Latvian producer mu tate joins Utter with the ‘Faded’ EP, a collection of five mesmerising ambient electronica pieces.

mu tate - real name Artur Strekalov - has been diligently and unceremoniously weaving his musical magic for the past half-decade. ‘Faded’ walks the same spectral path as his feted album ‘Let Me Put Myself Together’ (Experiences Ltd, 2020), which introduced many to Strekalov’s highly atmospheric, blissed-out sonic explorations. The EP glides along, each track enveloping the listener in a cocoon of undulating frequencies and ghostly rhythm, softly contained yet stretching out beyond into wide open space. Delicate, crackling sparks fizz in and out of perception above.

It’s a trip alright!

‘Faded’ is available on limited vinyl and digital formats, mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at D&M. Artwork by AS, laid out by Alex Egan. A special insert designed by Art Crime is also included with physical copies.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

A year and a half has passed since Slovak-Hungarian artist Adela Mede self-released her debut album 'Szabadság'. Its liner notes described it as "a navigation", a search through "the personal, familial, cultural, folkloric and geographic of her past and present." Her second album, 'Ne Lépj a Virágra' no longer searches; here, she puts down roots and delves deeper into the earthy reality of her home, Central Europe. Mede sings in three languages with newfound conviction and grace – this is an album of profound faith and confidence in the potential of this fertile soil. Composed and recorded during the last 18 months in Bratislava, Slovakia – a city where three countries meet, where the East and the West collide – 'Ne Lépj a Virárga' translates to "don't step on the flower". Its themes – budding potential, recognizing the beauty in the ordinary, solidarity, turning despair into hope – emerged through Mede's wholehearted involvement with her community, teaching singing to both children and adults, and various grassroots volunteering initiatives. It features collaborations with local artists, Mede's singing students, as well as fellow Eastern European contemporary artists Martyna Basta and Wojciech Rusin. Adela Mede embellishes carefully crafted songs with minimalist and folklore influences, but also embraces more experimental approaches. The result is a collection of quite varied yet consistent pieces which highlight Mede's proficiency as a singer, arranger, producer and improviser. It is a grounded, confident next step for the Bratislava-based artist. Whether her vocals are naked, heavily processed, warped and reversed, or looped and layered; whether the production is sparse and minimalist or overwhelming and swampy; none of that changes the fact that the gentle tentativeness of her debut is gone. This is "Central European music", at its most striking and meaningful: patient, determined, embracing both complexity and possibility.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

Polish composer Martyna Basta follows up her well-received label debut Making Eye Contact With Solitude, with her first vinyl release Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering on Warm Winters Ltd. It's a multi-instrumental ambient album conjuring scenes from the blurry edge of memory. Martyna Basta uses guitar, zither, processed field recordings and voice to render abstract, compelling images, finding beauty in uncertainty.


Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

Nate Scheible's "work of gentle genius" – Fairfax – is arriving on vinyl & all digital services in February 2022. Remastered by Lawrence English and featuring brand new artwork, this edition uncovers a completely new side of the "dreamy and dramatic, meditative and somber" album by the American artist. With fresh treatment from mastering maestro, Lawrence English, this new version has brought out fresh new colours in Scheible's elegant composition. The moments of icy isolation are sharper, while the embrace of the album's finale is warmer and heartier than ever. Scheible's found polaroids on the front of the package also fit so aptly that they barely even feel new. The album's allure and message of craving is more powerful than ever. Scheible's beds of oozing and luscious melodies, decaying on reels or tape, flinging out from plucked bass strings, or rising from a struck vibraphone, are a truly loving soundtrack to this mysterious voice found on a tape that came into the artist's possession.


Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

London Modular Alliance x Private Parts join forces to bring you 4 x tracks of machine excellence. Moving from energetic driving techno, to more blissful thought out electronica. Hypnotic and tripped out electro, through to some deeper sounds of the palate. Check!

