Utopia Originals kicks off with a brilliant first real which revives some early progressive and trance sounds from 1993. They still sound right on point today which shows what a visionary Michel Spiegel aka Nuw idol really was. He himself describes this as "ancient galactic music decoded and restored for 4th dimension understanding". It is Alex Bradley who has put together this series of 12"s from the archive and you might have heard 'Restore' on a recent comp by Kalhari Oyster Cult. The entire EP has been remastered here in all its glory.


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Collecting Orders For Repress!

Volume One of a label retrospective of pioneering early 90s Prog House label Interactive Test Compiled by Alex from Utopia Records and enigmatic Interactive Test founder Franco Falsini. Falsini, responsible for many of the underground classics on the label he founded in Florence in 1991 was first known for his 70s Italian Prog / Cosmic group Sensations Fix. A trailblazer who continued to push the boundaries of electronic music two decades later with Interactive Test, accompanied by the up-and-coming talents of Trance hero DJ Miki the Dolphin, his brother Riccardo and an host of cult Italian music producers. Here we start with 5 tracks from the archive, all highly collectable, remastered for DJs and psychedelic music enthusiastic alike from the best sources possible. Authentic and original dance sounds still hitting the spot in our times.

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Voodoos and Taboos unveil their highly anticipated new series with ‘Human Aventura,’ the debut album from promising Corsican producer. Right from the start, his talent captivates listeners. The record boasts exciting collaborations with fellow artists and friends, including Noiro and Blinkduus Dischetto (Solid State). With its esoteric and melancholic atmospheres, interwoven with nods to the Chiptune scene, the album seamlessly blends elements of electro and house music. “Defined as ‘libidinous Mediterranean spoken disco,’ the album promises an immersive journey into a unique sonic landscape, where sultry rhythms meet hypnotic melodies.

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In March of 2023 Mercury Prize nominated composer & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London's Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece - gratitude - for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra

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South African pianist Thandi Ntuli traveled to Los Angeles in 2019, where she recorded this album of bare, explorative piano and voice pieces at a Venice Beach studio with International Anthem artist Carlos Niño in the producer chair. An absolutely stunning, intimate listen, with Ntuli’s prowess as a pianist and singularity as a vocalist on vivid display as much as her fearlessness, vulnerability and adventurousness during occasional experiments with synthesizers and percussion. Niño colors open minimalist soundscapes with overdubbed percussion, cymbals and plants.

The first pressing includes a Limited Edition *Pot of Gold* color vinyl LP (pressed by Pallas in Germany) inside a heavyweight jacket with OBI strip, insert sheet and IARC dome-patterned innersleeve. Cover Art by Shabaka Hutchings.

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In July of 2022, just one month before jaimie branch’s death sent shockwaves around the world, the trumpet player and composer was in Chicago at International Anthem (IARC) studios putting finishing touches on an album. It was a suite of music she had composed and then recorded with her flagship ensemble, Fly or Die.

Tracklisting
1. aurora rising
2. borealis dancing
3. burning grey
4. the mountain
5. baba louie
6. bolinko bass
7. and kuma walks
8. take over the world
9. world war ((reprise))


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Repress!

New mastering and new cutting of one of Metroplex's keystone releases

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"The Closest Thing to Silence" is the result of a collaboration between Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma and the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut "Recordings from the Åland Islands" had been released last year

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists that have not previously collaborated to create new music together. Kalma was quick to suggest working together with two musicians whom he has never met – the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. Kalma sent an invitation to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm. Chiu had been a fan of Kalma’s work for a long time, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. After meeting their goal of 20 minutes worth of music for the program (which was four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present, and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction; but simultaneously they felt like there was much more to be said, more work to be done. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those that had. The three musicians collectively agreed that they would continue work together and try to push the music further. The Closest Thing to Silence is the result of their efforts to take the collaboration further.

Tracklist
1.1Ten Hour Wave
1.2Breathing In Three Orbits (Intro)
1.3Breathing In Three Orbits
1.4The Closest Thing To Silence
1.5Dizzy Ditty
1.6Une Ombre Légère
1.7New Air
1.8Écoute Au Loin
1.9A Treasure Chest
1.10Stay Centered
1.11Stack Attack

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On October 15th & 16th 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles.
For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from the sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, bust most of the music remained unreleased.
Lados B is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation - flow as informed by the Latin soul of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly trance of Brain Records - while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on Parker’s recently-released Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, and the LA side of Makaya McCraven’s 2018 LP Universal Beings) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.

Tracklist:
1. Traveling With
2. Sunset Cliffs
3. Republic
4. Chicali Outpost
5. Bring It
6. Salute
7. Daytime Nighttime
8. Things Can Be Calm
9. Rug Moti

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SKYLLUMINA represents a new evolution of London-based, Italian-born composer, bassist, and vocalist Ruth Goller.

Goller is known for her bass and vocal work with Alabaster DePlume, whose music she elevates in live contexts with her genre-less improvisational intuition, and an incredibly diverse résumé that includes performance and recording with Bex Burch’s Vula Viel, Shabaka Hutchings, Rokia Traore, Melt Yourself Down, Sam Amidon, and even a very brief moment with Paul McCartney.

For SKYLLUMINA, her International Anthem debut, Goller expands upon the concept of her first solo album Skylla – de-tuned bass harmonics with layered voices – this time collaborating with a different drummer on each track. “As a bass-player, I love playing with drummers and I decided to focus on my close connection to that instrument and to the amazing people I met in my life who play it,” says Goller. “There were some who played tuned percussion as well, so it would give me another element to explore.” Her accompanists on the album include The Smile's Tom Skinner, go-to London drummer Seb Rochford, Berlin-based International Anthem labelmate Bex Burch, and ex-pat Chicago legend Frank Rosaly. But more importantly, the music is an immersive hyperfocus for Goller and her patently distinct, singular compositional vision.

SKYLLUMINA, despite its highly conceptual origins, is heavy with human emotion. Its dark washes of melody and contrapuntal percussion could fit easily into a mixtape with indie downbeat / ennui royalty like Grouper or Low, while also being right at home next a Cage-Tudor prepared piano piece. And the piercing, sibi
lant ice age siren song heard in Goller's powerfully feminine vocal arrangements find her in an otherworld only occasionally inhabited by the likes of Björk and The Knife.

Goller says: “This record is deep insight into my soul and my recent life. it’s coming through a meteor storm and grasping the first light. Coming out of a very unexpected tumultuous time there is a lot of feelings of grief, loss, hope, purest of love, connection to my home, death and new configurations as well as self-discovery.”

Trackliste
1.1Below My Skin
1.2Reach Down Into The Deepest White
1.3Of Snowhere
1.4Next Time I Keep My Hands Down
1.5All The Light I Have, I Hand To You
1.6She Was My Own She Was Myself
1.7How To Be Free From It
1.8From Breaks To Shreds It's A Short Path
1.9Don't Follow Me
1.10I Have For You - Simple Truth

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**2024 Repress on 140g Vinyl with updated Sleeve**

The first in a series of mini compilations exploring instrumental Dub versions of sought after and long out of print titles from the world of Reggae, Disco, Boogie and House. Many of these versions still contain vocals, snippets here and there drenched in delay or reverb, a style you’ll recognise from many of the Jura Soundsystem edits on the label. The late Glen Adams & Finesse open proceedings with their Island Disco cover of Marvin Gaye’s classic, followed on the A2 by a super rare UK Boogie/Brit Funk mix of Tippa Irie’s ‘Panic Panic’ (shouts to Tippa for personally helping to push through the license) and the A side closes with the 80’s leaning ‘Yes I Do’ from Belgium’s Special Occasion. The first half of the B side comes from Carol Williams with the Special Club Dub mix of ‘Can’t Get Away’, originally a one sided promo only 10” from 1983 complete with spoken word intro from Carol thanking New York’s Metro DJs for their support of the song. The LP closes with a Jura Soundsystem Dubby Edit of La Palace De Beaute’s ‘Sin’ pulling back on the vocal and going heavy on the delay.

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Francesco Puccioni "born genius" in Florence, Mike Francis "becomes legend" in Rome. Deeply inspired in his adolescence by the emerging movements of North American soul, country and West Coast music and by artists such as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and James Taylor, Francesco began to compose refined songs with radiant energy every day. From the first acoustic gestures performed with the guitar, always keeping compositional creativity and improvisation under his arm, he enters the unexplored waters of Italian disco music. This slow and inexorable transformation allowed him to create in 1981 with the Metropole group (with Al Festa and Claudio Giusti, all still in their twenties) the international disco hit "Miss Manhattan", a true piece of proto-Italo-Disco! A year later the young Florentine singer-songwriter wrote two evocative soul-disco songs produced by Paul & Peter Micioni, published by Best Record and performed by a certain Mike Francis (!). This is the birth of the stage name which will forever accompany the musician who became a fundamental reference of the experimental Italo-Disco "scene", then soon recognized worldwide. This coveted 12" vinyl reissue comes out with the same Best Record commercial cover as 40 years ago and with the same 'red sticker'. And finally we have the juicy reissue of "Nightime Lady" and the more appetizing and danceable "Love Has Found", both perfectly remastered by Dom Scuteri, excellent in obtaining an impeccable sound recording, even eliminating some imperceptible defects of the original master tape. Therefore a super reissue (in limited edition) to listen to everywhere with the smart phone and to dance with joy and elegance at any type of party..

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Repress!

Dark Entries is pleased to announce a deluxe reissue of Sexual Harrassment’s 1983 opus I Need A Freak. Lynn Tolliver, DJ/Program Director at Cleveland’s WZAK, adopted the pseudonym David Payton in order to keep his musical endeavors separate from his public persona. Sexual Harrassment (misspelled deliberately) was formed as a concept band, with members selected based on appearance and choreographic skill rather than musical ability. Tolliver’s explicit lyrics focused on the central themes of desire and sexual relations. Working at a studio in Akron, he recorded an album of quirky-yet-lurid electro funk, which was released on Heat Records. Tolliver remarks, “I learned as a youngster, sex sells! The things that are rated the worst – violence, horror and sex – are the things people want to see or hear about.” I Need a Freak was a surprise hit, selling over 100,000 copies.

I Need A Freak is presented here for the first time on double LP, pressed at 45 rpm for maximum DJ-friendliness. While the album’s naughtier moments seem quaint by contemporary standards, the fusion of lo-fi funk and disaffected vocals still stuns today. On the eternal electro-raunch anthem “I Need a Freak”, minimalism serves to highlight the lasciviousness of the deadpan lyrics, which were inspired by Lourdes Figueroa, Tolliver’s girlfriend at the time. Tolliver’s whimsy shines on tracks like “If I Gave You a Party” and “K.I.S.S.I.N.G.”, which contrast nursery rhyme structures with decidedly R-rated lyrics. “Exercise Your Ass Off” lampoons the home exercise craze, but with a more-than-suggestive sexual bent. Also included are two bonus cuts, “We Want Prince” and “These Are The Things That I Like”, previously released as singles in 1984 and 1986, respectively. “We Want Prince” is both a homage to the Purple one and a gentle satire of obsessive fandom.

I Need A Freak has been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The album comes in a gatefold sleeve featuring the original artwork. Included are lyrics, photos, and liner notes by Lynn Tolliver and drummer Dale Jackson. Tolliver’s sly provacateurship is best captured by the quote: “It’s funny – without sex, mankind is dead, yet we hide the very thing we need.”

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Re-release of this timeless electronic anthem. A track that defies any classification. The perfect mix between Belgian techno, trance and EBM. “Sundown” was released as single in 1991 and instantly became a techno classic in Germany and all over the globe selling over 200,000 copies.

‘The Sunshine And The 909’ is without any doubt the most famous mix and a master piece remixed by Kenneth Baker, one of the pioneers of techno & house music movement in Denmark and founder of labels like Coma Records and Flex Records.

“…when I played Sundown for the first time at the Techno-Club in Dorian Gray, more than 25 people came to the DJ box and asked what it was…” (Talla 2XLC)

Limited edition of 500 copies including three classic remixes and one new re-edit.

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