Actress’ tenth studio album, the celestial and expansive Statik, is released June 7th via Smalltown Supersound.

The collaboration between Darren Cunningham and the esteemed Oslo-based purveyors of elevated sonics evolved organically following Actress’ remix of a Carmen Villain cut for the 12” of her Only Love From Now On LP.

In this vein, the entire Statik project, from conception through creation and release, has been blessed with an almost unnatural ease. For Actress, who wrote the majority of his subtly majestic new record in an extensive flow state, the project serves as a cohesive testament to artistic liberation.

Resultantly, Cunningham’s new album is imbued with a sense of freedom. And of stillness. The kind of stillness within artistic motion that arises via the deepest states of flow. Once ‘inside’ the Statik experience, listeners may well find themselves newly calm and meditative.

Of course, those well-versed in Actress’s works are well-travelled when it comes to fantastical flights of the mind. Transportive sonics that spark inner-voyages – whether through nocturnal cityscapes, or far above and beyond, through Saturn’s rings and past Pluto’s moons – are prime Cunningham terrain. Yet while Statik is unmistakably an Actress LP, it’s also distinctly aquatic and subtly primordial, and so offers his audience novel elemental atmospheres to flow through. Listening closely, influential visions of aqueous realms, such as the mythic Atlantis, and evocations of ancient ceremonies as well as flying birds (and, perhaps, humans) may reveal themselves.

No matter if Statik inspires you to soar above or below the horizon, Actress and Smalltown Supersound promise you a safe and transcendent journey.

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Vinyl only, 'black label' release in the run up to forthcoming album Ghettoville

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Following his critically acclaimed "R.I.P." album on Honest Jons, Actress returns with 3 new tracks on his own Werkdiscs imprint!

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Between sleep and the void lies the electronic interzone of Actress. Following the noted 2010 album Splazsh (voted number one in The Wire magazine’s Top 50 Releases Of The Year) South London producer Darren Cunningham returns with a suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms which all carry his unmistakable fingerprint. R.I.P. comprises fifteen tracks painstakingly crafted by Cunningham in his London studio over recent years, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion. “I'm just an instrument,” Cunningham avers. “I'm completely dead when I write.”
Right from the debut album Hazyville (Werk Discs), Actress’s music has carried deep tinges and pock marks of London's rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh (Honest Jon’s), R.I.P. heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. 2-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments. The fifteen chapters of R.I.P. begin with Ascension and the Book of Genesis and play out through gardens, serpents and mythological caves. “When I feel I'm coming towards the end of the process I'll buy some books related to the theme. So I started Milton’s Paradise Lost, started to re-read Jamie James’s The Music Of The Spheres. I wanted the movements to make sense scene-wise and chronologically."“In places the album is meant to drift,” notes Cunningham. R.I.P. moves back and forth between space and rhythm, probing the “boundaries in and of rest and peace.” Appropriately for exploring the myths of Creation, the sounds Actress creates are completely sui generis. There are no soft synths or plug-ins, and instead he uses meticulous manual sound tinkering to create tones, tunings and textures. “It's like painting with button and sliders,” he describes. “Melting and dripping, seeping yourself liquid into the machinery.” The ghosted rhythms and free tunings of these tracks live in a parallel universe to the conventional rigours of the dancefloor. Unlike the sterile sound spaces rendered in so much laptop sound-product, these tracks carry traces of the endless mouse strokes that made them. You feel the sweat and sinew of handmade construction. “I can't explain how I made those tracks, it's just impossible,” he says. “I have a hard time comprehending it myself sometimes.” The album begins with the title track, a short tonal requiem for the dead, before drifting into another beatless meditation, the rippling minimalist structure of Ascending. Holy Water and Marble Plexus introduce rhythm, although these percussive tics could be equally sourced from sub-bass speaker stacks or marbles rolling around a bowl. Jardin and Serpent are origami-like constructions which orbit around what could be pizzicato strings or harps. Last-but-one is IWAAD, whose pulsing 4/4 rhythms and warm hits of low-end vibration hint at a return to the real. R.I.P. underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Drexciya, T++, Aphex Twin, Burial and Basic Channel. But the way he engages with electronic sound from first principles, realising his own self-contained sonic worlds, hints at less obvious kinships outside the dance music fraternity, with pioneers of homebrewed sound experiments such as Cabaret Voltaire, Pan Sonic and Oval. It moves the body but the sounds also tap into to something more intangible inside you; you dance, but also “slip/drift into another realm, probably without even realising.”



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Between sleep and the void lies the electronic interzone of Actress. Following the noted 2010 album Splazsh (voted number one in The Wire magazine’s Top 50 Releases Of The Year) South London producer Darren Cunningham returns with a suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms which all carry his unmistakable fingerprint. R.I.P. comprises fifteen tracks painstakingly crafted by Cunningham in his London studio over recent years, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion. “I'm just an instrument,” Cunningham avers. “I'm completely dead when I write.”
Right from the debut album Hazyville (Werk Discs), Actress’s music has carried deep tinges and pock marks of London's rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh (Honest Jon’s), R.I.P. heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. 2-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments. The fifteen chapters of R.I.P. begin with Ascension and the Book of Genesis and play out through gardens, serpents and mythological caves. “When I feel I'm coming towards the end of the process I'll buy some books related to the theme. So I started Milton’s Paradise Lost, started to re-read Jamie James’s The Music Of The Spheres. I wanted the movements to make sense scene-wise and chronologically."“In places the album is meant to drift,” notes Cunningham. R.I.P. moves back and forth between space and rhythm, probing the “boundaries in and of rest and peace.” Appropriately for exploring the myths of Creation, the sounds Actress creates are completely sui generis. There are no soft synths or plug-ins, and instead he uses meticulous manual sound tinkering to create tones, tunings and textures. “It's like painting with button and sliders,” he describes. “Melting and dripping, seeping yourself liquid into the machinery.” The ghosted rhythms and free tunings of these tracks live in a parallel universe to the conventional rigours of the dancefloor. Unlike the sterile sound spaces rendered in so much laptop sound-product, these tracks carry traces of the endless mouse strokes that made them. You feel the sweat and sinew of handmade construction. “I can't explain how I made those tracks, it's just impossible,” he says. “I have a hard time comprehending it myself sometimes.” The album begins with the title track, a short tonal requiem for the dead, before drifting into another beatless meditation, the rippling minimalist structure of Ascending. Holy Water and Marble Plexus introduce rhythm, although these percussive tics could be equally sourced from sub-bass speaker stacks or marbles rolling around a bowl. Jardin and Serpent are origami-like constructions which orbit around what could be pizzicato strings or harps. Last-but-one is IWAAD, whose pulsing 4/4 rhythms and warm hits of low-end vibration hint at a return to the real. R.I.P. underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Drexciya, T++, Aphex Twin, Burial and Basic Channel. But the way he engages with electronic sound from first principles, realising his own self-contained sonic worlds, hints at less obvious kinships outside the dance music fraternity, with pioneers of homebrewed sound experiments such as Cabaret Voltaire, Pan Sonic and Oval. It moves the body but the sounds also tap into to something more intangible inside you; you dance, but also “slip/drift into another realm, probably without even realising.”



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Two dazzling, out-there contributions from the inimitable Actress: an immersive, slashing thumper, ecstatic and convulsive, multi-layered and head-nodding, just about getting Mars on the radio; and a kind of unhinged marimba and thumb-piano variation, grubbing around manically in half-memories of African polyrhythm.



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With a sound that no one can quite touch, nor classify, it comes as little surprise that an outside-the-box artist like Actress would come into the path of Autonomic. The mastermind behind the cult-worshipped Werk Discs (whose roster includes enigmatic producers Lone, Lukid and Zomby), Actress took the electronic spectrum into another direction entirely last year with ‘Splazsh.’ Released on Damon Albarn’s imprint Honest Jons, ‘Splazsh’ brought dynamic Hypercolour to the insular greyness that his ‘Hazyville’ album captured so well. After his acclaimed debut on Nonplus+ in 2010 – the astral ‘Machine And Voice’ EP, the intriguing artist returns to the label with ‘Gershwin / HarrierA bonafide classic to sit in the ranks alongside Cybotron, in comes a typically allencompassing, textured four-on-the-floor stomper from Actress.


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The fifth Flaoting Points album Cascade is a culmination of creative evolution. In late 2022, Shepherd found himself in the California desert, crafting a new sonic journey via his acclaimed Promises, where he ventured into airy dreamscapes with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, earning a Mercury Prize nomination and a sold-out Hollywood Bowl show in 2023. With Cascade, Shepherd returns to his electronic roots, craving the pulse-racing communion of the dancefloor. This album serves as a sequel to Crush, diving deeper into ravey, experimental realms, unexplored due to lockdown cancellations. Tracks draw inspiration from Manchester's record shops and California's desert landscapes, blending Buchla rhythms and glitching melodies. Shepherd's journey, from orchestral collaborations to laptop productions, underscores his relentless pursuit of innovation.

TRACKLISTING 2LP:

Side A
A1. Vocoder [Club Mix]
A2. Key103

Side B
B1. Birth4000
B2. Del Oro

Side C
C1. Fast Forward
C2. Ocotillo

Side D
D1. Afflecks Palace
D2. Tilt Shift / Ablaze

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The fifth Flaoting Points album Cascade is a culmination of creative evolution. In late 2022, Shepherd found himself in the California desert, crafting a new sonic journey via his acclaimed Promises, where he ventured into airy dreamscapes with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, earning a Mercury Prize nomination and a sold-out Hollywood Bowl show in 2023. With Cascade, Shepherd returns to his electronic roots, craving the pulse-racing communion of the dancefloor. This album serves as a sequel to Crush, diving deeper into ravey, experimental realms, unexplored due to lockdown cancellations. Tracks draw inspiration from Manchester's record shops and California's desert landscapes, blending Buchla rhythms and glitching melodies. Shepherd's journey, from orchestral collaborations to laptop productions, underscores his relentless pursuit of innovation.

TRACKLISTING:
1."Vocoder (Club Mix)"
2."Key103"
3."Birth4000"
4."Del Oro"
5."Fast Forward"
6."Ocotillo"
7."Afflecks Palace"
8. "Tilt Shift/Ablaze"

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Scott Hansen aka. Tycho's sixth full-length album is a worthy comeback, a self-proclaimed album about "hope for the future and a requiem for the past". Drawing on the image of Hunter S Thompson as portrayed by Johnny Depp in Fear And Loating In Las Vegas - "sitting at a typewriter looking out a window onto his past, trying to find meaning in the chaos" - so Tycho ventures to explore his own past and to sublate it in album form, with the express purpose of finding a universal sonic panacea for humankind. Tycho's cure-all is a vision in suspenseful electro-funk and thumpingly serene beats, which carry with them a signature womp and pump throughout. Focusing primarily on breaks, drums and rhythmic elements, Hansen nonetheless moves in markedly different direction compared to standout algo-choices like Dive, on which a slower pace was heard preferred.

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TRACKLIST:

Side A:

A1. Nice Town - Metronomy x Pan Amsterdam
A2. With Balance - Metronomy x Naima Bock x Joshua Idehen
A3. Contact High - Metronomy x Miki x Faux Real

Side B:

B1. My Love - Metronomy x Nourished by Time
B2. Typical - Metronomy x Lynks x SPIDER x Master Peace x TaliaBle

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TRACKLIST:

Side A

A1. Test The Sound (Extended Version)
A2. Music Takes Me Up (with Alice Russell)
A3. Donkey Ride (with Quantic)

Side B

B1. Hairy Bumpercress
B2. Whiplash
B3. Nice Up The Function (with Roots Manuva)

Side C

C1. Bang The Floor (with Danny Breaks)
C2. Get On Down
C3. Hold On (with Andreya Triana)

Side D

D1. Give Up To Get
D2. Kalimba
D3. Zen (with Skuff & Inja)

Side E

E1. This Way (with Pete Simpson)
E2. Stockport Carnival
E3. Fix That Speaker

Side F

F1. Bunch of Keys (LP Edit)
F2. Rocking Chair
F3. Nice Up The Function (Remix Instrumental)

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Peruvian artist in Berlin Sofia Kourtesis has been on an unstoppable rise since she first emerged with a pair of EPs on Studio Barnhus. Brought into the Ninja Tune fold back in 2021, she's developed her debut album in the whirlwind of a rapidly growing profile and the personal struggle of her mother's terminal cancer diagnosis. Through her tenacity, she found a gifted doctor who was able to treat her mother and give her a life expectancy no-one would have thought possible, and so Madres doubles as a tribute to her mother and to the medical professionals who achieved what was thought impossible - as such, it's a powerful, sincere listening experience which fuses deep house with melancholic pop in mesmerising fashion.

TRACKLIST 2LP:

Side A

A1. Si Te Portas Bonito
A2. Madres

Side B

B1. Vajkoczy
B2. Estación Esperanza

Side C

C1. Funkhaus
C2. Cecilia
C3. Habla Con Ella

Side D

D1. How Music Makes You Feel Better
D2. El Carmen
D3. Moving Houses

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ZEN78XX 2LP limited edition ashen and pewter grey 140g vinyl.
Housed in a rigid tip-on foiled, embossed and debossed gatefold sleeve with new liner notes and updated artwork.
Black paper inners and unseen session photography presented on a 12” double sided art card insert.

Side A
A1. The Projectionist
A2. Melody
A3. Dawn
A4. The Awakening Of A Woman (Burnout)

Side B
B1. Reel Life (Evolution II)
B2. Postlude
B3. Evolution (Versao Portuense)

Side C
C1. Man With The Movie Camera
C2. Voyage
C3. Odessa
C4. Theme De Yoyo
C5. The Magician

Side D
D1. Theme Reprise
D2. Yoyo Waltz
D3. Drunken Tune
D4. The Animated Tripod
D5. All Things

The Cinematic Orchestra have announced a 20th anniversary tour & audio reissue of their seminal 2003 album “Man With A Movie Camera.” The live shows will feature songs from the album with all new visuals, celebrating the release across Europe. The 2LP limited edition comes in ashen and pewter grey coloured vinyl, housed in a rigid tip-on foiled, embossed and debossed detail gatefolded sleeve with updated artwork and new liner notes. This reissue will include 12” double sided art card insert of unseen session photography from the time.

As part of the film festival celebrations of Porto being the European City of Culture in 2001, Jason Swinscoe of The Cinematic Orchestra was commissioned to score a soundtrack to a silent movie as a one-off performance. The film was Dziga Vertov's ‘Man With A Movie Camera,’ a 1929 early documentary cinema film from the Soviet Union, and hailed by many including The British Film Institute to be one of the greatest films of all time, nearly 100 years on from its creation. The performance took place in the historic Coliseu Porto, and ended with a standing ovation of 3,500 people. The Cinematic Orchestra have since toured the show internationally over the years, including performances at The Barbican in London, NYC’s Winter Garden at WTC, and Sydney Opera House.

The band was in the process of writing “Every Day” when the film commission occurred, which had a formative influence on “Man With A Movie Camera”. Certain tracks that made it onto “Every Day” in other forms were written specifically for the score or were already in development, which allowed Swinscoe and the band to remold motifs to the film's unfolding narrative. The title 'Every Day' was based on the narrative in the film, which portrays a day in the life of an idealised Soviet society, beginning with people waking up, moving through various workplace environments, and into leisure time & activities.

“Man With A Movie Camera” was eventually recorded and released in 2003. it was met with much acclaim. The Guardian gave it 4/5 and said “You can perform an autopsy on the jazz instruments, DJ Shadow-like grooves and repeating chord sequences, yet come away scratching your head as to how, in such simple combinations, they make such heartfelt music.” The Independent on Sunday continued, “It stands alone, proud and complete.” And dance magazines also showered it with praise such as DJ Magazine, “The genius, a word not to be used lightly, of The Cinematic Orchestra seemingly knows no bounds.”