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

E. LIVE returns to STAR CREATURE with yet another Boogie Blast Off, this time of the Jazz-Funk variety, marking his third full-length release with the esteemed Chicago label. The much-anticipated album is set to make seismic waves in 2024. With a nu-school approach leaning towards the jazzier realms of disco, E. LIVE masterfully maintains an unwavering dance floor allure. The album is a brilliant fusion of accessible and sophisticated sounds, creating an enchanting sonic landscape that seamlessly bridges disco and jazz elements. Genius Level production for a solo studio act. Highly recommended for fans of musical luminaries such as ROY AYERS, PATRICE RUSHEN, KHRUANGBIN, FKJ, and TORO Y MOI, etc...8 tracks & full picture sleeve.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

Martin had been a surprise choice for the commission. It was the Spring of 1977 and two Interstellar Mariners were to be sent hurtling into deep space. Glass was to provide weekly "sonologues" of their progress, audio diarist for a pair of mute mechanical adventurers. Delivered with a near fanatical diligence over the course of nearly three decades, these stuttering musical biographies would soon bewilder those who had first asked for them. Martin's work, they judged, had begun to plot its own eccentric orbit, charting more than just the ships' material progress, but rather their imagined psychogeography ("What will they say about me?" "I will never conserve my instruments" "Nobody has gone further"). With his sonic dispatches increasingly ignored and unheard, all funding for the project swiftly fell to dust. The very best of these scores, chosen from a vast compendium of source material, are now assembled here for the first time. Their muses, two arthritic spacecrafts now nearly half a century old, limp on through deep space, forever onwards and onwards forever...

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

London-based DJ and producer Steven Julien returns to his Apron Records imprint with a double A-side 12" , bringing together the new gospel and R&B-influenced EP TIME and previously digital-only EP Wraap't.

Bridging sonic worlds together, from the soulful anthem TIME and the glossy rap hit ULTRA ft. James Massiah to the old-school house sound of UP and Julien's driving club remix of Wraap't ft. Fatima. Rounding off the EP with the instrumental BALLAD, a dreamy jazz-inspired excursion, further highlights the unique contrast of Steven Juliens' work.

Available in two vinyl colours, limited Red and a classic black vinyl printed with the TIME EP artwork on the cover and Wraap't EP artwork on the inner sleeves. Two EPs, one record.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

Fresh off the back of Warp Records repressing their legendary debut album 'Reeled and Skinned', the iconic UK band Red Snapper returns with eight brand-new tracks for their upcoming album, Barb and Feather, marking 30 years since their groundbreaking arrival on the scene.

Following the success of their 2023 live LP, Live at the Moth Club, Red Snapper felt an undeniable creative momentum. This new album is a testament to their ongoing evolution, channeling the electrifying energy of their live performances into fresh, dynamic compositions.

Red Snapper’s unique blend of jazz, funk, electronic grooves continues to inspire fans old and new, cementing their legacy as pioneers of UK music.

Barb and Feather starts with a raucous yet refined 4 tracks from the Red Snapper live band—Rich Thair, Ali Friend, Tom Challenger, and Tara Cunningham—featuring their much-lauded live version of David Bowie’s 'Sound and Vision'.

The second half of the album features 4-tracks from a collaboration between Red Snapper and David Harrow. Born from a shared love of unorthodox production and a mutual respect for each other’s work.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

King Street Sounds is on a mission to reintroduce timeless house classics to the dancefloor with another iconic release. Their aim, to educate a new generation about the sounds of the old school while also offering fresh remixes for everyone to enjoy.

Kerri Chandler's 'Bar A Thym' is back on 12-inch vinyl, featuring the full original 7:24 mix. This track builds, keeping listeners at the brink of euphoria and inviting them to dance. It’s THE perfect groove.

The original track is accompanied by a new version via South African producer Themba who adds his signature afro sound to the mix, infusing the song with swing, extra percussion, and heightened anticipation around the various drops.

Then the classic Foremost Poet's version, which was a great alternative to the timeless bomb. If you’re a house head, you need this in your life.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

Approaching 20 years since its original release (2007 via Smallfish), now remastered to pure analogue bliss from the original ampex tape masters.

The sound on display here I could imagine as a soundtrack while submerging in a submersible diving deeper than the Marianas trench!

