Whatever sense of unity bound a hodgepodge of underground American punk sounds in the 1990s like a Duct-tape wallet began to come unglued by the end of the decade. A couple years into the new millennium and the emo scene that once had enough space for a band as brazen in their fusion of slowcore, jazz, and post-hardcore as Boston’s Karate would barely be reflected in a cookie-cutter style commercialized by major labels and mid-level indies that acted like the majors. The part of punk that overlapped with indie rock would begin a slow ascent from its comfortable home on college radio charts to the soundtrack of American Apparel shops and eventually the Billboard charts. In this strange, stratifying milieu, Karate, a band that seemed to thrive by cleaving to a nether-zone between several sounds that otherwise never touched, delivered an engrossing constantly shifting shot of rock that covered three sides of 12-inch vinyl: Unsolved arrived in 2000.

Karate spent much of the ’ 90s wrestling punk aggression and volume into svelte shapes and often condensed what felt like a generation of scuffed-up intensity into whispers. The quiet moments carried much of that unbridled intensity throughout Unsolved—the fuzzy guitar squawk and snatchet of machine-gun drumming on “Sever” aside, things hit a little more sharply the moment the trio pivoted into their subdued jazz melodic interplay on that song. Karate’s transition into indie-rock maturity had become so complete by the time they dropped Unsolved that you could play the coffeehouse soul of “Halo of the Strange” and sultry jazz of “Lived-But-Yet-Named” to an unsuspecting punk and spend an entire evening trying to convince them that, yes, this band had made their bones playing the same DIY circuit made of bands that sounded like they wanted to harm their audience. But few bands other than Karate played like they understood the musical lingua franca of scene godheads such as Fugazi and Unwound, and knew how to make that language evolve, and nearly every song on Unsolved made that clear. If you didn’t get the memo by the end of the elegiac 11-minute closer “This Day Next Year,” which gained an irrepressible power from a plaintive guitar melody cycling through the song’s back half like a yearnsome cry for the divine, you might’ve been better off buying a ticket for Warped Tour and waiting a decade or two to figure it out.

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After three albums of reverberated guitar wandering, Master Wilburn Burchette's Psychic Meditation Music takes a turn towards the kosmiche. Two side-long synth explorations transport the listener to the avocado hues of 1974, expanding consciousness one oscillation at a time. Bug out your third eye!

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiLfq--9n1c

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The idea of what makes "modern soul" has long been a subject of debate, even among those at the top, specially tasked with arbitrating its definition. At Success Bottling Co., such spats escalated to the point where A&R team members Stephen Arndt and Tim Zawada had to be physically separated during a heated tracklist meeting. Yet we know that M-soul's origins can be traced to the UK's Northern Soul scene, where, in the late 70s, disco-adjacent 45s began appearing alongside traditional 60s selections. Today, modern soul is often associated with the 80s, incorporating synths and rhythm-machines. Quibbles persist: How much brass is too much? Can strings and synths truly coexist? Eccentric Modern Soul explores these ideas across eleven rambunctious ones, pinching previously unissued recordings from Wee, Ujima, and Wind alongside neat classics from Universal Togetherness Band, Mind & Matter, Maxx Traxx and 94 East.

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Townies, homecoming queens, and big men on campus manifest a homegrown and revolutionary sound in Civil Rights-era Greensboro.

Among presidential hopefuls and future astronauts, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, located in Greensboro, was a hotbed of black excellence, activism, and raw talent. At the helm of a half-dozen labels, local yokel Walter Grady assembled a rotating cast of townies, homecoming queens, and big men on campus to manifest a scintillating sound that was both homegrown and revolutionary. Eccentric Soul: The Linco Label compiles melodic milestones from the birthplace of the civil rights movement.

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Whatever sense of unity bound a hodgepodge of underground American punk sounds in the 1990s like a Duct-tape wallet began to come unglued by the end of the decade. A couple years into the new millennium and the emo scene that once had enough space for a band as brazen in their fusion of slowcore, jazz, and post-hardcore as Boston’s Karate would barely be reflected in a cookie-cutter style commercialized by major labels and mid-level indies that acted like the majors. The part of punk that overlapped with indie rock would begin a slow ascent from its comfortable home on college radio charts to the soundtrack of American Apparel shops and eventually the Billboard charts. In this strange, stratifying milieu, Karate, a band that seemed to thrive by cleaving to a nether-zone between several sounds that otherwise never touched, delivered an engrossing constantly shifting shot of rock that covered three sides of 12-inch vinyl: Unsolved arrived in 2000.

Karate spent much of the ’ 90s wrestling punk aggression and volume into svelte shapes and often condensed what felt like a generation of scuffed-up intensity into whispers. The quiet moments carried much of that unbridled intensity throughout Unsolved—the fuzzy guitar squawk and snatchet of machine-gun drumming on “Sever” aside, things hit a little more sharply the moment the trio pivoted into their subdued jazz melodic interplay on that song. Karate’s transition into indie-rock maturity had become so complete by the time they dropped Unsolved that you could play the coffeehouse soul of “Halo of the Strange” and sultry jazz of “Lived-But-Yet-Named” to an unsuspecting punk and spend an entire evening trying to convince them that, yes, this band had made their bones playing the same DIY circuit made of bands that sounded like they wanted to harm their audience. But few bands other than Karate played like they understood the musical lingua franca of scene godheads such as Fugazi and Unwound, and knew how to make that language evolve, and nearly every song on Unsolved made that clear. If you didn’t get the memo by the end of the elegiac 11-minute closer “This Day Next Year,” which gained an irrepressible power from a plaintive guitar melody cycling through the song’s back half like a yearnsome cry for the divine, you might’ve been better off buying a ticket for Warped Tour and waiting a decade or two to figure it out.

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Wenn sie nicht gerade aus dem Fenster auf die stürmische Skyline von Manhattan blickte, verbrachte Margo Guryan ihre dreißiger Jahre damit, Ohrwürmer für Leute wie Bobbie Gentry, Jackie DeShannon, Claudine Longet, Carmen McCrae und Julie London bei CBS's April Blackwood Music zu schreiben. Guryans zeitlose Gedanken über Liebe, Sonntage, Erdbeben, Weinen und Jungs namens Timothy haben unzählige Filme und virale Videos unterlegt. Meisterwerke aus früheren Zeiten. 28 ihrer Songwriting-Demos aus den 60er und 70er Jahren sind auf dieser 25-jährigen Jubiläums-Doppelalbum-Edition.

Trackliste
1.1WHAT CAN I GIVE YOU
1.2SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH THE MORNING
1.3I LOVE
1.4SUNDAY MORNING
1.5CAN YOU TELL
1.6THINK OF RAIN
1.7SUN
1.8MOST OF MY LIFE
1.9THE 8:17 NORTHBOUND SUCCESS MERRY-GO-ROUND
1.10LOVE SONGS
1.11THOUGHTS
1.12I DON'T INTEND TO SPEND CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU
1.13COME TO ME SLOWLY
1.14TIMOTHY GONE
2.1IT'S ALRIGHT NOW
2.2VALUES
2.3I THINK A LOT ABOUT YOU
2.4THE HUM
2.5PLEASE BELIEVE ME
2.6YES I AM
2.7I'D LIKE TO SEE THE BAD GUYS WIN
2.8CALIFORNIA SHAKE
2.9SHINE
2.10HOLD ME DANCIN
2.11GOODBYE JULY
2.12WHY DO I CRY
2.13UNDER MY UMBRELLA
2.14I OUGHT TO STAY AWAY FROM YOU

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Channeling the Euro-pop sensibilities of Crepuscule and the ethereal goth of 4AD, Vazz arrived in Glasgow just as the Sound of Young Scotland was taking off. Armed with a drum machine, guitar, bass, and Anna Howson’s icy cooing, the duo offered a darker take to a scene dominated by poptimists Orange Juice, Josef K, and Aztec Camera. This 40th anniversary edition of their 1986 mini-album Your Lungs and Your Tongues compiles their complete Cathexis recordings and adds a handful of unissued minimal wave pearls. Colder than Dalwhinnie on the solstice—better bring a parka.

