https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNrZLJdVbB0

Two 80s gems from this sweet duo. Blue vinyl pressed in 2017.

Text lifted from the great Monorail Glasgow here "Classic archive work from Em's micro label Em Custom, offering a glimpse into the world of post-punk folk pop. Fantastic Something's most iconic moment fits very much into Mike Alway's Cherry Red aesthetic of the time. Two good looking Greek guys (brothers) coming on like Simon & Garfunkel fronting Aztec Camera or Maurice Deebank era Felt with sweeter singing. Pre-empting Johnny Marr at his most melodic and also weirdly, Gerard Love's Lightships project (from memory, Norman was a fan). As punk, and the DIY ethic, had changed the landscape, enabling bands to self-release their material, eventually a slew of genres crept out of the woodwork. By the early 80s, there was a reaction against wilder guitar bands, one being a trend of indie, bedsit-folk-pop. 1983 saw the release of this jangly summer single, by Fantastic Something (Alex and Constantin Veis), with an instrumental version on the flip. It was followed by an album two years later for Cherry Red's offshoot, Blanco Y Negro." More

One-sided 7” single on am EM custom.. these won't be around for very long.

A great and rare song, never before reissued, an early 80s electric molam classic produced by Surin Phaksiri. This release celebrates “Classic Productions by Surin Phaksiri 2: Molam Gems from the 1960s-80s”, an upcoming EM Records compilation spotlighting this legendary producer; however, this song will not be available on the compilation, so get the vinyl or DL, and don’t miss this groovily swaying paean to the pick-up truck share taxi, performed by Chabaphrai Namwai and molam queen Banyen Rakkaen. Remastered and lacquer cut by D&M Berlin, with English and Japanese lyrics translations. Hop in and let’s go!

Footnotes:
‘Songthaew’ is a passenger vehicle in Thailand and Laos adapted from a pick-up or a larger truck and used as a share taxi or bus. This molam tune “Lam Phloen Songthaew Fan Club” is about the period in which Songthaew began to appear as a new means of transportation for people in Thailand. More

"Yutai-ridatsu ±", an album from Osaka-based electronic music producer Futoshi Moriyama. Initially released in 2015 as a cassette on the Birdfriend label run by Koshiro Hino (aka YPY), augmented by four unreleased/new tracks which replace other tracks. Beautifully weird home-recorded orchestral music! More

Here is a portal to a vast and relatively unknown world, the Japanese cyber-occult underground media scene of the early 1990s; our guide is the late Henry Kawahara, a media artist and electronic music producer whose expansive and visionary conception of digital technology merged with a desire to break free of the constraints of mere rationality. This collection, the first-ever archival release of his work, is drawn from recordings released during the period 1991-1996, an exceptionally fertile time for Kawahara. Originally released on CD by a few Japanese independent labels including Hachiman Publishing, a cyber-occult / new-age / shinto book specialist, the releases were available mainly in book stores, so this sumptuous and prescient music has remained relatively unknown. The original titles and tag lines of the CDs give clues about Kawahara’s interests and the music itself: Digital Mushroom, Subtropical Illusion, Never-ending Asia, and so on. This 15-track gateway compilation is available on double 12” vinyl and DL; the CD version has two extra discs featuring sound from two art installations entitled "Dysteleology - a" and "Dysteleolog - ß" from the 1990s. All formats feature extensive English liner notes. More

Springing up from the Osaka underground club music scene in 2006, Hino is a rhythm master, intimately examining and extending pulses and grooves in his various projects. YPY is Hino's long-running rhythmic solo DNA lab, in which he investigates impulsion and propulsion, using drum machines and synthesizers in an organic and vital manner to create living and evolving percussive biosystems which are more than electronic music etudes.
With a strong sense of structure and space, development and dynamics, these pieces have an infectious warmth and humor. YPY utilizes and transcends the technical limitations of his chosen recording medium of cassette tape, and the quirks of relatively primitive drum machines and synthesizers, turning weakness into strength. The seven pieces here were recorded over a number of years and chosen, from a library of over seventy works, in collaboration with renowned Yosuke Yukimatsu. Available on CD and double 12-inch 45 RPM vinyl. With the title punningly referring to the slippery fragmentation of the music, "Zurhyrethm" is an enjoyable and intriguing debut. More

Alicia Bay Laurel is well known as the writer and illustrator of one of the classic books of the back-to-the-earth movement, the 1970 Living On The Earth, a hand-written guide to living the good life, but she is also a very accomplished singer, songwriter and guitarist, the latter skill honed by studying with John Fahey. The songs on Music From Living On The Earth were composed concurrently with the writing of the book, permeated by the sun and soil of the commune life, bright and earthy paeans to the natural world, featuring ABL's pure, strong and uplifting voice atop her fluid, confident and deft steel-string acoustic guitar fingerpicking, her style showing that she learned well from Fahey. She also collaborated with San Francisco Tape Music Center co-founder Ramon Sender Barayon, who contributes the 40-voice choral arrangement for the closing track. Although these songs were written as the sixties became the seventies, Music From Living On The Earth was actually recorded in 2000 and first issued as a self-produced CD, then later issued in Japan on EM Records and is now out of print. This 15th anniversary first-time vinyl version, with new liner notes by the artist as well as English and Japanese lyrics, allows listeners to again hear ABL's blues, jazz and Indian music influences meld with folk roots to glorious effect. More

Danish singer, producer, DJ, and composer Astrid Engberg releases her masterful sophomore album Trust, a tribute to intuition and new motherhood. Spanning contemporary soul, R&B, nu jazz, and modern classical, Trust sees her collaborating with a line-up of Nordic talent and the venerated violinist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, known for works with Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Hiatus Kaiyote. Taking form after the birth of her first child, the album was created with playful joy, openness, and gratitude over a nine-month period.

“You need to trust that what you hear is the way you need to go. I want to encourage others to trust themselves through me learning to trust myself.”

Trust is released via sonic soulseekers Creak Inc. – a Copenhagen-based label specializing in groundbreaking Danish music. More

There's a reason that Future Sound of London's 1991 debut single, 'Papua New Guinea', is periodically reissued: it's a stone-cold classic that sounds unlike anything else. In its original mix form, the track combines traits borrowed from early breakbeat hardcore (booming bass, house-tempo breakbeats) with saucer-eyed vocal samples, twinkling pianos and sounds more often found in ambient house and chill-out tunes from the period. This remastered, hand-numbered vinyl reissue boasts all of the 1992 remixes (as well as the original mix), including a suitably psychedelic, tribal-tinged Andrew Weatherall revision, the duo's own spaced-out ambient style 'Dub' mix, and a sax-sporting Manchester re-wire courtesy of 808 State's Graham Massey.

Tracklisting:
A1. Papua New Guinea - 12" Original
A2. Papua New Guinea - Andrew Weatherall Mix
A3. Papua New Guinea - Dub Mix
B1. Papua New Guinea - Journey To Pyramid
B2. Papua New Guinea - Monsoon Mix
B3. Papua New Guinea - Graham Massey Mix
B4. Papua New Guinea - Dumb Child Of Q Mix More

After Nu Guinea’s LP, Nuova Napoli, and Napoli Segreta first compilation, NG RECORDS follows up with an exploration into the unknown groovy side of Naples by releasing Napoli Segreta Vol.2.
Famiglia Discocristiana, DNApoli and Nu Guinea team up again selecting more tracks from their archives, for a new compilation containing 9 mysterious Neapolitan tracks, found in the most hidden corners of remote flea markets around the Vesuvius.
But forget classical Neapolitan songs, "'O Sole Mio" or "Luna Rossa"... Forget about what you expect to find once you land in town… oh and also forget about Google maps. Take a dodgy local guide, keep your eyes open, and follow it to enter the secret downtown, the underground, the routes that no satellite can detect, but beware there is no easy way out.
Napoli Segreta Vol.2 is a musical journey into the sonic landscapes of Naples that you have never heard of before. A variety of genres merging soul, disco, funk, blues, new wave, afro-beat and boogie, including lyrics in Neapolitan urban slang, instrumental tracks with progressive flavour, and also some unexpected covers!
TRACKLIST:
A1. Antonio Sorrentino – Luna Lù
A2. Tonica & Dominante - Babilonia
A3. Gibo & Pummarola Band – Sexy Pummarola
A4. Ara Macao – Reflection
A5. Tony Verde - Calypso
B1. Maria Kelly - Dimme
B2. Bernardino -Sciummo (Unreleased Mix)
B3. Armando Cusopoli – Non C'è Sole
B4. Tony Iglio – Luci More

Kraut synth funk explosion from the sci-fi, library & soundtrack specialists. DIY funksters break into museum, steal modular moog and record proto-electro-punk with dusty live drums, wild percussion and out-of-control analog synth sequencing onto Tascam 8-track tape. Following their debut 'Space Voyage' for Warner Chappell's music library and the outernational soundtrack LP 'Occhio Occhio', the U.K. based trio return with a darker, heavier edge on their new full-length 'Synchronization'. The soundtrack to a strange and mysterious dystopian future Immersed in the sounds of arpeggiated vintage synths, full fat drum breaks and fuzz guitars. At times the album is reminiscent of post punk with hints of boom bap hip hop and as the album progresses the listener is transported to the dance floors of Berlin's underground raves. In an age that sees AI increasingly omnipresent, Eleven76 take control of the technology, creating a hybrid, genre spanning, production style that could only come from their hive mind The trio surrounded themselves with an enviable array of vintage synths and modern classic studio toys, with Paul Elliott and Anthony Donje at the helm of patching, connecting and bringing these analog beasts to life, while Timmy Rickard continued to lay down the grooves as the heart of the rhythm section. The result is SYNCHRONIZATION, of synth and drums, pictures and sounds, man and machine – and of your heart and brain if you're ready to get synchronized. More

When it first slipped out in 2015, Manabu Nagayama’s ‘Light & Shadow’ passed most people by. Yet it’s a genuinely overlooked gem a musically expansive and uplifting Japanese deep house workout that first featured on a promo-only compilation back in 2015. A softly spun slab of slow-building brilliance full of fluid piano motifs, heady hand percussion, the track effortlessly sashays between heartfelt dancefloor melancholia and tactile deep house positivity. One DJ to see its potential was Rush Hour co-founder Antal Heitlager, who asked Masalo to remix it. Over ‘a few years’, Masalo worked on the revision in bursts, tweaking it and subtly altering the arrangement until he was happy. The results are undeniably impressive, elevating an already excellent track to whole new levels. DJs seem to agree, too, with Masalo’s fine remix becoming something of an underground anthem following the release of a limited number of white label test pressings earlier last year.

Taking the spiritual end of deep house as his inspiration – and happy memories of attending events while visiting Japan – the Dutch-Japanese producer has delivered a slowly-building epic that subtly ratchets up energy and excitement throughout, while effortlessly eking out every last drop of emotion from Manabu’s piano-laden production.

Extensively road-tested at the Brighter Days parties he runs with long-time DJ partner Kamma, Masalo’s remix settles into a chugging groove before introducing Manabu’s tactile hand percussion – a staple of spiritual deep house cuts – and melancholic piano refrains, as well as his own lilting chords and cascading synth sounds. By the time the original’s bouncy piano riff drops midway through, you’ll be lost in the music. Fittingly given the quality of Manabu’s original, it’s a revision that showcases the track’s best elements while gently lifting it to new heights. More

The smooth and funky sound of prime-time Japanese reggae pop in the 1970s and ‘80s fired up an obsession with Jamaican music that persists to the present day.

If there is a year zero for the introduction of reggae music to Japan, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was 1979 when Bob Marley and the Wailers toured the country, trailed by an entourage of journalists, photographers and fans ready to spread the message of the music into all corners of Japanese society.

But the story of Japanese reggae is not a linear one, and the music that is collected on Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 captures the moment J-reggae entered the broader public consciousness, merging commercial city pop style with an infectious backbeat, that has drawn comparisons with the emergence of Lovers Rock in the UK.

Rather than look directly to Jamaica, many producers and artists in Japan were inspired instead by the more approachable sounds of The Police and UB40, their reggae fix arriving pre-filtered through the lens of new wave pop from the UK. Playful and groovy, these album deep cuts have been overlooked for too long.

Among them are Miki Hirayama, the idol singer who borrowed the bassline from Bob Marley’s Natural Mystic on ‘Denshi Lenzi’, Chu Kosaka, who headed to Hawaii to cut the Jimmy Cliff-inspired ‘Music’ and Marlene, the Philippine songstress whose cover of Roberta Flack’s ‘Hittin’ Me Wear It Hurts’ owed much to her producer’s obsession with Sly & Robbie’s Compass Point sound.

Then there was Izumi “Mimi” Kobayashi, who enlisted the Babylon Warriors to perform on a dubbed-out version of her own track ‘Lazy Love’, the city pop-meets-new wave reggae sound of Miharu Koshi’s ‘Coffee Break’, Junko Yagami’s anti-apartheid deep cut ‘Johannesburg’ and Lily, whose ‘Tenki Ni Naare’ was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto and closes out the compilation with a flourish.

While these stories may not always conform to neat narratives, they do provide a more accurate reflection of the indirect ways in which styles infiltrate one another and, in their naivety, have the potential to create something beautifully strange and entirely new. Previously only available in Japan, the tracks on this compilation are a testament to that curious alchemy.

Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 is released on vinyl and as a full album download (no streaming), featuring original artwork by Japanese Fukuoka-based artist Noncheleee, whose cover pays homage to the iconic dancehall album art of Wilfred Limonious.

Released on 1st September, Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 is a part of Time Capsule's Nippon Series, a loose series of compilations exploring different musical scenes from Japan between the 1960s and 2010s. More

Following up on their highly acclaimed debut release from 2020, raster presents Il Quadro di Troisi’s “Remixes” album, an eclectic collection of reinterpretations of eight of the group’s tracks. By inviting fellow label artists as well as friends and long-term collaborators to contribute to this, “Remixes” shows a broad spectrum of diversity, ranging from colorful, loop-based renditions by Toulouse Low Trax and Tropicantesimo, to (Italo) disco-inspired versions by Daniele Baldelli & Marco Dionigi and Chloé, to more rhythmical and functional tracks by AtomTM, Dasha Rush and Front de Cadeaux. The album also includes a dub-infused reinterpretation of “Il giudizio” by the artists themselves. More