The B side now features an epic live version captured @ AIR, Tokyo, Japan. Made in the heart of Detroit, with love!

CREDITS:
w + p by cv313 in the heart of Detroit. Originally released as a limited edition 3" CD on Smallfish Records, London, UK (2007).
Remastered in Echospace by Stephen Hitchell in 2017. Recut from BASF 1/4" analog tape masters.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

7" with band photo card

PPU RE project taken from GL's 2014 Love Hexagon EP.. songs we haven't stopped playing since their initial release, bringing them back now for the 10 year anniversary.

GL, two mates from Melbourne (AUS), originally released the tracks 'Won't You See' and 'Take Me Back' in 2014 as part of their debut 'Love Hexagon' EP/cassette - a homemade homage to chart-unfriendly funk and 80s romance-dance.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore

Tracklist
A1. Jeff Mills - In A Traumatized World
A2. Jeff Mills - Menticide

B1. Jeff Mills - Those Who Worked Against Us
B2. Jeff Mills - Mass Hypnosis

C1. Jeff Mills - Hold And Command
C2. Jeff Mills - Wonderous Butterfly

D1. Jeff Mills - Sacred Iridescent Mirror (The Pledge)
D2. Jeff Mills - In A Traumatized World (Human Toll Mix)
D3. Jeff Mills - Indoctrination

"Trauma and the shock effect of it - the leftover residue of harsh reality so impactful that it shapes the way you imagine, envision and calculate your position in regard to everything and everyone around you.
A new type of psychological radius evolves. Boundaries are reinforced. Relationships are recessed. A damaged brief system float aimlessly. Vulnerable to and for anything reminiscent of a worthy cause. The truth about facts became satirical monologue, dead end expressions that have no critical arrangement. We all know someone that either has been or will be"

- Jeff Mills

The Eyewitness reveals a habitual pattern in the way it symbolizes a mirror reflection of mankind in our most vulnerable moments. It is the forthcoming album of Jeff Mills and it is composed from the perspective of an unknowingly complicit bystander and it is at the very least, psychologically pathological in nature. What this release is essentially proposing is an admission to the diagnosis that no one is immune to shock and trauma. Not the accuser or the accused. And this abnormality s culturally and generally transmittable - handed down and passed over to one another disguised as righteous theatre.

As an artist, what Mills is notoriously known for is the perspectives and paths he chooses to approach hefty, complex, and sometimes, awkward subjects. The best way to recognize the narratives of his mostrecent album works such as "The Clairvoyant", an eerie transcending album that plays through like a Seance for creating a bridge to reach another dimension or "Mind Power Mind Control", a cautionary warning about the consequences of supporting deceit, mind control and mass mental persuasion is to start by first taking a moment to look at yourself in a mirror. He's suggesting sound as a reflection and what we might be able to see in ourselves. Proposing that we might be the problem and a solution. In the same vicinity of his recent solo albums, the direction, scope or target of The Eyewitness is first about us, then about it.

More than the few previous albums he's released lately, this one has a unique relationship in terms of imagery and visual treatments that represent the concept. The front cover shows Mills, neatly dressed in a black suit that appears to be caught in the act of doing something methodically as he cohorts to supportwith a bright white type of surgical light towards the viewer. Stark and in the act of.......something offensive - it could be some type of hypnotic machine at work. Other photos show him in darkened spaces. Remote and deep in thought.

Other clues are the titles of the tracks such as "Sacred Iridescent Mirror (The Pledge)": this refers to the act of installing value and credit to something ambiguous and "Menticide" which means the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person's values and beliefs. In the opening track, "in A Traumatized World" we hear the narration spoken by Mills. In a language he specifically created for this album. It's a dialect that is designed to be undistinguishable, but spoken with a compassion that it could be sympathized with. In the latter part of the track, it reaches a climatic point. Meaning, "it" has happened. And the album is the evidence.

On extra note:

In this day and age,it's comforting to see a musician [like Jeff Mills] administer music conceptually without any conditions attached. The artistry and craft of using sound and rhythm to bring forth a concern, a warning or the result of a diagnosis to the listener.


Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore