another beatdown tempo, the drums flexing like factory pistons.

The B side fires up with “Biya Ba Man Biya” - a proper steppers bounce, Nushin’s farsi singalong chorus is as catchy as it’s ever been. The Mini-LP concludes with “Koja Raftan” bringing plenty of Bomb Squad energy, crescendoing in fine maximal percussive style.

It’s no wave, but not as we know it. With new members bringing effects and collage elements to the spacious minimal wave core, there’s plenty of avenues for future formations of Devon Rexi to explore.

- Liner Notes by Fizzy Veins More

Maria is a trio from Holland and the Czech Republic, who have been producing their own unique post-religious cabaret since 2016. Lyckle, Katerina and Bjorn have amassed seven albums of outsider pop and improvised mayhem over the years. This collection of tracks were mostly made on a farm over a two year period and you can tell the fresh air had a conducive effect on their collective songwriting. A classic sound of drum machines, synth bass, and keyboards holds up Katerina and Lyckle’s vocal interplay alongside Bjorn’s guitars. When the three find their sweet spot, they can conjure up fine slices of whimsical, bleary-eyed pop music that isn’t afraid to smile once in a while and dream big. More

*2023 Repress**

Self recorded in 1984 to 4 track tape. Rhythmical patterns meet well balanced distortion, shaping the music into a mirror of his character, creating a unique blend of lo fi blue eyed soul jazz. TIP!!

Ronald was part of several Dutch Latin and Jazz bands, including Cascada and Ritmo Natural. With the latter he performed at Holland’s North Sea Jazz Festival. At this point Ronald is 78 years old, playing music every day.

Instruments: Acoustic Piano, Fender Rhodes Piano, Farfisa Organ, String Ensemble, Tenor Sax, Alt Sax, Soprano Sax, Clarinet, Alt Clarinet, Organ Bass, Micro Moog, Drums, Longa & Voices. More

*2023 Repress**

A stunning follow-up to his late 2018 release. Mostly recorded live at the Apollo Hotel Amsterdam in 1991. This is a compilation of the ''Apollo Hotel CD box'', that Ronald made himself, for family and friends.. BIG tip!

Some words from the label:

From 1986 until 1992, Ronald had a residency in the lounge of Amsterdam’s Apollo Hotel. He would play there 5 days a week, for 5 hours a day. In 1991, throughout several sessions, he recorded himself on a cassette recorder. The recordings were ranging from re-interpreted cover versions to multiple own compositions.

The Apollo was particularly known for its sophisticated and elegant crowd. Guests would come to meet in the lounge to talk business, or end the day with a drink at the bar - dancing was never an option.

Listening to the album, one must wonder how some of this music would go hand in hand with a place like that. It seems Ronald gets lost in music and returns in unequally balanced patterns. Lounge sounds meet drum computer rhythms, punchy baselines, distorted space noises, reoccurring clarinet interludes and improvised piano solos.

Back then, just as now, Ronald never liked to be the center of attention. He simply tried to interact with the surrounding as a provider of the mood - as he explains himself.

Instruments
Live: Grand Piano, Yamaha QX1 Sequencer, 2x Yamaha TX7 Tone Generator, Drumtraks Sequential Circuits, Clarinet, Voice
Added at home: Yamaha DX7 Sounds, Roland R-8
Space Train: Kurzweil Piano, Yamaha DX7, Roland R-8, Soprano Sax, Voice

Recorded live at the Apollo Hotel Amsterdam in 1991, except 'Space train', which was recorded in Ronald’s living room.

All instruments played and arranged by Ronald Langestraat.
All tracks written an composed by Ronald Langestraat, except 'Lowdown' which was written by David Paich & Boz Scaggs, 'Give and take' which was written by Michael Shrieve, Tom Coster & Carlos Santana and 'Orpheus' which was written by David Sylvian. More

Between 2009 and 2013 Kim recorded a bunch of music; in the old tramtransfer at the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam (now de Foodhallen), in Berlin living in a biodynamic living community in Lichtenberg & in an apartment on the Hoofdweg in Amsterdam, that doubled as a grow-house.

The title ‘Oostwestkruisbest’ is a combination of the sayings ‘oost west thuis best’ and ‘ieder huisje heeft zijn kruistje’. The first translates as ‘home sweet home’, where the second means every home has its own troubles.

‘Infinity hours remaining’ was made during a prolonged period of sleepless nights. ‘Kopievankopie’ features, amongst other things, a guitar Kim borrowed from his sister. It directly translates as ‘copy of copy’. ‘Die Trommel, der Trum’ was made using a Casiotone 701 with a drummer boy in mind. The title is German for ‘the drum, the dream’. ‘Ongecontroleerde Dagrestanten’ was made with an elastic band (a broad one, that in the Netherlands were used by mailmen) and a clarinet without a mouthpiece. ‘Oostwestkruisbest’ features pots and pans from Kim’s kitchen.

A1 - Infinity Hours Remaining 1:04 mins
A2 - Kopievankopie 10:03 mins
A3 - Die Trommel, Der Trum 4:03
B1 - Ongecontroleerde Dagrestanten 7:51 mins
B2 - Oostwestkruisbest 8:33 mins More

Montel Palmer jump out of the plane with only a HVW8 parachute for company and land squarely on Chlodwig roundabout. Nod to Roy Ayers, nod to secret ingredients, nod to all the auntys and uncles who know where to go when the sun goes down...and then comes back up again… More

Nicolini is back with the next installment of stripped-down drum workouts and sound system madness. Spread across seven tracks and as many tempos, the dutch multi-instrumentalist and producer veers effortlessly between looped-up sax riffs (with a Twin Peaks ambience), dubby wave, mutant dancehall, low-slung steppers and manic 180 bpm experiments. Along with guest appearances from Nushin Naini and Martha de Barros, Sopratutto is an adventure through bass cones above and beyond what Nicolini has laid down before. " More

Repress!

New material from the enegmatic Mr Langestraat. TIP!

"One afternoon a couple of years ago, an excited Ronald Langestraat could barely contain himself. “I’ve started dancing!” he exclaimed. “I never did it before - I’d always admired it in the past, but just wasn’t able to move like that!” But then, at the ripe old age of 81, Ronald was gripped by the urge to respond to the rhythm and express himself in this physical way.

For a man who’s dedicated his life to music, in particular Jazz with a funky Latin inflection, it feels like an especially sage realization - like the treasure at the end of a long quest, or the princess after the end-game boss. The prize is freedom, and the shapes we make on the dance floor are mirrored in that piano solo over the stanzas - a caravan that trips from smokey basement clubs all the way to Shiva’s Tandava on the edge of the universe.

The music on this album is inspired by this revelation. Although these songs were written many moons ago, their interpretation is modern, full of renewed energy, with young, yet well-worn players. While it slots neatly into the daily music practice that Ronald adheres to, it’s a new chapter in a story that is still being written - and an invitation to get in touch with your dancing self and try out some new moves." More

Repress!

Picture the scene if you can. It’s Sunday evening at the Meakusma Festival, 2019. A small audience (in varying states of inebriation and recovery) sit patiently on the floor, drenched in soft sunlight. Fizzy Veins is set up to play - his guitar resting on his knees while he stares into his laptop with an expression displaying amusement and fear in equal measure. He tentatively speaks into the microphone. There’s a lot of reverb. I don’t think anybody has the slightest idea what he’s saying. I assume he’s delivering a joke, but it’s very hard to tell. People laugh. After yet more tweaks to his gear he starts to play some loose, bendy phrases on the guitar, and we are all gently vaporised up Mount Effervescent. Our benevolent guru sits at the peak, speaking in tongues to the freshly formed congregation. The beats start to roll out and the sun begins to set in the evening sky. Fizzy transitions and he continues his long distance narration from deep inside his own reverb. It sounds like he’s in another room. On another planet, more like.

Witnessing the show, as I did, left me wondering how he even manages to boot-up his computer.. let alone produce an album as brilliantly formed and coherent as this!

Yours sincerely,
A. Fizzyfan More

4 chop-outs from the DE BOVENOVER BLUES beat tape . TIP! More

** CASSETTE RELEASE - very limited run - 30 minutes running time.

"Fry Ry delivers two sides of comatose, cone-shaking beats, low-slung and optimized for the whip. Blending the best bits of r’n’b slow jams, slapped bass licks, swampy guitars and soul snippets with a dash of Memphis rumble. De Bovenover Blues is a bittersweet road trip via the sanctified riffs of a bygone era. More

Nicolini is back! Delivering two slices of finest DIY post-punk digi (styles), woven together with bouncy basslines, punchy drum machines, and Casio melodies, as Nic’s voice beams in from beyond the ether. More

Sung in the language of the in-between-worlds, diasporic human snacks are vibrating their sonic manipulations in tribute to the lonely & oblivious Mr. Naster.

Pulses interpreted and expressed by Nushin Naini on fried farsi-like vocals & bass. Nicolini on drums, sax and miscellaneous objects. More

"Oscillation associations

This album is titled Os. When I look at the shape of these two letters, O and S, I realize that they are a rotation and an oscillation.

Os is Dutch for Ox. An ox is a castrated male bull. The primary benefit of castrating bull calves is to temper their tempers, making it easier and cheaper for people to handle them. Os is also an abbreviation of oscillation, -cillation being castrated off. Oscillation means a movement back and forth in a regular rhythm, like breathing, push-ups, tides, swinging or sound. For this album Lyckle was not dealing with oxes or bulls, but with oscillations, guiding them through synths, handling their tempers. If I look at the etymology of oscillation, I learn that it stems from the term Oscilla, which were ancient disks depicting a face or animal on each side. Oscilla is a diminutive of os and means ‘little face’. They were hung in trees during religious feasts honoring various deities, as well as being thought of as purifying the air as they swung in the wind.

The wind chime with its little sunny face, smiling on the cover of this record was hanging in the windowsill of Lyckle’s studio, behind his back, where the wind would make it jingle, averting the Evil Eye according to apotropaic magic. In ancient Rome, wind chimes named Tintinnabulum were decorated with a phallus, which was also seen as a good luck charm. Phallic charm also appeared as objects of jewelry such as pendants and finger rings. It has been suggested that some types of phallic pendants were designed to point outwards in the direction of travel in order to face any potential danger or bad luck, nullifying it before it could affect the wearer.

When I take the record itself out of the sleeve, I see that there are two phalluses carved into the surface of the vinyl, like little ornaments. When you start playing the record, they start chasing each other, going round and round. They point in all directions of the room, but are never able to point at each other. Finally, I am told that it is recommended to listen to this record with the window open, allowing sounds from outside to blend in with the music. "

- Bernice Nauta More

Welcome to Nicolini’s wonderful world of surprise - Penni’s Palace. Here you will find zebra-chairs and matchbox countachs, colourful tv-screens and Penni the cat presiding over proceedings. You will also find Nicolini, hunched over his MPC or Casio keyboards, sweeping the EQs to make the sounds move, jamming out his songs in heavy microdoses. They are the sounds of machines and the city - Amsterdam centre to be precise - brought to life with volts of electricity.

These songs started out as a live show on the terrace of Garage Noord nightclub, and over the following months Nicolini tweaked and re-recorded them into the collection of tracks you have before you. Bristling with energy, these live jams have a loose, almost mystical feeling - you never know quite what’s around the corner. Sounds jump out of the speakers at you, from car engines to reverb crashes. Opposites face off against each other - the mechanical meets the organic, and the cold emptiness of the city contrasts with the warm timbres of tropical climes.

Nicolini is quite used to combining disparate elements, particularly as a member of the re-configured Zamrock band WITCH. As pioneers of some of the heaviest space fuzz back in the ‘70s, WITCH combined garage-psych guitars with Zambian dialects and culture to create a wildly unique sound. Nicolini joined the band during their resurgence over the last few years, as they toured far-flung corners of the world. It’s an experience that undoubtedly helped Nicolini hone one skill set in particular - combining unexpected sounds together in unusual ways - and it’s on full display across these nine tracks. More

Repress!
Lyckle de Jong’s debut LP ‘bij Annie op bezoek’ captures moments of his encounter with Annie. An elderly lady in her mid 80’s, who has been living in quarantine for almost a decade.

The album has a cinematic feel and inherents several interludes of Annie singing her favourite ‘Schlager’ songs, recorded live in her living room. It feels like entering a different world - Annie’s world…

About fifty years ago, Annie met her husband at The Camera, a movie theatre in Leiden. Both were working there at the time. One day Annie had to get something from the projection-room. It was dark, so she wasn’t able to see much. All of a sudden she felt a hand on hers, but strangely enough, she didn’t startle. She felt something very special, a feeling that has never left her, up to this day. It was the hand of her future husband. Exactly then he told her he loved her and had done so from the very first time he had seen her. This was somewhat remarkable; Annie liked the guy, Seban was his name, but didn’t really know him all that well, moreover she was a couple of years older and he was a Moroccan muslim living in the Netherlands of the 1960s. Nothing terrible, but regrettably the ’60’s was a different time. They still married and moved into a brand-new flat apartment in the Merenwijk in Leiden. A flat and neighbourhood that has since lost its glory. Annie and Seban often vacationed together in a caravan. They went to Morocco together, where Annie met his parents. She converted to Islam, but in her own way. She doesn’t wear a headscarf for example, but did stop eating pork. Annie and Seban were together for just ten years. Though the briefness of this period had nothing to do with their love for each other. This love is still present, despite the fact that Seban passed away years ago. In the living room she has a black-and-white picture showing him sitting next to their German Shepard Camar, on the footballfield down from the apartment. Both of them look proud. Every day Annie looks at it, at the happiest time of her life. “If it were possible, I would take them back immediately. More

First bactch sold out on presale - collecting orders for restock!

Soundway’s telescope to forgotten and lesser known musical realms extends to Argentina on a brand new, triple vinyl compilation, Síntesis Moderna: An Alternative Vision Of Argentinian Music 1980-1990.

A digital rewilding of computer and synth powered music, dripping with an impressive variety of influence, from Italo disco, electro-funk, post punk, tango, ambience, jazz-fusion, Afro-folk and techno pop. The record is a cultural document of a musical decade transformed after the lifting of restrictions of English language music post Falklands War, and the end of Argentina’s military dictatorship.

TRACKLIST:

DISC 1
A1. Carlos Cutaia - Operativo
A2. El Signo - Dimensiones Ocultas
(Ric Piccolo Edit)
A3. Ultimate Warriors - Running
Away From You
B1. Abaddon - No Es Computable
B2. Toby - Ain’t That Better (Harari Edit)
B3. The Originals - Vamos A La Playa
B4. Mike Ribas - Secuencia Sin
Consecuencias

DISC 2
C1. Adalberto Cevasco - Reencuentros
N° 2
C2. Los Músicos Del Centro - Esquirlas
C3. Divina Gloria - Mediterranée Club
D1. Mike Ribas - Como Son Los Retratos
(Harari Edit)
D2. Delight - I Wanna Make You Mine
D3. Gaita - Mueve Tu Cuerpo

DISC 3
E1. Donald - A Ver, A Ver
(Ric Piccolo Edit)
E2. Bad Girls - Dance To Dance
E3. Carla Rab - Sexy Films
F1. Los Músicos Del Centro - Aire de
Trópicos
F2. Jorge López Ruiz - De Mamá
Candombe
F3. Jorge Alfano - Fuego

FOR FANS OF: Ritmo Fantasia compilation, Jonny Rock, Balearic Breakfast compilation More

A powerful collection with Johnny Hawk polishing acid-drenched mayhem, blistering electronics, and a penchant for old and new-school flares.
Limited pressing of 200 copies, with printed sleeve. More

Repress!

The latest by Chicago trio Purelink unspools an alchemical suite of fractal ambient, dusted dub tech, and interstitial electronica, born from a spirit of unity and flux: “All hands on the mixer, forever finding the sound.” Since forming in 2020, Tommy Paslaski (aka Concave Reflection), Ben Paulson (aka Kindtree), and Akeem Asani (aka Millia) have convened regularly in a shared studio to workshop, swap samples, and hone their collective muse via “the endless possibilities of a laptop,” seeking “something different than we would make on our own.”

Distilled from extended compositions prepared and performed across 2022 in Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Los Angeles, Signs captures their chemistry at its most liquid and immaterial, mapped in mutating systems of glitch, glass, rhythm, and space. It’s music alternately subdued and subterranean, elevated and remote, attuned to the flickering sentience of outer spheres.

Cover art by Ezra Miller. More

Strut presents the official reissue of a landmark album in the field of African music, Mulatu Astatke’s ‘Mulatu Of Ethiopia’ from 1972.
A1 MULATU 5:00
A2 MASCARAM SETABA 2:40
A3 DEWEL 4:00
B1 KULUNMANQUELESHI 2:05
B2 KASALEFKUT-HULU 2:25
B3 MUNAYE 3:15
B4 CHIFARA More