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The Notations 1973 viral smash "What More Can I Say" returns to the mother format with their all-time lowrider tail-pipe dragger "I'm Still Here" on this limited, twin-smash Numero Classics 45. Sampled NxWorries, Anderson.Paak, redveil, and Snoop Dog, these Notations hits are sure to tickle the trainspotters and old-timers alike.

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Venomous Tex-Mex R&B and early rock n' roll from San Antonio's West Side scene. From 1961-67, Bexar county kingmaker Abe Epstein cut every teen combo to grace the Patio Andaluz stage, launching the careers of Doug Sahm, The Royal Jesters, Sonny Ace, The Dreamliners, and hundreds more throughout the decade. Spread across two luxurious slabs of vinyl, The Cobra Label compiles 28 neurotoxic sides from Epstein's first bite in the biz.

Track List
Sonny Ace & The Twisters Wooleh Booleh
Mike & The Belairs ft: Nyolia Moore Buscando (Searchin')
Royal Five My Baby Cares for Me
J. Jay & The Dell-Tones Just A Matter of Time
Little Henry & The Laveers I Don't Want No Woman
Danny Segovia and the Sessions Hey Babe
Dell Tones Golly Gee
Sonny Ace & The Twisters Stand-By Love
Henry & The Kasuals Funny Funny Funny
The Royal Jesters with The Jimmy Johnson Combo Is That Good Enough For You?
Mad Mods Warm And Tender Love
J. Jay & The Dell-Tones If I Cry A Little More
The Dreamliners Just Me And You
The Royal Jesters and The Memphis III Love Me
Doug Sahm Just A Moment
Henry & His Kasuals Slowly But Surely
Dell Tones The Best Man Cried
Royal Five Someone Who Cares
J. Jay & the Dell-Tones Too Late To Forgive
Shades McRay & The Invictas Summer Is Here
The Royal Jesters With The Casuals I Want To Be Loved
Sonny Ace & The Twisters Fever
Rod Andrea & The Ram Rods If It's Lovin' You Want
Little Henry & The Laveers Break It To Me Now
Mike & The Belairs ft. Nyolia Moore She's Mine
Dino & The Dell-Tones Sticks And Stones
Henry & His Kasuals Workout
Freddie Martinez Summer Rain

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Opaque Gold Colored Vinyl!

Venomous Tex-Mex R&B and early rock n' roll from San Antonio's West Side scene. From 1961-67, Bexar county kingmaker Abe Epstein cut every teen combo to grace the Patio Andaluz stage, launching the careers of Doug Sahm, The Royal Jesters, Sonny Ace, The Dreamliners, and hundreds more throughout the decade. Spread across two luxurious slabs of vinyl, The Cobra Label compiles 28 neurotoxic sides from Epstein's first bite in the biz.

Track List
Sonny Ace & The Twisters Wooleh Booleh
Mike & The Belairs ft: Nyolia Moore Buscando (Searchin')
Royal Five My Baby Cares for Me
J. Jay & The Dell-Tones Just A Matter of Time
Little Henry & The Laveers I Don't Want No Woman
Danny Segovia and the Sessions Hey Babe
Dell Tones Golly Gee
Sonny Ace & The Twisters Stand-By Love
Henry & The Kasuals Funny Funny Funny
The Royal Jesters with The Jimmy Johnson Combo Is That Good Enough For You?
Mad Mods Warm And Tender Love
J. Jay & The Dell-Tones If I Cry A Little More
The Dreamliners Just Me And You
The Royal Jesters and The Memphis III Love Me
Doug Sahm Just A Moment
Henry & His Kasuals Slowly But Surely
Dell Tones The Best Man Cried
Royal Five Someone Who Cares
J. Jay & the Dell-Tones Too Late To Forgive
Shades McRay & The Invictas Summer Is Here
The Royal Jesters With The Casuals I Want To Be Loved
Sonny Ace & The Twisters Fever
Rod Andrea & The Ram Rods If It's Lovin' You Want
Little Henry & The Laveers Break It To Me Now
Mike & The Belairs ft. Nyolia Moore She's Mine
Dino & The Dell-Tones Sticks And Stones
Henry & His Kasuals Workout
Freddie Martinez Summer Rain

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The Numero Group guide to private issue new age. Featuring Laraaji, Iasos, Joanna Brouk, Don Slepian, Peter Davison, Master Wilburn Burchette, Jordan De La Sierra, David Casper, Robert Slap and 9 other pioneers of the Perrier underground. Adorned with Marcus Uzilevsky's Linear Landscapes, this 2xLP compilation is housed in a sturdy tip-on jacket and is accompanied by a 32-page booklet. The fourth world awaits.

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San Jose slowcore/space rock outfit Duster returns with surprise album "In Dreams," continuing their of inclination of sonically capturing an open-ended question. These thirteen tracks hone in on their trademark dark, droning guitar tones, dialed back percussion, and alluring hard-panned vocals while expanding and exploring synth-heavy and drum machine avenues.

it's the fifth duster album, ok


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Aqua Tofana Colourless Vinyl!

San Jose slowcore/space rock outfit Duster returns with surprise album "In Dreams," continuing their of inclination of sonically capturing an open-ended question. These thirteen tracks hone in on their trademark dark, droning guitar tones, dialed back percussion, and alluring hard-panned vocals while expanding and exploring synth-heavy and drum machine avenues.

it's the fifth duster album, ok


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Black Vinyl.

A trio of Kansas City soul sweepers, from the sprawling midwest burg's storied Cavern, Damon, and Forte concerns. Bump and the Soul Stompers' 1970 sweet soul double sider "I Can Remember" was a tail pipe-dragging, low rider classic in the making, had it ever been released. A few years later Jerald "Bump" Scott took his new group to Cavern's subterranean confines to cut the group harmony masterpiece "Living In The Past," but remained unissued prior to Numero's discovery of the Cavern tapes. As disco was cresting at the top of the next decade, Sharon Revoal tracked her James Brown meets James Bond stepper "Reaching For Our Star"_ the last 45 released on Marva Whitney's peerless Forte label.

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Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl.

A trio of Kansas City soul sweepers, from the sprawling midwest burg's storied Cavern, Damon, and Forte concerns. Bump and the Soul Stompers' 1970 sweet soul double sider "I Can Remember" was a tail pipe-dragging, low rider classic in the making, had it ever been released. A few years later Jerald "Bump" Scott took his new group to Cavern's subterranean confines to cut the group harmony masterpiece "Living In The Past," but remained unissued prior to Numero's discovery of the Cavern tapes. As disco was cresting at the top of the next decade, Sharon Revoal tracked her James Brown meets James Bond stepper "Reaching For Our Star"_ the last 45 released on Marva Whitney's peerless Forte label.

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Reaching For Our Star b/w Run Between The Raindrops (While My Teardrops Fall). A trio of Kansas City soul sweepers, from the sprawling mid west burg's storied Cavern, Damon, and Forte concerns. Bump and the Soul Stompers' 1970 sweet soul double sider "I C an Remember" was a tail pipe-dragging, low rider classic in the making, had it ever been released. A few years later Jerald "Bump" Scott took his new group to Cavern's subterrane an confines to cut the group harmony masterpiece "Living In The Past," but remained unissued prior to Numero's discovery of the Cavern tapes. As disco was cresting at the top of the next decade, Sharon Revoal tracked her James Brown meets James Bond stepper "Reaching For Our Star"_ the last 45 released on Marva Whitney's peerless Fortelabel.


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Two talents with careers spanning varying eras, yet artists positioned at the heart of Italy’s current house landscape, Alex Neri and Mennie are adding to their rich solo discographies with a series of selected works in partnership with one another. Tuscany’s Neri, co-owner of the iconic nightlife institution Tenax and label boss at Wildflower Records, stands as one of the legendary Italian names from the past 30 years, holding residencies at the likes of Pikes in Ibiza while releasing a long list of classic records since the early 90s under numerous aliases, including Kamasutra alongside Marco Baroni. A familiar name to FUSE fans, having released material via sister imprints LOCUS and INFUSE, Mennie has seen his career flourish of late, regularly touring Europe’s key venues while also holding a residency at the legendary Tenax. Here, the two build on their recent joint studio projects with a debut on FUSE for the third edition of the label’s collaborative X Series, unveiling a quartet of impactful house cuts in heavy rotation for label head honcho Siragusa.