Since debuting with “Motion”, in 1999, The Cinematic Orchestra have sold hundreds of thousands of albums, generated over a billion streams and enjoyed critical support from the likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, Resident Advisor, Fader, Crack, Rolling Stone, Gilles Peterson, Benji B, Jason Bentley and Mary Anne Hobbs. In 2007, The “Ma Fleur” album was recognised for its bold departure from the group’s sonic traditions; in the years since, it’s been continuously celebrated, with tracks like ‘To Build A Home’ reaching huge audiences. The band have performed to larger and larger audiences and sold out the likes of London's Royal Albert Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Rome’s Auditorium Park Della and the Sydney Opera House. Coachella, Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, Montreux and Sonar have all played host to the band’s much loved live performances. They have also appeared at the Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Awards for Stanley Kubrick and New York’s Summerstage with the legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin. Their original score for “The Crimson Wing”, included the track ‘Arrival of the Birds’ which featured in the Oscar Winning Stephen Hawking biopic "The Theory of Everything”. Their last album “To Believe,” charted in the Top 20 of the UK albums chart and #1 in the album vinyl chart.

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Roisin Murphy has finally become a genuine top-tier star - an artist capable of packing-out venues with dynamic live shows, and whose every new musical move is headline news. Hit Parade is not, as the title suggests, a solo retrospective but rather a brand-new album produced not by regular collaborator Crooked Man, but rather another masterful maverick, DJ Koze. The pair has worked together before, so Murphy is in safe hands. Musically, it's a genre-straddling, style-bending affair whose strong songs - rich in sing-along choruses, thoughtful lyrics and musical hooks aplenty - are presented in vivid colour (with plenty of sparkling organic instrumentation). Recent singles 'Cuckoo' and 'The Universe', both instant classics, offer a neat summary of the album's many qualities.

TRACKLIST Deluxe 2LP + Bonus Track:

Side A
A1. What Not To Do
A2. CooCool
A3. The Universe
A4. Milf Funk (Bonus Track)

Side B
B1. Hurtz So Bad
B2. The House
B3. Fader
B4. Free Will

Side C
C1. You Knew
C2. Can’t Replicate

Side D
D1. Crazy Ants Reprise
D2. Two Ways
D3. Eureka

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Roisin Murphy has finally become a genuine top-tier star - an artist capable of packing-out venues with dynamic live shows, and whose every new musical move is headline news. Hit Parade is not, as the title suggests, a solo retrospective but rather a brand-new album produced not by regular collaborator Crooked Man, but rather another masterful maverick, DJ Koze. The pair has worked together before, so Murphy is in safe hands. Musically, it's a genre-straddling, style-bending affair whose strong songs - rich in sing-along choruses, thoughtful lyrics and musical hooks aplenty - are presented in vivid colour (with plenty of sparkling organic instrumentation). Recent singles 'Cuckoo' and 'The Universe', both instant classics, offer a neat summary of the album's many qualities.

TRACKLIST Std 2LP:

Side A
A1. What Not To Do
A2. CooCool
A3. The Universe

Side B
B1. Hurtz So Bad
B2. The House
B3. Fader
B4. Free Will

Side C
C1. You Knew
C2. Can’t Replicate

Side D
D1. Crazy Ants Reprise
D2. Two Ways
D3. Eureka

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Deluxe 20th anniversary edition of the classic Mr. Scruff album. 2LP (blue / red vinyl) with iconic artwork by Mr. Scruff & Airside plus infinity peelable trouser sticker on the cover to reveal silver and gold foiled 20th anniversary trousers. Includes MP3 download code.

Originally released in 2002, “Trouser Jazz” was the hotly anticipated follow-up to the Manchester-based DJ, producer, record collector and cartoonist’s barnstorming Ninja Tune debut “Keep it Unreal” (1999). As a DJ, Andy Carthy aka Mr. Scruff plays across the board, moving between soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, reggae, latin, african, ska, disco, house, funk, electro, breaks, soundtracks and loads more. As a producer he makes music that draws on these influences, with a large dose of cheek and good humour. His cartoon drawings illustrate gig flyers, posters, record sleeves, t-shirts and occasionally accompany him at gigs as live animated visuals.

“Trouser Jazz” – recorded largely at Carthy’s home studio with engineer Danny Evans – neatly encapsulated Scruff’s ethos, his joie de vivre and his inimitable combination of tight knit funk, expansive sonics and dancefloor dynamite.

“The album is a real mixture of moods and tempos, just like my DJ sets, twisting my influences and inspirations into different shapes,” explains Andy. “It was also the time when I started to develop my low-end addiction, as tracks such as ‘Ug’ and ‘Shelf Wobbler’ testify. The collaborations were enjoyable too, from Bernard Moss’ one-take flute that Seaming & Sneaky built a track around on ‘Valley of the Sausages’, Braintax’s medieval working-class themed rap on 'Vibrate', Sneaky’s bass and Andy Kingslow’s abrasive synth solo on ’Shrimp’ (which was the first of many tracks we did together), Andy K again on ‘Champion Nibble’, Niko’s glorious & touching vocals on ‘Come Alive’ and Seaming's otherworldly vocals on ‘Beyond’. When I listen back to Trouser Jazz, I can feel the fun and energy from those studio sessions.”

Everyone including Pitchfork delighted in the record’s joyful eclecticism: “Trouser Jazz is quite possibly the answer to all of your sugar-fueled Saturday morning disco prayers, churning out one chocolate-frosted cereal box prize after another and bringing down the house with an inspired mix of rubbery funk, hipster soul and gleefully contorted, krush groovin’ hip-hop.”

It’s tough to pick out highlights in a set of consistently top drawer productions but ‘Shrimp’ is an inspired fusion of Mizell Brothers cool and Roger Troutman’s squelchy funk; ‘Come Alive’ is a triumphant soulful jaunt blessed with Niko’s vocal and rooted by the most hypnotic bassline on the album. Meanwhile the outright dumb ‘Ug’ is “a giant teddy bear of a track… the subcutaneous bellow of the bassline, the Flat Eric keyboard squawks and slithering hi-hat snaps propel it to the top of the heap” (Pitchfork). Undoubtedly it was the aforementioned characteristics that made ‘Ug’ a stone cold backroom classic.

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TRACKLISTING:

Side A

A1. Noctuary
A2. Flutter
A3. D Song

Side B
B1. Change Down
B2. Wayward Bob
B3. Pick Up

Side C
C1. Something (Longer) for Windy
C2. Nothing Owed
C3. Light Pattern

Side D
D1. Pick Up (Four Tet Remix)
D2. Behind The Light

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TRACKLIST Ltd LP:

Side A: 1. Amöban 2. Frisco 3. Slugs of Love 4. Disco Dangerous 5. Lily’s Call 6. Stay (feat. JID)
Side B: 1. Gold 2. Kenneth 3. Glow (feat. Damon Albarn) 4. Tumbling Dice 5. Easy Falling

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TRACKLIST Ltd LP:

Side A: 1. Amöban 2. Frisco 3. Slugs of Love 4. Disco Dangerous 5. Lily’s Call 6. Stay (feat. JID)
Side B: 1. Gold 2. Kenneth 3. Glow (feat. Damon Albarn) 4. Tumbling Dice 5. Easy Falling

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TRACKLIST:

Side A
A1. Intro
A2. Blue Lights
A3. Heads Or Tails
A4. Scars
A5. Interlude: I Got Tired Of Running
A6. Lonely Back In O
A7. Your Thoughts

Side B
B1. Interlude: It Was Beautiful
B2. Meant To Be
B3. Circle Back Around
B4. When She Dance
B5. Sapphires Of Gold
B6. 15 Foot

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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TRACKLISTING:

Side A
A1. Atlas
A2. Cazenove
A3. Apricots

Side B
B1. Saku (feat. Clara La San)
B2. Lido
B3. X (feat. Clara La San)

Side C
C1. Rever (feat. Julia Kent)
C2. Sundial

Side D
D1. Fir
D2. Hawk (feat. machìna)

Side E
E1. Siena (feat. Clara La San)

Side F
F1. Meli (I)
F2. Light

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Germany
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Recorded over the past two years, “Capricorn Sun” delivers 12 tracks that perfectly encapsulate the emotive blend of underground electronic and hook-laden pop sensibilities

Tracklist
A1. Galdem (Intro)
A2. The Light
A3. OnlyL (feat. NIMMO)
B1. Water (feat. Oumou Sangaré)
B2. Dancing in the Shadows (feat. Clementine Douglas)
B3. Giving Up (feat. Mafro) **
C1. Anxious Mind (feat. Clementine Douglas)
C2. Time
C3. Power
D1. Running
D2. Sister
D3. Nala (Outro)

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

Next batch coming in on the 14th of july.

The Aztecs return. UR receives the message. The Aztecs and the Hermanos make the transition from the guitar player. Natives didn’t take the robbery of Mother Earth’s land or her culture lightly. A new warrior culture, the Electronics did not back down when a war broke out with the programmers over this production. Those who know were avenged for the transgression. Strong beautiful music with a stronger beautiful spirit. A first in the history of music: big can lose. Hear it and feel the power of the cats that still prowl the streets of Detroit.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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Debut studio album by Dutch electronic music producer and DJ Speedy J (real name Jochem Paap), Ginger was originally released in June 1993 as part of Warp Records Artificial Intelligence series.

Remastered in 2021, the reissue contains the original design by longtime Warp collaborators The Designers Republic.

Rotterdam-based Jochem Paap began creating techno tracks such as “Three O’Three” and “Something For Your Mind” in his hometown to play out in clubs, and chose the artist name Speedy J as a reference to his DJ skills. As commented on by All Music, Paap's clear intent with Ginger was "to take his music out of the rave and into the home-listening environment," and balance elements of the manic energy that defined his early releases with a lush sound palette. Writing and recording on his own in The Plant studio, the album was released on a number of different labels internationally and brought his minimal but melodic production style to a far wider audience, with critics noting his meticulous attention to audio design, skillful use of track interludes (the “Fill” tracks on Ginger, something Black Dog Productions also explored on Bytes), and a careful balancing of four-to-the-floor grooves with ambient textures. He released a second album with Warp, 1995’s G-Spot, and has continued to make a diverse range of electronic music, included releases on labels such as Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu and Peter Namlook’s FAX +49-69/450464, and showcasing a more experimental strand of releases via his own Electric Deluxe imprint. The music on Ginger has been highlighted as a seminal release in a number of retrospective features by the likes of Pitchfork, The Wire and FACT.

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Germany
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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

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Germany
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Repress!

In February 2021, Jan Jelinek's seminal album "Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records" turned 20. The anniversary repress, a double LP with two bonus tracks (B-sides from the Tendency EP, 2000), is a little late to the party.

What the press said about Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records:

“Don’t be misled by the title, though for there isn’t a finger-snapping rhythm c bebop lead anywhere on the album. Instead, Jelinek chooses to explore the visual effect moiré - two shifting patterns creating an implied third dimension - in the audio realm.” (Alternative Press)

“The title acts as explanation for the studio technique that provided the basis for this album, snippets of other people’s arrangements deconstructed through a sampler into loops and then splashed onto an audio canvas.” (ATM)

“Jelinek’s sound evolved out of his dislike for (and inability to play) keyboards.” (RPM)

“Jelinek has abstracted his sources beyond recognition, looping his millisecond samples into flickering patterns of sonic moiré laid atop a dub Techno framework. (...) Jelinek might as well have sampled a horn player’s hissing intake of breath – it would have been ‘jazz’ enough for his purposes.“ (The Wire)

“It’s a perfect inversion of conventional music, a sonic negative. Everything that would typically be foreground is moved back or pushed off the screen altogether, and the flecks of sonic debris that would normally be covered by other sounds are left to carry the melody and rhythm.” (Pitchfork)

“All you need to know is that these onomatopoeic non-specific songs (...) are warm, paradisical creations”. (NME)

“Listen carefully and you’ll hear textures slowly unfolding and mutating. Presuming you’ve not fallen asleep of course.” (iDJ)

“At times, it’s all a bit dripping tap Japanese water torture; so sedentary it drowns in its own motionlessness” (DJ)

“Loop Finding Jazz Records' is a genuine modern classic whose re-release is anything but a cynical mortgage repayment exercise. Consider this a second chance, then pretend you had it all along.” (Boomkat)

PS:

“I’ve been fortunate enough to see Jan Jelinek live once, at Tonic NYC (...). Wearing a black and white striped shirt, he looked like a nihilistic Charlie Brown.” (beachsloth)

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Warp present the the first three full length offerings from Autechre; Incunabula, Amber & Tri Repetae. Having been unavailable on vinyl since 2001, these recordings reveal the geometry of the duo's early transcripts from post-acid house electronica through sparse, hypnotic ambience and into the b-boy flavour that characterised their mid-nineties excavations of jungle, industrial and hip-hop.

Amber, the second full-length from Autechre and considered by many to be their ambient opus (though we imagine they wouldn't call it that!) having been out of print on vinyl since 2001. Amber contains eleven tracks of sparse Ae minimalist machine modules that blur the boundaries between isolationist electronica and richly vivid techno soundscapes. Considered by many fans to be the most crucial recording from the group, it contains some of their most immersive soundscapes to date. Steering away from the post-hardcore dynamics that shone through on Incunabula, Amber moves further away from anything resembling 'techno' and moved into more territories of abstract ambience. These eleven crystal-like cubes of sound came together to produce some of the most mind-bendingly hypnotic sounds to be committed to wax during the 90's. Placing Ae up in the ranks of legendary composers such as Steve Reich and Manuel Gottsching as well as their Artificial Intelligence contemporaries with whom they were crafting the building blocks of the future.There is something uniquely immersive about Amber, it's almost as if as you are playing it the sounds are fading away before they even begin, when played from the start you can lose a lot of time within the endless gradients that adorn its cover, before the sounds just seemingly, disappear.

Spec: 2LP in paper inners in gatefold sleeve with postcard size download card

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

ssabæ continue their exploration of sonic possibilities through friendship, improvisation, and modulated states of consciousness. Watched over by flying birds, they met over the past fall and winter in various studios, bedrooms and murky french outdoors, to create this new set of vanishing tracks.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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Repress!

New Kalahari Oyster Cult sublabel: Mineral Cuts!

Deep System - Radarscope © 1993 Evolution Records.*
Morose - Holy Ghost © 1996 Humboldt County Records.

2 tracks
45 RPM

Compiled by Rey Colino.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Cut at The Exchange.
Design by AJAM.

*Deep System - Radarscope = vinyl only.

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Tracklist:

1.Yegle Nesh (Live)
2.Tizita (Live)
3.Belew Beduby (Live)
4.Anchihoye Lene (Live)
5.Abichu Nega Nega (Live)
6.Yetewat Hil (Live)

It’s been a little over ten years since Hailu Mergia re-emerged on the international music scene. Following the first in a series of his classic recordings reissued in collaboration with Awesome Tapes From Africa, Mergia assembled a band and began performing live again after many years driving a cab in Washington, DC. His first show back appeared on the front page of the New York Times along with a stellar review and he took off from there performing his flavor of Ethiopian jazz all over the world in the years since, including Radio City Music Hall and Montreal Jazz Festival.

Finally, we have a recorded document of the keyboard player’s powerful DC-based trio—which practices each weekend in his basement—featuring Kenneth Joseph on drums and Alemseged Kebede on bass. Beautifully captured at one of their fiery live shows at the venerable Brooklyn non-profit cultural center Pioneer Works on July 1, 2016, the concert was recorded by PW staff and mixed by Ted Young with mastering by ATFA’s expert audio extraction collaborator Jessica Thompson. The performance clarifies what many people across the globe already know: in his fifth decade of music-making Hailu Mergia continues to push the boundaries of his remarkable abilities.

Mergia and his veteran band energetically and playfully unpeel layer after layer of harmonic and rhythmic interest out of a spectrum of Ethiopian repertoire. Modern jazz demands constant reinvention and improvisation, night after night creating new works out of known modes and classic standards. This band is unstoppable when it comes to turning age-old melodies (like “Tizita” or “Anchihoye Lene”) upside down and inside out until they emerge as molten new works, often spontaneously. Mergia’s original compositions (like “Yegle Nesh”) shine brighter than ever here as well. Moving from keyboard to organ to accordion to melodica, he deftly switches instruments—often during the same song. Mergia at 77 years old seems to be working harder than musicians half his age.

"Pioneer Works Swing (Live)" brings into focus the kind of onstage group improvisation and deadly solo passages that reach for places Mergia and the band have never gone, on festival and club stages across four continents.

Now that Mergia has released two new recordings along with four classic reissues, he is eager to let everyone hear what he’s been doing on the road since he re-took the global stage for his victory laps. So much more than an old act from yesteryear, Mergia balances his legendary Ethiopian recordings with good old-fashioned sweat-soaked live concert triumphs such as the one we have here.

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DE - 22113 Hamburg
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