Taking a deep dive amongst swirling synths and cosmic interludes, ‘Reality’ opens proceedings with a trippy and punchy lead cut as the duo introduce slick groove-laden drum arrangements to get things moving, while ‘Find Me’ keeps the pressure on with bumping low-ends, shuffling hats and a menacing yet captivating bass groove sure to keep dancers moving in lockstep. On the b-side, ‘Rockets’ brings luminous melodies amongst breaks-influenced percussion for a playful and dynamic production, before ‘Watch Me’ rounds things out with another all-action affair as acid-dipped and kinetically charged closer made for big moments.

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Tracklisting
A1 Munir Nadir - Rhythmystic
A2 Munir Nadir - Bass Jam
B1 Munir Nadir - Urban Whispers
B2 Munir Nadir - Binary Technologies

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LIMITED EDITION SPLATTER VINYL. TRACK LISTING: A Higher State Of Consciousness (Tweekin Acid Funk), B Higher State Of Consciousness (Deep And Slow Chill edit)

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Tropical Solution Green Vinyl Best listened to from inside the womb, Duster's 1998's debut Stratosphere simultaneously capped off and reinvented the slow core's first wave. A four track dreamscape that will wake the neighbors and then lull them back to sleep. Hazy, arpeggiated guitars layer over a deliberate drummer with no real place to be, as semi-inaudible vocals warn of millennial malaise and subtly encourage the listener to "rock out, rock out, rock out, rock out." "Music for dark spaces and closed eyelids, deeply psychedelic but without sprawl, ambient music with a serrated edge of punk."_The Ringer "Warm, fuzzed-out sounds that hit home like a tight, melancholic embrace from your favorite person."_Vice
Tracklist
1.1MOON AGE
1.2HEADING FOR THE DOOR
1.3GOLD DUST
1.4TOPICAL SOLUTION
1.5DOCKING THE POD
1.6THE LANDING
1.7CONSTELLATIONS
1.8THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
1.9TWO WAY RADIO
1.10INSIDE OUT
1.11STRATOSPHERE
1.12REED TO HILLSBOROUGH
1.13SHADOWS OF PLANES
1.14EARTH MOON TRANSIT
1.15THE TWINS / ROMANTICA
1.16SIDERIA

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Strictly Limited Clear Vinyl Edition!

Tracklist:
1.Flimsier
2.Pink Shell
3.Seaforth
4.That Is My Life, That Is Yours
5.Tortoise Of Independency
6.Empty Stomach Space Cadet
7.Flimsy
8.Hamburgerphobia
9.From The Swamp
10.King Krule feat. Raveena & Raveena - Seagirl
11.Our Vacuum
12.Space Heavy
13.When Vanishing
14.If Only It Was Warmth
15.Wednesday Overcast


Written from 2020 to 2022, between London and Liverpool, Space Heavy took shape over the course of commutes between the two cities where Archy Marshall was splitting his time. Befitting an album quite literally written on the commute between the two places he called home, Archy found himself fascinated by the notion of “the space between” - the space haunted by dreams of love, touching a narrative of lost connection, losing people and situations to the guillotine of the universe. Once written by Archy, the music was developed by frequent collaborator and producer Dilip Harris and long-time band mates Ignacio Salvadores (Saxophonist), George Bass (Drummer), James Wilson (Bass Guitarist) and Jack Towell (Guitarist).

The result is a 15-track full-length by the musical polymath that inhabits the deepest reaches of the subterranean sonic world that Archy has constructed over the course of his career as King Krule. In it you hear a generational artist stepping into the height of their artistic powers – the auteurism apparent on his debut 6 Feet Beneath The Moon, the shapeshifting sonic palette of The OOZ, the primality of Man Alive! and the raw vulnerability expressed on You Heat Me Up, You Cool Me Down all coalesce into a wizened, dynamic body of work that reveals new elements with each listen. In line with Archy’s interest in the space between, it is an album wherein the negative space demands the same attention as the positive space. If one is willing to wade into the mire the reward is rich.

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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

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2023 repress

Tracklisting:
A1 Munir Nadir - Dream Team
A2 Munir Nadir - Roast-Beat
B1 Munir Nadir - It's time to kick Ass
B2 Munir Nadir - Just for
B3 Munir Nadir - Breaking point

Sales Note
For the fourth release, straight from the frying pan lands 'Roast Beat' by Munir Nadir, first and longtime resident DJ of the Turin clubbing project, on Outcast Planet with his ep.

His tracks range from house to techno with trancy and happy sounds that usually characterize his DJ sets.



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“‘A La Sala,’ I used to scream it around my house when I was a little girl, to get everybody in the living room; to get my family together. That’s kind of what recording the new album felt like. Emotionally there was a desire to get back to square-one between the three of us, to where we came from–in sonics and in feeling. Let’s get back there.” - Laura Lee Ochoa

The title makes it clear. A La Sala (“To the Room” in Spanish), the fourth studio album by Khruangbin, is an exercise in returning in order to go further, and do so on your own terms. It extends the air of mystery and sanctity that’s key to how bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, Jr. and guitarist Mark “Marko” Speer approach music. Yet if 2020’s Mordechai, the last studio album Khruangbin made without collaborators, was a party record whose ensuing post-lockdown tour enhanced the band’s musical reputation far and wide, A La Sala is the measured morning after. It’s a gorgeously airy album made only in the company of the group’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen, with minimal overdubs. It is a porthole onto the bounties powering Khruangbin’s vision, a reimagining and refueling for the long haul ahead. A La Sala scales Khruangbin down to scale up, a creative strategy with the future in mind.

It is also a response to the unique moment Khruangbin finds itself in now: following a decade spent cultivating extraordinary music paths, beginning a year when they'll perform for more people, in more iconic spaces, staging a live show that pushes a creative envelope peculiar to them alone. (Look for the band at major festivals and venues near you.) 2024 feels like both marker and pivot, cementing Khruangbin’s stature as a commercially and critically successful group that continues to be guided by creative possibilities.

Such crossroads are familiar for iconic artists throughout the rock era — your Dylans, Stevies and Bowies, up thru turn-of-the-century Radiohead, all have navigated these straits. On A La Sala, Khruangbin also pulls exploration inward, spurning the din of the crowd’s expectations, mapping a personal direction home. The trio’s collective musical DNA and the years spent constructing it in Houston’s local-meets-global cultural stew ensure the band carries on sounding like no one but itself. A La Sala may in fact be Khruangbin’s purest distillation. A cascade of crisp melodies still emanates from Marko’s reverb-heavy electric, dancing gently around Laura Lee’s minimalist almost-dub bass triangles, while DJ’s drums serve as the tightened-up pocket and unwavering dance-floor on which all this movement takes place.

Where prior album-by-album growth seemed to point the narratives towards music’s polyglot edges, such inquiries now sound like known intimacies. What once seemed like sonic invocations — spaghetti-western film scores, found-sounds, dancing moments more living room than rooftop disco — are ingrained characteristics. This is who they are! And there’s a freshness to the instrumental interactivity on A La Sala that’s less concerned with getting further out than going deeper in. That depth is not about therapeutic self-reflection, but a profound desire to celebrate the world’s external wonders.
A La Sala invites intimate intercontinental partying. The first single is, after all, called “A Love International.” “Pon Pón” holds the band’s table at the West African discotheque; yet the joy now moves to the corner left of the dancefloor, where the back-and-forth between Laura Lee’s bass, DJ’s hi-hat, and Marko’s tuneful rhythm scratches, is a marvel of knowing head-nods. There’s “Hold Me Up (Thank You),” a familial sweetness in its spare lyrics, feeding off the rhythm section’s sturdy funk shuffle, and a chorus on which Marko’s guitar evokes both sides of the Atlantic in confident unshowy rhythms. They’re on “Todavía Viva” too, next to DJ’s noir-soul rim-shots, synth strings and a pregnant pause that is Laura Lee’s favorite moment on the album, the mood kin to the band’s glorious live interpretations of G-funk fantasias. And the rocked-up miniature, “Juegos y Nubes,” demonstrates Khruangbin’s Houston-born superpower to culture-mix, a dancing mood less concerned with worldly glamor than communal grooving.

“I read something long ago, attributed to Miles Davis. He said, ‘When they play fast, you play slow. When they play slow, you play fast.’ And it's definitely how I've approached looking at music: Don't follow the trends. And if the trend is this, then do something else.” - Marko

From the get-go, Khruangbin’s journey has been emphatically its own: a sound and visual representation with few precedents, ignoring pop expectations, relying only on internal inspirations, and a multitude of visions. It’s a mindset of penetrating the self, connecting to the surrounding world, modeling your own life experiences. This ethos is threaded throughout A La Sala, audible in the album’s form and function. (It’s even visible in the vinyl version’s physical package, which will be released as a set of seven distinctive covers and color-sets — more on which in a sec.)

The building blocks for the album’s 12 songs were jigsaw pieces found in Khruangbin’s creative past. Having stockpiled ideas originally set down as off-the-cuff recordings (voice-memos made at sound-checks, on long voyages, as absentminded epiphanies), they began fitting those pieces together in the studio. Which parts were apt? Which could be massaged and stretched out? Which inspired new sections or rhythms or musical interactions? Once more, Khruangbin’s familial DNA kicked in. Layer-by-layer, the intimate work, rework and re-rework bore new fruit. They also brought back a strategy once foundational to their records: seeding an album with field recordings.

Some results fold directly into A La Sala’s down-home feel. “Three From Two” and “May Ninth” are wistful mid-tempo numbers, with guitar melodies that reside somewhere between Bakersfield and by-the-riverside, cues that, for all its borderless inclusivity, another core Khruangbin value is being steeped in American roots. And in the landscape that music comes from. Like all albums prior to Mordechai, Marko made sure environmental sounds — natural and man-made — appeared as textures. (At times philosophically: the group recorded while cricket chirps played in their headphones, presumably for terroir.) It’s how A La Sala achieves such interconnected set-and-setting-ness.

Other results are more metaphorical, especially in Khruangbin’s flirtation with ambient spaces. The dramatically beatless “Farolim de Felgueiras” and “Caja de la Sala” both feature only Marko’s unmistakable guitar dueting with Laura Lee’s Moog, lightly layered with sounds of shoes on stone steps, and cicadas in an open field. The closing “Les Petits Gris” more fully reduces and fleshes out the ambiance, with a piano and a simple single-note bass pattern, Marko’s plaintive spare guitar echoing the melody of a ballerina-turning music box. It feels an apt way of ending — as a passing of this particular moment, preparation for the next one, soon-come.

Even the seven different covers that adorn A La Sala’s various vinyl editions offer a throughline from the music into Khruangbin’s current frame. Designed by the band using Marko’s multitude of travelog photos, they are windows from the band’s living room onto a set of daydreams, scenes of impossible skies, external glances illuminating what is going on inside. These are also directly related to David Black’s images of DJ, Laura Lee and Marko which accompany A La Sala, and to Khruangbin’s live staging reinvention. It’s all about looking out and looking back, in order to better look ahead.

“All the little moments you capture. You don't see how impactful they are until you hear what eventually comes of them. A lot of those scraps end up being the thing — and you don't realize it until it's ‘The Thing.’” - DJ
credits
releases April 5, 2024

Produced by Mark Speer & Steve Christensen
Written, Arranged & Performed by Khruangbin
Art Direction: Tiny Frees
Mixing: Steve Christensen
Mastering: Chris Longwood

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DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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After a 19-year hiatus, Duster came back with their S/T chef-d'oeuvre in 2019. Recorded in band member Clay Parton's garage (aka Low Earth Orbit), the record bears all the hallmarks of the band's early work: gaunt basslines, spindly guitars, and melancholy lyrics that lurk in the background.
Tracklist
1.1MOON AGE
1.2HEADING FOR THE DOOR
1.3GOLD DUST
1.4TOPICAL SOLUTION
1.5DOCKING THE POD
1.6THE LANDING
1.7CONSTELLATIONS
1.8THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
1.9TWO WAY RADIO
1.10INSIDE OUT
1.11STRATOSPHERE
1.12REED TO HILLSBOROUGH
1.13SHADOWS OF PLANES
1.14EARTH MOON TRANSIT
1.15THE TWINS / ROMANTICA
1.16SIDERIA

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Tracklist:
1. The Medium
2. Goes By So Fast
3. Magazine (Feat. Salami Rose Joe Louis) https://youtu.be/qSKlCWGaaao
4. Postman https://youtu.be/xI0alDWn2tM
5. THe Loop
6. Last Year
7. Mississippi
8. Clarity (Feat. Sofie)
9. Foreplay
10. Déjà Vu
11. Way Too Hot
12. Millennium (Feat. The Mattson 2)
13. Days In Love

Toro y Moi's seventh studio album, MAHAL, is the boldest and most fascinating journey yet from musical mastermind Chaz Bear. The record spans genre and sound_encompassing the shaggy psychedelic rock of the 1960s and `70s, and the airy sounds of 1990s mod-post-rock_taking listeners on an auditory expedition, as if they're riding in the back of Bear's Filipino jeepney that adorns the album's cover. But MAHAL is also an unmistakably Toro y Moi experience, calling back to previous works while charting a new path forward in a way that only Bear can do. MAHAL is the latest in an accomplished career for Bear, who's undoubtedly one of the decade's most influential musicians. Since the release of the electronic pop landmark Causers of This in 2009, subsequent records as Toro y Moi have repeatedly shifted the idea of what his sound can be. But there's little in Bear's catalog that will prepare you for the deep-groove excursions on MAHAL, his most eclectic record to date. The second the album begins we're immediately transported into the passenger seat, jeep sounds and all, ready for the ride Chaz and company have concocted for us. Seeds of some of MAHAL's 13 songs date back to the more explicitly rock-oriented What For? from 2015. MAHAL was mostly completed last year in Bear's Oakland studio with the involvement of a host of collaborators, Sofie Royer and Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Ruban Neilson to Neon Indian's Alan Palomo and the Mattson 2. "I wanted to make a record that featured more musicians on it than any other record of mine," he explains. "To have them live on that record feels grounded, bringing a communal perspective to the table." As a result, MAHAL is lush and surprising at every turn, from the cool-handed "The Loop," which recalls Sly and the Family Stones, to the elastic psych rock of "Foreplay" and the dizzying Mulatu Astatke-recalling of "Last Year." Lyrically, the album zooms in on generational concerns, picking up where the Outer Peace standout "Freelance" effectively left off. Bear seems to be surveying the ways in which we connect with technology, media, each other, and what disappears as a result. Cuts like the squishy "Postman" and the "Magazine" take a deep dive into our relationship with media in a changing digital world. "It's interesting to see how we adapt to this new age. We're so connected, but we're still missing out on things," Bear ruminates while discussing the album's themes. It's not all introspection. Bear cools things down near the album's end with the Mattson 2-featuring "Millennium," a laid-back jam with tricky guitar licks about ringing in new times even when everything else seems upside down. "It's about enjoying the new year, even when it's been shitty," Bear explains. "There's nothing else to do." Finding a sense of joy in the face of adversity is embedded in MAHAL's DNA, right down to the jeepney that literally and figuratively brings the music out into the community. "We know that touring is messed up for now, and large gatherings are a fluke," he explains. "It's about the notion of us going out to the people and bringing the record to them." And with the wide-open atmosphere of MAHAL, Toro y Moi stands to connect with more listeners than ever before.



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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore