1
ROSE MCDOWALL - 1. Tibet
2
ROSE MCDOWALL - 2. Sunboy
3
ROSE MCDOWALL - 3. Wings Of Heaven
4
ROSE MCDOWALL - 4. Sixty Cowboys
5
ROSE MCDOWALL - 5. On The Sun
6
ROSE MCDOWALL - 6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7
ROSE MCDOWALL - 7. Crystal Nights
8
ROSE MCDOWALL - 8. Soldier
9
ROSE MCDOWALL - 9. So Vicious
10
ROSE MCDOWALL - 10. Crystal Days
11
ROSE MCDOWALL - 11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Territory: WW-UK-BNLX-OZ
FORMAT:CD
Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the
unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where Rose McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an
underground icon.
"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork
"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this
slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus
Tracklist:
1. Tibet
2. Sunboy
3. Wings Of Heaven
4. Sixty Cowboys
5. On The Sun
6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7. Crystal Nights
8. Soldier
9. So Vicious
10. Crystal Days
11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since
then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a
generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night
School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely
recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.
Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade.
Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry
Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung
songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.
Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of
a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and
hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic. So
Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the
naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the
greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife
hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings
and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends
Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more baroque, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post
industrial music.
Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise
group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internetage has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and lher collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad
songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America
when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and
suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."
Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and
2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT:CD
Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the
unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where Rose McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an
underground icon.
"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork
"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this
slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus
Tracklist:
1. Tibet
2. Sunboy
3. Wings Of Heaven
4. Sixty Cowboys
5. On The Sun
6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7. Crystal Nights
8. Soldier
9. So Vicious
10. Crystal Days
11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since
then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a
generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night
School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely
recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.
Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade.
Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry
Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung
songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.
Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of
a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and
hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic. So
Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the
naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the
greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife
hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings
and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends
Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more baroque, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post
industrial music.
Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise
group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internetage has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and lher collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad
songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America
when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and
suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."
Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and
2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
More records from ROSE MCDOWALL
1
ROSE MCDOWALL - 1. Tibet
2
ROSE MCDOWALL - 2. Sunboy
3
ROSE MCDOWALL - 3. Wings Of Heaven
4
ROSE MCDOWALL - 4. Sixty Cowboys
5
ROSE MCDOWALL - 5. On The Sun
6
ROSE MCDOWALL - 6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7
ROSE MCDOWALL - 7. Crystal Nights
8
ROSE MCDOWALL - 8. Soldier
9
ROSE MCDOWALL - 9. So Vicious
10
ROSE MCDOWALL - 10. Crystal Days
11
ROSE MCDOWALL - 11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Territory: WW-UK-BNLX-OZ
FORMAT: LP
Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the
unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where Rose McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an
underground icon.
"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork
"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this
slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus
Tracklist:
1. Tibet
2. Sunboy
3. Wings Of Heaven
4. Sixty Cowboys
5. On The Sun
6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7. Crystal Nights
8. Soldier
9. So Vicious
10. Crystal Days
11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since
then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a
generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night
School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely
recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.
Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade.
Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry
Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung
songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.
Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of
a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and
hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic. So
Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the
naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the
greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife
hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings
and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends
Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more baroque, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post
industrial music.
Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise
group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internetage has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and lher collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad
songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America
when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and
suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."
Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and
2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT: LP
Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the
unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where Rose McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an
underground icon.
"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork
"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this
slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus
Tracklist:
1. Tibet
2. Sunboy
3. Wings Of Heaven
4. Sixty Cowboys
5. On The Sun
6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7. Crystal Nights
8. Soldier
9. So Vicious
10. Crystal Days
11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since
then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a
generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night
School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely
recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.
Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade.
Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry
Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung
songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.
Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of
a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and
hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic. So
Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the
naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the
greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife
hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings
and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends
Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more baroque, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post
industrial music.
Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise
group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internetage has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and lher collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad
songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America
when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and
suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."
Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and
2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
More records from Night School Records
1
ROSE MCDOWALL - 1. Tibet
2
ROSE MCDOWALL - 2. Sunboy
3
ROSE MCDOWALL - 3. Wings Of Heaven
4
ROSE MCDOWALL - 4. Sixty Cowboys
5
ROSE MCDOWALL - 5. On The Sun
6
ROSE MCDOWALL - 6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7
ROSE MCDOWALL - 7. Crystal Nights
8
ROSE MCDOWALL - 8. Soldier
9
ROSE MCDOWALL - 9. So Vicious
10
ROSE MCDOWALL - 10. Crystal Days
11
ROSE MCDOWALL - 11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Territory: WW-UK-BNLX-OZ
FORMAT: LP
Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the
unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where Rose McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an
underground icon.
"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork
"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this
slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus
Tracklist:
1. Tibet
2. Sunboy
3. Wings Of Heaven
4. Sixty Cowboys
5. On The Sun
6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7. Crystal Nights
8. Soldier
9. So Vicious
10. Crystal Days
11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since
then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a
generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night
School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely
recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.
Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade.
Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry
Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung
songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.
Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of
a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and
hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic. So
Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the
naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the
greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife
hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings
and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends
Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more baroque, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post
industrial music.
Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise
group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internetage has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and lher collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad
songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America
when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and
suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."
Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and
2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT: LP
Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the
unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where Rose McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an
underground icon.
"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork
"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this
slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus
Tracklist:
1. Tibet
2. Sunboy
3. Wings Of Heaven
4. Sixty Cowboys
5. On The Sun
6. Cut With The Cake Knife
7. Crystal Nights
8. Soldier
9. So Vicious
10. Crystal Days
11. Don’t Fear The Reaper
Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since
then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a
generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night
School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely
recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.
Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade.
Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry
Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung
songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.
Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of
a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and
hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic. So
Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the
naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the
greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife
hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings
and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends
Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more baroque, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post
industrial music.
Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise
group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internetage has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and lher collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad
songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America
when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and
suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."
Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and
2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Molly Nilsson - 1. Prologue - Proud Destiny
2
Molly Nilsson - 2. Excalibur
3
Molly Nilsson - 3. Palestine
4
Molly Nilsson - 4. Jackboots Return
5
Molly Nilsson - 5. Wetcheeks
6
Molly Nilsson - 6. Red Telephone
7
Molly Nilsson - 7. Naming Names
8
Molly Nilsson - 8. The Communist Party
9
Molly Nilsson - 9. The Beauty Of The Duty
10
Molly Nilsson - 10. Point Doom
territories:WW-US,CA,UK, BENELUX
2026 Repress Edition
Black Vinyl LP, LTD 400
Tracklist
1. Prologue - Proud Destiny
2. Excalibur
3. Palestine
4. Jackboots Return
5. Wetcheeks
6. Red Telephone
7. Naming Names
8. The Communist Party
9. The Beauty Of The Duty
10. Point Doom
Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in
California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany,
Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s
instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom,
oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.
After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album
from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her
music into new territory. The resulting work, Un-American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was
among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle
he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen
letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an
acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.
Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of
new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On
Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and
the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this
the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest
bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the
lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About
Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme
did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.
While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-bestthought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of
old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed,
slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to
the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K
etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout,
however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in
referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of
fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
2026 Repress Edition
Black Vinyl LP, LTD 400
Tracklist
1. Prologue - Proud Destiny
2. Excalibur
3. Palestine
4. Jackboots Return
5. Wetcheeks
6. Red Telephone
7. Naming Names
8. The Communist Party
9. The Beauty Of The Duty
10. Point Doom
Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in
California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany,
Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s
instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom,
oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.
After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album
from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her
music into new territory. The resulting work, Un-American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was
among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle
he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen
letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an
acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.
Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of
new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On
Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and
the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this
the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest
bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the
lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About
Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme
did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.
While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-bestthought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of
old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed,
slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to
the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K
etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout,
however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in
referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of
fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Hannah Lew - 1. Time Wasted
2
Hannah Lew - 2. Sunday
3
Hannah Lew - 3. Another Twilight
4
Hannah Lew - 4. Siloed
5
Hannah Lew - 5. Replica
6
Hannah Lew - 6. Damaged Melody
7
Hannah Lew - 7. Move In Silence
8
Hannah Lew - 8. Distance Of The Moon
9
Hannah Lew - 9. The Cloc
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/Benelux/AU/NZ
TRACKLIST:
1. Time Wasted
2. Sunday
3. Another Twilight
4. Siloed
5. Replica
6. Damaged Melody
7. Move In Silence
8. Distance Of The Moon
9. The Cloc
“One foot out the door, another in the otherworld…”
So begins Hannah Lew’s debut, self-titled solo record, soaked in imperious, wide-eyed pop songwriting and a girl-group/post punk
aesthetic that belies the artist’s history in the U.S. underground. A towering, hook-laden album, it’s infused with an optimism and
surrealism that conversely deals with the times we find ourselves in.
Recorded at home in Richmond, CA and in The Best House studio with Maryam Qudus in Oakland CA, with the assistance of a crack
team of West Coast musicians, this album sees Hannah Lew stepping out from behind the legacy of her two groups Grass Widow and
Cold Beat. While musically bearing similarities with her previous work, “Hannah Lew” is a bold leap into direct pop territory, making
ample use of a vocal style that teases out the inherent melancholy in her melodies. Mastered by Sarah Register, each song is a
perfectly honed nugget that frequently pulls the heart in two directions at once.
Themes of change, breaking up, shattering old ways of being are shot through the record. For the front cover, a photograph of the
artist’s face was printed, ripped up and re-assembled, resembling the creative process embarked upon by Lew for her first “solo”
material. The album feels instinctual, almost dream-like in its assemblage of sweeping synths and pulsating, propulsive drum machine
beat patterns with Lew’s vocal performances sensitive and caressing over the top. Increasingly relying on the subconscious and
dreams to guide her creative process, Hannah Lew frequently abandons literal interpretations or linear narratives, the songs seeming
to exist in a swooning, effortless flow-state while remaining emotionally hard hitting.
On an album where every song could be a single, there are kaleidoscopic shades and varying emotional tones in abundance. First
single Another Twilight is carried along a pumping, Italo-disco-style 4/4 beat and mono-synth bass line, the low end pulling at the
heart and body. Lew’s vocal melody teases the track before swan-diving into a gorgeous chorus as she sings “it’s all over baby and I
don’t mind… in decline, I take my time…” The album is suffused with moments like this. On slow builder Damaged Melody, an
arpeggiated synth elongates the verse before a cascading synth showers down melodic glitter. The stunning Replica uses dual
swirling synth patterns before a driving, synthpop chorus for the ages carries Hannah Lew’s vocal into the stereo field, sailing in on a
high register singed with the embers of a break up.
In a departure from previous groups, her solo songs are guided by dreams and free association inspired by Dada and the Surrealist
movement and sculpted afterwards. As such, the songs reveal themselves on repeated listens, revealing traces of heartbreak inspired
by both personal and global elements - Hannah Lew regards the album “a wartime album.” On Move In Silence, Lew intones “there’s
a war outside, just out of view,” revealing the dichotomy at play throughout. With the songs evolving naturally and in a flow state, the
pressures and sadnesses of the modern age bleed through, mixed in with Lew’s inherent love, sensitivity and fractured-but-intact
optimism. On the swooning, sublime Sunday layers of Numanoid synths open up for the commanding vocal performance pontificating
on grief, love, pain as she “feels the ache on Sunday…” As the chorus builds and Lew’s call-and-response vocal adds to the emotional
tension, it almost feels like too much to take.
Elsewhere, there are echoes of Hannah Lew’s previous work. On Time Wasted a bass guitar comes in with a heavy, punk attack
before the synths and vocal harmonies reminiscent of later Cold Beat elevate everything. The glassy, sweetly resigned closer The
Clock sounds like so classic it could be cover, a sweetened Jesus & Mary Chain tune perhaps, before it erupts into volcanic chorus
that could only come from Hannah Lew in 2026.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
TRACKLIST:
1. Time Wasted
2. Sunday
3. Another Twilight
4. Siloed
5. Replica
6. Damaged Melody
7. Move In Silence
8. Distance Of The Moon
9. The Cloc
“One foot out the door, another in the otherworld…”
So begins Hannah Lew’s debut, self-titled solo record, soaked in imperious, wide-eyed pop songwriting and a girl-group/post punk
aesthetic that belies the artist’s history in the U.S. underground. A towering, hook-laden album, it’s infused with an optimism and
surrealism that conversely deals with the times we find ourselves in.
Recorded at home in Richmond, CA and in The Best House studio with Maryam Qudus in Oakland CA, with the assistance of a crack
team of West Coast musicians, this album sees Hannah Lew stepping out from behind the legacy of her two groups Grass Widow and
Cold Beat. While musically bearing similarities with her previous work, “Hannah Lew” is a bold leap into direct pop territory, making
ample use of a vocal style that teases out the inherent melancholy in her melodies. Mastered by Sarah Register, each song is a
perfectly honed nugget that frequently pulls the heart in two directions at once.
Themes of change, breaking up, shattering old ways of being are shot through the record. For the front cover, a photograph of the
artist’s face was printed, ripped up and re-assembled, resembling the creative process embarked upon by Lew for her first “solo”
material. The album feels instinctual, almost dream-like in its assemblage of sweeping synths and pulsating, propulsive drum machine
beat patterns with Lew’s vocal performances sensitive and caressing over the top. Increasingly relying on the subconscious and
dreams to guide her creative process, Hannah Lew frequently abandons literal interpretations or linear narratives, the songs seeming
to exist in a swooning, effortless flow-state while remaining emotionally hard hitting.
On an album where every song could be a single, there are kaleidoscopic shades and varying emotional tones in abundance. First
single Another Twilight is carried along a pumping, Italo-disco-style 4/4 beat and mono-synth bass line, the low end pulling at the
heart and body. Lew’s vocal melody teases the track before swan-diving into a gorgeous chorus as she sings “it’s all over baby and I
don’t mind… in decline, I take my time…” The album is suffused with moments like this. On slow builder Damaged Melody, an
arpeggiated synth elongates the verse before a cascading synth showers down melodic glitter. The stunning Replica uses dual
swirling synth patterns before a driving, synthpop chorus for the ages carries Hannah Lew’s vocal into the stereo field, sailing in on a
high register singed with the embers of a break up.
In a departure from previous groups, her solo songs are guided by dreams and free association inspired by Dada and the Surrealist
movement and sculpted afterwards. As such, the songs reveal themselves on repeated listens, revealing traces of heartbreak inspired
by both personal and global elements - Hannah Lew regards the album “a wartime album.” On Move In Silence, Lew intones “there’s
a war outside, just out of view,” revealing the dichotomy at play throughout. With the songs evolving naturally and in a flow state, the
pressures and sadnesses of the modern age bleed through, mixed in with Lew’s inherent love, sensitivity and fractured-but-intact
optimism. On the swooning, sublime Sunday layers of Numanoid synths open up for the commanding vocal performance pontificating
on grief, love, pain as she “feels the ache on Sunday…” As the chorus builds and Lew’s call-and-response vocal adds to the emotional
tension, it almost feels like too much to take.
Elsewhere, there are echoes of Hannah Lew’s previous work. On Time Wasted a bass guitar comes in with a heavy, punk attack
before the synths and vocal harmonies reminiscent of later Cold Beat elevate everything. The glassy, sweetly resigned closer The
Clock sounds like so classic it could be cover, a sweetened Jesus & Mary Chain tune perhaps, before it erupts into volcanic chorus
that could only come from Hannah Lew in 2026.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP - Territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/Benelux/AU/NZ
2LP LTD VINYL REPRESS ON TRANSPARENT GREEN VINYL
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
2LP LTD VINYL REPRESS ON TRANSPARENT GREEN VINYL
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Territories: WW, Ex UK,Usa, Benelux, OZ,
LTD ' WHITE RABBIT ' VINYL REPRESS W/ ORIGINAL BOOKLET
Tracklist:
Tracklist: 1. Humdinger 2. Synthesize Me 3. Major Tom 4. Ghost Riders in the Sky 5. Domine, Libra Nos/Showdown 6. Fly Like an Eagle 7. Born to Be Wild 8. I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) 9. From the Womb to the Tomb 10. Ballroom Blitz
Transcendentally beautiful, The Space Lady's music is returning to Earth. Transmitting messages of peace and harmony, The Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of Boston in the late 70s, then San Francisco ten years later, playing versions of contemporary pop music with an accordion and dressed flamboyantly. Following the theft and destruction of her accordion , The Space Lady invested in a then-new Casio keyboard, complete with a phase shifter and headset mic, birthing an otherworldly new dimension to popular song that has captured the imaginations of the underground and its leading exponents ever since.
"Utterly unique and radiant with a universal love that courses through The Space Lady’s re-shaping of 20th Century counterculture, these songs lament time past while suggesting a mode of living for the future. Now celebrating its 13th Birthday, The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits has firmly earned its place as not an “outsider” classic (whatever that means) but as a Classic full stop. Originally recorded in 1990 by Susan Dietrich to document her time on earth as The Space Lady, it enjoyed niche, underground fandom until Night School Records released it as Greatest Hits in 2013. Play these songs to anyone and the distance between them seems to shrink." - Michael Kasparis
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LTD ' WHITE RABBIT ' VINYL REPRESS W/ ORIGINAL BOOKLET
Tracklist:
Tracklist: 1. Humdinger 2. Synthesize Me 3. Major Tom 4. Ghost Riders in the Sky 5. Domine, Libra Nos/Showdown 6. Fly Like an Eagle 7. Born to Be Wild 8. I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) 9. From the Womb to the Tomb 10. Ballroom Blitz
Transcendentally beautiful, The Space Lady's music is returning to Earth. Transmitting messages of peace and harmony, The Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of Boston in the late 70s, then San Francisco ten years later, playing versions of contemporary pop music with an accordion and dressed flamboyantly. Following the theft and destruction of her accordion , The Space Lady invested in a then-new Casio keyboard, complete with a phase shifter and headset mic, birthing an otherworldly new dimension to popular song that has captured the imaginations of the underground and its leading exponents ever since.
"Utterly unique and radiant with a universal love that courses through The Space Lady’s re-shaping of 20th Century counterculture, these songs lament time past while suggesting a mode of living for the future. Now celebrating its 13th Birthday, The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits has firmly earned its place as not an “outsider” classic (whatever that means) but as a Classic full stop. Originally recorded in 1990 by Susan Dietrich to document her time on earth as The Space Lady, it enjoyed niche, underground fandom until Night School Records released it as Greatest Hits in 2013. Play these songs to anyone and the distance between them seems to shrink." - Michael Kasparis
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Molly Nilsson - 1. Die Cry Lie
2
Molly Nilsson - 2. Valhalla
3
Molly Nilsson - 3. Swedish Nightmare
4
Molly Nilsson - 4. Classified
5
Molly Nilsson - 5. Long Time No See
6
Molly Nilsson - 6. Fatal Distraction
7
Molly Nilsson - 7. Get A Life
8
Molly Nilsson - 8. Joe Hill’s Last Will
9
Molly Nilsson - 9. How Much Is The World
10
Molly Nilsson - 10. Creeping Beauty
11
Molly Nilsson - 11. All The Way
12
Molly Nilsson - 12. Big Life
13
Molly Nilsson - 13. The Bitter End
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/Benelux/AU/NZ/JP
Lp - BLACK VINYL ONLY IN GLOSS LAMINATED SLEEVE
Tracklist:
1. Die Cry Lie
2. Valhalla
3. Swedish Nightmare
4. Classified
5. Long Time No See
6. Fatal Distraction
7. Get A Life
8. Joe Hill’s Last Will
9. How Much Is The World
10. Creeping Beauty
11. All The Way
12. Big Life
13. The Bitter End
The word "amateur" originates from the Latin word "amator," meaning "lover" or "admirer". This Latin term is derived from "amare," which means "to
love". The French adopted "amateur" from Latin, and the English then borrowed it from French, initially retaining the sense of someone who loves or
is devoted to something. Over time, the English usage of "amateur" also developed a meaning related to a lack of professional skill or experience.
How did a word derived from love become a slur? Is love really so defenseless? They say love conquers all, but in reality isn’t love quite ridiculous?
It has no intention, no motive, no agenda. How could it possibly prevail? It can’t be bought or sold, or so they say.Its mere existence can't be proven or
even measured. What an impossible thing. Trying and failing, time and time again, no wonder cynicism always seems to win. I see “amateurism” as a
delighted, even foolish, protest. Protest against everything. Of what’s expected of someone, or expected of someone to desire or strive for. To be elite,
to be expert, to be professional, to be a master, to excel and succeed. Where’s the joy in that? I just want to have fun. I want to want. I want to love.
And keep doing it, forever. I want to have fun, even when it’s tiring and sometimes even heaven is boring as hell. I want to be bad. I want to do my
own thing. “I vant to be alone”. I want to be someone so dedicated to their passion that it starts to seem like there’s something wrong with them. All
the way. We can take it all the way, and never get it back.
” - Molly Nilsson
Amateur is the 12th studio album by Molly Nilsson. Deep in the teeth of a career that threatens to tip into something resembling a “legacy,” Molly
Nilsson celebrates with an album recorded instinctively, quickly and bursting with so many moments of emotional brilliance and clarity it may be her
greatest yet. Hers has been a career spent reaching out, perennially powerful in her earnestness, a warrior ridiculously defenceless and armed with a
glittering sincerity. Shearing herself of the machinations of the music industry, recording at home, writing direct to the heart.
Amateur is a jubilee for losers. A treatise in 13 songs, Amateur states clearly that we should live our life with eternal curiosity, offers us an open hand
of comradeship out of the rat race. The songs on the album are both some of the most personal of Nilsson’s career and the most anthemic. First
single How Much Is The World asks us to re-evaluate value in the face of a Neo-liberal system squeezing the life out of our loves. Pulsing opener Die
Cry Lie satirises the commercialisation of emotion in the form of a shout-along diss-track. With a pounding rhythm track held down by gorgeous chord
changes, heartbreaker Valhalla carries the torch for the main themes of the album: never growing up, making mistakes with kindness, moving on.
When the drums crash in on the line “It’s going to get better now, you’ll see, going to be much better off without me” there is a world of feeling swirling
about in the vocal delivery. One reading of the track might be that it’s a break up song but the subtext is classic Molly Nilsson: by living truthfully,
making mistakes, we’re active agents against the myriad oppressions of the world.
All The Way takes the theme for a run into the eternal sunset. It’s a manifesto for living fully. “Take it all the way, and never get it back” - it’s the
process that’s the important point. The journey not the destination. Big Life, follows on like a part 2: An ode not only to Molly Nilsson’s career of
endless gigs, endless connections with people, it’s a massive ode for following your dreams, doing it yourself. Closer The Bitter End is a powerful
anthem for friendship, another definition of love infused in Nilsson’s work, A beautifully poignant ode to comradeship til the end, it seems to be the
songwriter approaching aging, approaching life’s inevitability with the same vigour and earnestness, the same love of life she enjoyed at the onset of
her career.
There are moments on Amateur shrouded in reverb, slightly out of focus, forcing the listener to step deeper into the Mollyverse.. Nilsson’s open-armed
beseeching to the world permeates every beat, every chord. These are songs exploding with life: the chunky, aggressive bassline on the punker Get A
Life can’t hide its massive, catchy chorus. The sweeping Swedish Nightmare might be a tongue-in-cheek self-reference, but at its heart it’s a song
about the duality of living life large, what is a dream, what is a nightmare? Molly Nilsson says you can’t have one without the other, and why would you
want to?
Here’s to making mistakes.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Lp - BLACK VINYL ONLY IN GLOSS LAMINATED SLEEVE
Tracklist:
1. Die Cry Lie
2. Valhalla
3. Swedish Nightmare
4. Classified
5. Long Time No See
6. Fatal Distraction
7. Get A Life
8. Joe Hill’s Last Will
9. How Much Is The World
10. Creeping Beauty
11. All The Way
12. Big Life
13. The Bitter End
The word "amateur" originates from the Latin word "amator," meaning "lover" or "admirer". This Latin term is derived from "amare," which means "to
love". The French adopted "amateur" from Latin, and the English then borrowed it from French, initially retaining the sense of someone who loves or
is devoted to something. Over time, the English usage of "amateur" also developed a meaning related to a lack of professional skill or experience.
How did a word derived from love become a slur? Is love really so defenseless? They say love conquers all, but in reality isn’t love quite ridiculous?
It has no intention, no motive, no agenda. How could it possibly prevail? It can’t be bought or sold, or so they say.Its mere existence can't be proven or
even measured. What an impossible thing. Trying and failing, time and time again, no wonder cynicism always seems to win. I see “amateurism” as a
delighted, even foolish, protest. Protest against everything. Of what’s expected of someone, or expected of someone to desire or strive for. To be elite,
to be expert, to be professional, to be a master, to excel and succeed. Where’s the joy in that? I just want to have fun. I want to want. I want to love.
And keep doing it, forever. I want to have fun, even when it’s tiring and sometimes even heaven is boring as hell. I want to be bad. I want to do my
own thing. “I vant to be alone”. I want to be someone so dedicated to their passion that it starts to seem like there’s something wrong with them. All
the way. We can take it all the way, and never get it back.
” - Molly Nilsson
Amateur is the 12th studio album by Molly Nilsson. Deep in the teeth of a career that threatens to tip into something resembling a “legacy,” Molly
Nilsson celebrates with an album recorded instinctively, quickly and bursting with so many moments of emotional brilliance and clarity it may be her
greatest yet. Hers has been a career spent reaching out, perennially powerful in her earnestness, a warrior ridiculously defenceless and armed with a
glittering sincerity. Shearing herself of the machinations of the music industry, recording at home, writing direct to the heart.
Amateur is a jubilee for losers. A treatise in 13 songs, Amateur states clearly that we should live our life with eternal curiosity, offers us an open hand
of comradeship out of the rat race. The songs on the album are both some of the most personal of Nilsson’s career and the most anthemic. First
single How Much Is The World asks us to re-evaluate value in the face of a Neo-liberal system squeezing the life out of our loves. Pulsing opener Die
Cry Lie satirises the commercialisation of emotion in the form of a shout-along diss-track. With a pounding rhythm track held down by gorgeous chord
changes, heartbreaker Valhalla carries the torch for the main themes of the album: never growing up, making mistakes with kindness, moving on.
When the drums crash in on the line “It’s going to get better now, you’ll see, going to be much better off without me” there is a world of feeling swirling
about in the vocal delivery. One reading of the track might be that it’s a break up song but the subtext is classic Molly Nilsson: by living truthfully,
making mistakes, we’re active agents against the myriad oppressions of the world.
All The Way takes the theme for a run into the eternal sunset. It’s a manifesto for living fully. “Take it all the way, and never get it back” - it’s the
process that’s the important point. The journey not the destination. Big Life, follows on like a part 2: An ode not only to Molly Nilsson’s career of
endless gigs, endless connections with people, it’s a massive ode for following your dreams, doing it yourself. Closer The Bitter End is a powerful
anthem for friendship, another definition of love infused in Nilsson’s work, A beautifully poignant ode to comradeship til the end, it seems to be the
songwriter approaching aging, approaching life’s inevitability with the same vigour and earnestness, the same love of life she enjoyed at the onset of
her career.
There are moments on Amateur shrouded in reverb, slightly out of focus, forcing the listener to step deeper into the Mollyverse.. Nilsson’s open-armed
beseeching to the world permeates every beat, every chord. These are songs exploding with life: the chunky, aggressive bassline on the punker Get A
Life can’t hide its massive, catchy chorus. The sweeping Swedish Nightmare might be a tongue-in-cheek self-reference, but at its heart it’s a song
about the duality of living life large, what is a dream, what is a nightmare? Molly Nilsson says you can’t have one without the other, and why would you
want to?
Here’s to making mistakes.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP - territory: territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/Benelux/AU/NZ/JP
CD
Tracklist:
1. Die Cry Lie
2. Valhalla
3. Swedish Nightmare
4. Classified
5. Long Time No See
6. Fatal Distraction
7. Get A Life
8. Joe Hill’s Last Will
9. How Much Is The World
10. Creeping Beauty
11. All The Way
12. Big Life
13. The Bitter End
The word "amateur" originates from the Latin word "amator," meaning "lover" or "admirer". This Latin term is derived from "amare," which means "to
love". The French adopted "amateur" from Latin, and the English then borrowed it from French, initially retaining the sense of someone who loves or
is devoted to something. Over time, the English usage of "amateur" also developed a meaning related to a lack of professional skill or experience.
How did a word derived from love become a slur? Is love really so defenseless? They say love conquers all, but in reality isn’t love quite ridiculous?
It has no intention, no motive, no agenda. How could it possibly prevail? It can’t be bought or sold, or so they say.Its mere existence can't be proven or
even measured. What an impossible thing. Trying and failing, time and time again, no wonder cynicism always seems to win. I see “amateurism” as a
delighted, even foolish, protest. Protest against everything. Of what’s expected of someone, or expected of someone to desire or strive for. To be elite,
to be expert, to be professional, to be a master, to excel and succeed. Where’s the joy in that? I just want to have fun. I want to want. I want to love.
And keep doing it, forever. I want to have fun, even when it’s tiring and sometimes even heaven is boring as hell. I want to be bad. I want to do my
own thing. “I vant to be alone”. I want to be someone so dedicated to their passion that it starts to seem like there’s something wrong with them. All
the way. We can take it all the way, and never get it back.
” - Molly Nilsson
Amateur is the 12th studio album by Molly Nilsson. Deep in the teeth of a career that threatens to tip into something resembling a “legacy,” Molly
Nilsson celebrates with an album recorded instinctively, quickly and bursting with so many moments of emotional brilliance and clarity it may be her
greatest yet. Hers has been a career spent reaching out, perennially powerful in her earnestness, a warrior ridiculously defenceless and armed with a
glittering sincerity. Shearing herself of the machinations of the music industry, recording at home, writing direct to the heart.
Amateur is a jubilee for losers. A treatise in 13 songs, Amateur states clearly that we should live our life with eternal curiosity, offers us an open hand
of comradeship out of the rat race. The songs on the album are both some of the most personal of Nilsson’s career and the most anthemic. First
single How Much Is The World asks us to re-evaluate value in the face of a Neo-liberal system squeezing the life out of our loves. Pulsing opener Die
Cry Lie satirises the commercialisation of emotion in the form of a shout-along diss-track. With a pounding rhythm track held down by gorgeous chord
changes, heartbreaker Valhalla carries the torch for the main themes of the album: never growing up, making mistakes with kindness, moving on.
When the drums crash in on the line “It’s going to get better now, you’ll see, going to be much better off without me” there is a world of feeling swirling
about in the vocal delivery. One reading of the track might be that it’s a break up song but the subtext is classic Molly Nilsson: by living truthfully,
making mistakes, we’re active agents against the myriad oppressions of the world.
All The Way takes the theme for a run into the eternal sunset. It’s a manifesto for living fully. “Take it all the way, and never get it back” - it’s the
process that’s the important point. The journey not the destination. Big Life, follows on like a part 2: An ode not only to Molly Nilsson’s career of
endless gigs, endless connections with people, it’s a massive ode for following your dreams, doing it yourself. Closer The Bitter End is a powerful
anthem for friendship, another definition of love infused in Nilsson’s work, A beautifully poignant ode to comradeship til the end, it seems to be the
songwriter approaching aging, approaching life’s inevitability with the same vigour and earnestness, the same love of life she enjoyed at the onset of
her career.
There are moments on Amateur shrouded in reverb, slightly out of focus, forcing the listener to step deeper into the Mollyverse.. Nilsson’s open-armed
beseeching to the world permeates every beat, every chord. These are songs exploding with life: the chunky, aggressive bassline on the punker Get A
Life can’t hide its massive, catchy chorus. The sweeping Swedish Nightmare might be a tongue-in-cheek self-reference, but at its heart it’s a song
about the duality of living life large, what is a dream, what is a nightmare? Molly Nilsson says you can’t have one without the other, and why would you
want to?
Here’s to making mistakes.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
CD
Tracklist:
1. Die Cry Lie
2. Valhalla
3. Swedish Nightmare
4. Classified
5. Long Time No See
6. Fatal Distraction
7. Get A Life
8. Joe Hill’s Last Will
9. How Much Is The World
10. Creeping Beauty
11. All The Way
12. Big Life
13. The Bitter End
The word "amateur" originates from the Latin word "amator," meaning "lover" or "admirer". This Latin term is derived from "amare," which means "to
love". The French adopted "amateur" from Latin, and the English then borrowed it from French, initially retaining the sense of someone who loves or
is devoted to something. Over time, the English usage of "amateur" also developed a meaning related to a lack of professional skill or experience.
How did a word derived from love become a slur? Is love really so defenseless? They say love conquers all, but in reality isn’t love quite ridiculous?
It has no intention, no motive, no agenda. How could it possibly prevail? It can’t be bought or sold, or so they say.Its mere existence can't be proven or
even measured. What an impossible thing. Trying and failing, time and time again, no wonder cynicism always seems to win. I see “amateurism” as a
delighted, even foolish, protest. Protest against everything. Of what’s expected of someone, or expected of someone to desire or strive for. To be elite,
to be expert, to be professional, to be a master, to excel and succeed. Where’s the joy in that? I just want to have fun. I want to want. I want to love.
And keep doing it, forever. I want to have fun, even when it’s tiring and sometimes even heaven is boring as hell. I want to be bad. I want to do my
own thing. “I vant to be alone”. I want to be someone so dedicated to their passion that it starts to seem like there’s something wrong with them. All
the way. We can take it all the way, and never get it back.
” - Molly Nilsson
Amateur is the 12th studio album by Molly Nilsson. Deep in the teeth of a career that threatens to tip into something resembling a “legacy,” Molly
Nilsson celebrates with an album recorded instinctively, quickly and bursting with so many moments of emotional brilliance and clarity it may be her
greatest yet. Hers has been a career spent reaching out, perennially powerful in her earnestness, a warrior ridiculously defenceless and armed with a
glittering sincerity. Shearing herself of the machinations of the music industry, recording at home, writing direct to the heart.
Amateur is a jubilee for losers. A treatise in 13 songs, Amateur states clearly that we should live our life with eternal curiosity, offers us an open hand
of comradeship out of the rat race. The songs on the album are both some of the most personal of Nilsson’s career and the most anthemic. First
single How Much Is The World asks us to re-evaluate value in the face of a Neo-liberal system squeezing the life out of our loves. Pulsing opener Die
Cry Lie satirises the commercialisation of emotion in the form of a shout-along diss-track. With a pounding rhythm track held down by gorgeous chord
changes, heartbreaker Valhalla carries the torch for the main themes of the album: never growing up, making mistakes with kindness, moving on.
When the drums crash in on the line “It’s going to get better now, you’ll see, going to be much better off without me” there is a world of feeling swirling
about in the vocal delivery. One reading of the track might be that it’s a break up song but the subtext is classic Molly Nilsson: by living truthfully,
making mistakes, we’re active agents against the myriad oppressions of the world.
All The Way takes the theme for a run into the eternal sunset. It’s a manifesto for living fully. “Take it all the way, and never get it back” - it’s the
process that’s the important point. The journey not the destination. Big Life, follows on like a part 2: An ode not only to Molly Nilsson’s career of
endless gigs, endless connections with people, it’s a massive ode for following your dreams, doing it yourself. Closer The Bitter End is a powerful
anthem for friendship, another definition of love infused in Nilsson’s work, A beautifully poignant ode to comradeship til the end, it seems to be the
songwriter approaching aging, approaching life’s inevitability with the same vigour and earnestness, the same love of life she enjoyed at the onset of
her career.
There are moments on Amateur shrouded in reverb, slightly out of focus, forcing the listener to step deeper into the Mollyverse.. Nilsson’s open-armed
beseeching to the world permeates every beat, every chord. These are songs exploding with life: the chunky, aggressive bassline on the punker Get A
Life can’t hide its massive, catchy chorus. The sweeping Swedish Nightmare might be a tongue-in-cheek self-reference, but at its heart it’s a song
about the duality of living life large, what is a dream, what is a nightmare? Molly Nilsson says you can’t have one without the other, and why would you
want to?
Here’s to making mistakes.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Al Karpenter - 1. We Are All Karpenters
2
Al Karpenter - 2. Mundo Chabola
3
Al Karpenter - 3. Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads)
4
Al Karpenter - 4. A Brand New Astrophobia
5
Al Karpenter - 5. The Most Grudgeful Lie
6
Al Karpenter - 6. Tout Avant de Devenir Rein
7
Al Karpenter - 7. Stop The Genocide!
8
Al Karpenter - 8. Worm City
9
Al Karpenter - 9. Death Song
10
Al Karpenter - 10.Perfect Love
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/Benelux
LP LTD 300 with 8 page 12” booklet
Tracklist
1. We Are All Karpenters
2. Mundo Chabola
3. Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads)
4. A Brand New Astrophobia
5. The Most Grudgeful Lie
6. Tout Avant de Devenir Rein
7. Stop The Genocide!
8. Worm City
9. Death Song
10.Perfect Love
Released by Hegoa Records and Night School Records.
Greatest Heads is the fourth album by the radical Basque- Berlinesque group Al Karpenter. A
deconstruction of structured “rock” music, here Al Karpenter re-imagine “the band” to explore
the intersection between Free music, afro-beat, the avant garde and gonzo rock.
If Theodore Adorno wrote “To Write Poetry after Auschwitz is Barbaric” in 1949, Al Karpenter
attempts to answer the difficult question today; what kind of music can be done in the face of a
genocide? Álvaro Matilla, Marta Sainz, Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin’s response to the planet’s
slipping into a vortex of hate is to create a music ecstatic, a music of protest bursting with multiple
musical languages and glossaries, full of overlapping histories and thrilling tensions.
Greatest Heads posits a plurality of musics both in opposition and intertwined: Al Karpenter play rock
instruments pulled apart in the studio in post-production. Distorted rhythm chunks bit-crushed and
dissipated, segments of freedom oppressed by waves of sound invading from every direction. The
interplay between the chief instrumentalists and renowned, storied sound artist Mattin creates
something akin to ESP freedom-seekers Cro Magnon playing in Miles Davis’ early 70s groups, The
Los Angeles Free Music Society tightening up into a clenched fist of plunderphonics and runaway
percussion.
We Are All Karpenters opens Greatest Heads with the most straight-forward song refrain of the record
accompanied by a band that soon crash into eruption, imagining Sun City Girls in full free rock mode.
The modulating synth sound soon sucks the band into its wake to create a spine-chilling climax of
distorted sound, made fully orgasmic with mastering engineer Rashad Becker’s attention to detail. On
Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads), Matilla intones in Basque over a mangled distorto-beat. A Brand
New Astraphobia creates a black space for a heavily processed guitar to blow up before falling to earth
at night, a gentle figure serenading the coming end.
On Side B, the band begins by being masticated by a brutal phaser, squelching and stretching the
music into new territories. The overt message of Stop The Genocide! is besieged by violence before
Worm City aggressively samples the ghosts of soul music, mixing in noise bursts, prepared piano and
swiping, abstracted sound. Epic closer Perfect Love feels like a beat poetry performance on a burnt
world, still grasping for community, for home, for some sort of human love. A Mad love, then; an angry
love fuelled by solidarity and collaboration.
The band’s cascading layers of references and polyglottal musics attempt to create the perfect lover,
alive with rage and disorientating ecstasy: Al Karpenter.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP LTD 300 with 8 page 12” booklet
Tracklist
1. We Are All Karpenters
2. Mundo Chabola
3. Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads)
4. A Brand New Astrophobia
5. The Most Grudgeful Lie
6. Tout Avant de Devenir Rein
7. Stop The Genocide!
8. Worm City
9. Death Song
10.Perfect Love
Released by Hegoa Records and Night School Records.
Greatest Heads is the fourth album by the radical Basque- Berlinesque group Al Karpenter. A
deconstruction of structured “rock” music, here Al Karpenter re-imagine “the band” to explore
the intersection between Free music, afro-beat, the avant garde and gonzo rock.
If Theodore Adorno wrote “To Write Poetry after Auschwitz is Barbaric” in 1949, Al Karpenter
attempts to answer the difficult question today; what kind of music can be done in the face of a
genocide? Álvaro Matilla, Marta Sainz, Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin’s response to the planet’s
slipping into a vortex of hate is to create a music ecstatic, a music of protest bursting with multiple
musical languages and glossaries, full of overlapping histories and thrilling tensions.
Greatest Heads posits a plurality of musics both in opposition and intertwined: Al Karpenter play rock
instruments pulled apart in the studio in post-production. Distorted rhythm chunks bit-crushed and
dissipated, segments of freedom oppressed by waves of sound invading from every direction. The
interplay between the chief instrumentalists and renowned, storied sound artist Mattin creates
something akin to ESP freedom-seekers Cro Magnon playing in Miles Davis’ early 70s groups, The
Los Angeles Free Music Society tightening up into a clenched fist of plunderphonics and runaway
percussion.
We Are All Karpenters opens Greatest Heads with the most straight-forward song refrain of the record
accompanied by a band that soon crash into eruption, imagining Sun City Girls in full free rock mode.
The modulating synth sound soon sucks the band into its wake to create a spine-chilling climax of
distorted sound, made fully orgasmic with mastering engineer Rashad Becker’s attention to detail. On
Izugarrizko Buruak (Greatest Heads), Matilla intones in Basque over a mangled distorto-beat. A Brand
New Astraphobia creates a black space for a heavily processed guitar to blow up before falling to earth
at night, a gentle figure serenading the coming end.
On Side B, the band begins by being masticated by a brutal phaser, squelching and stretching the
music into new territories. The overt message of Stop The Genocide! is besieged by violence before
Worm City aggressively samples the ghosts of soul music, mixing in noise bursts, prepared piano and
swiping, abstracted sound. Epic closer Perfect Love feels like a beat poetry performance on a burnt
world, still grasping for community, for home, for some sort of human love. A Mad love, then; an angry
love fuelled by solidarity and collaboration.
The band’s cascading layers of references and polyglottal musics attempt to create the perfect lover,
alive with rage and disorientating ecstasy: Al Karpenter.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
TROTH - 1. Loam Loom Leaf Litter
2
TROTH - 2. Gold Plum
3
TROTH - 3. Thistle
4
TROTH - 4. Tides Reflected In Her Eyes
5
TROTH - 5. Cocoonist (prelude)
6
TROTH - 6. Cocoonist
7
TROTH - 7. Myrtle Mystes
8
TROTH - 8. Unfinished Rose
9
TROTH - 9. Deep Umbel
territories:WW-US,CA,UK, BENELUX, OZ
Black Vinyl LP
Tracklist
1. Loam Loom Leaf Litter
2. Gold Plum
3. Thistle
4. Tides Reflected In Her Eyes
5. Cocoonist (prelude)
6. Cocoonist
7. Myrtle Mystes
8. Unfinished Rose
9. Deep Umbel
Slowly yet firmly blooming into focus, An Unfinished Rose is the new album from Australian duo Troth. This is
their first since relocating to Hobart, Tasmania and their introduction to Night School Records. With a detailed
web of past releases on labels A Colourful Storm, Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox, Knekelhuis and Bowman’s
own Altered States Tapes imprint, An Unfinished Rose is the group’s most realised and composed work thus far.
While still drawing on the improvisatory and DIY practices that informed Troth’s beginnings, it points to
a new incarnation of the duo’s music; an intentional language emerging from the fog of obfuscation and mists of
uncertainty.
Over these 9 meditations on change, acceptance, renewal and rebirth, An Unfinished Rose finds Amelia Besseny
and Cooper Bowman peeling back some of the roughhewn architecture that defined their earlier releases to reveal
a masterful - if auto-didactic - use of space and melody. Composition and improvisation compliment and feed each
other throughout, with locked-loop earworms providing the springboard for lines of clarinet or synth melody, and the
negative space between chord clusters giving ample room for Besseny’s most confident vocal performances to
date. Shaving off a little of the defining dissonance and tape compression of old reveals Troth’s music in radiant
daylight, humbly accepting of its place in the world while yearning for better, more sympathetic modes of living.
Leaning more heavily on acoustic instrumentation and post-production processes than previously, the result is a
transcendent body of work infused with an almost zen-like presence.
Troth’s music exists in the border between forming and becoming, its goal to project a kind of preternatural beauty,
leaving interpretation open to the listener. Field recordings, happenstance and improvisation may provide seeds for
the duo’s compositions, particularly on Side A, but there is a deft touch of songcraft on show. Loam Loom Leaf
Litter opens An Unfinished Rose, directly referencing natural cycles of life, death and regeneration, before the
blissed-out drum machine groove of Gold Plum continues a discussion concerning the totality of nature and one’s
place in it. Besseny’s vocal, swelling like an ocean churn in duet with itself is adorned with synthesised harp and a
revolving synth pattern, conjuring plumes of medieval smoke. Thistle’s rounded, bass-heavy drums, nodding to the
vast echo of dub, is a relatively new terrain for Troth. It’s propulsive and thumping, pulsing with a meaning and
symbolism consistent with Troth’s past work, referenced overtly in Bessey’s lyrics - “Say it too much and it loses its
meaning…”. Similarly, the sprawling modern-classical suite, Tides Reflected In Her Eyes, is intentional in its lyrical
themes while traversing new ground, revelling in layers of bowed cello and vocal intonations.
Side B’s 4 tracks feel like Troth’s most thoroughly accessible and affecting music to date. Leaning into their own
detoured version of Synth Pop, Cocoonist explores downtempoisms via a crunchy low frequency synth, and
dream-like, fuzzy trip-hop modalities, not unlike Besseny and Bowman’s other group, Th Blisks. Following on,
Myrtle Mystes is an open and searching DIY pop song, forged out of drum machine, bass guitar and cello. (An)
Unfinished Rose’s title-track is a clear stand-out, built upon an evocative rhythm sample that appears to change
emotional resonance with each undulating repetition. Its cascading waves of affect, interjected with a subtle breeze
of synth, bowed instrumentation and soaring, densely-layered vocals.
An Unfinished Rose is enveloping, warm, forgiving. Difficult, yet retaining a unique beauty. Troth’s music aims to
celebrate the duo;s shared experiences of being in the world, despite the complexity often surrounding us all.
Theirs is a message of hope and perseverance, learning and patience.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Black Vinyl LP
Tracklist
1. Loam Loom Leaf Litter
2. Gold Plum
3. Thistle
4. Tides Reflected In Her Eyes
5. Cocoonist (prelude)
6. Cocoonist
7. Myrtle Mystes
8. Unfinished Rose
9. Deep Umbel
Slowly yet firmly blooming into focus, An Unfinished Rose is the new album from Australian duo Troth. This is
their first since relocating to Hobart, Tasmania and their introduction to Night School Records. With a detailed
web of past releases on labels A Colourful Storm, Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox, Knekelhuis and Bowman’s
own Altered States Tapes imprint, An Unfinished Rose is the group’s most realised and composed work thus far.
While still drawing on the improvisatory and DIY practices that informed Troth’s beginnings, it points to
a new incarnation of the duo’s music; an intentional language emerging from the fog of obfuscation and mists of
uncertainty.
Over these 9 meditations on change, acceptance, renewal and rebirth, An Unfinished Rose finds Amelia Besseny
and Cooper Bowman peeling back some of the roughhewn architecture that defined their earlier releases to reveal
a masterful - if auto-didactic - use of space and melody. Composition and improvisation compliment and feed each
other throughout, with locked-loop earworms providing the springboard for lines of clarinet or synth melody, and the
negative space between chord clusters giving ample room for Besseny’s most confident vocal performances to
date. Shaving off a little of the defining dissonance and tape compression of old reveals Troth’s music in radiant
daylight, humbly accepting of its place in the world while yearning for better, more sympathetic modes of living.
Leaning more heavily on acoustic instrumentation and post-production processes than previously, the result is a
transcendent body of work infused with an almost zen-like presence.
Troth’s music exists in the border between forming and becoming, its goal to project a kind of preternatural beauty,
leaving interpretation open to the listener. Field recordings, happenstance and improvisation may provide seeds for
the duo’s compositions, particularly on Side A, but there is a deft touch of songcraft on show. Loam Loom Leaf
Litter opens An Unfinished Rose, directly referencing natural cycles of life, death and regeneration, before the
blissed-out drum machine groove of Gold Plum continues a discussion concerning the totality of nature and one’s
place in it. Besseny’s vocal, swelling like an ocean churn in duet with itself is adorned with synthesised harp and a
revolving synth pattern, conjuring plumes of medieval smoke. Thistle’s rounded, bass-heavy drums, nodding to the
vast echo of dub, is a relatively new terrain for Troth. It’s propulsive and thumping, pulsing with a meaning and
symbolism consistent with Troth’s past work, referenced overtly in Bessey’s lyrics - “Say it too much and it loses its
meaning…”. Similarly, the sprawling modern-classical suite, Tides Reflected In Her Eyes, is intentional in its lyrical
themes while traversing new ground, revelling in layers of bowed cello and vocal intonations.
Side B’s 4 tracks feel like Troth’s most thoroughly accessible and affecting music to date. Leaning into their own
detoured version of Synth Pop, Cocoonist explores downtempoisms via a crunchy low frequency synth, and
dream-like, fuzzy trip-hop modalities, not unlike Besseny and Bowman’s other group, Th Blisks. Following on,
Myrtle Mystes is an open and searching DIY pop song, forged out of drum machine, bass guitar and cello. (An)
Unfinished Rose’s title-track is a clear stand-out, built upon an evocative rhythm sample that appears to change
emotional resonance with each undulating repetition. Its cascading waves of affect, interjected with a subtle breeze
of synth, bowed instrumentation and soaring, densely-layered vocals.
An Unfinished Rose is enveloping, warm, forgiving. Difficult, yet retaining a unique beauty. Troth’s music aims to
celebrate the duo;s shared experiences of being in the world, despite the complexity often surrounding us all.
Theirs is a message of hope and perseverance, learning and patience.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Molly Nilsson - Un Po’ Più Vicino al Cielo
2
Molly Nilsson - Il Peggior Bar di Caracas
Superlimited Live Sold 7" - Only 40 Available
Tracklist:
1. Un Po’ Più Vicino al Cielo
2. Il Peggior Bar di Caracas
D.S.A. and Night School Records are once more teaming up to release a limited edition 7”: Certe Notti by Molly Nilsson. The
record contains the two new songs Un Po’ Più Vicino al Cielo and Il Peggior Bar di Caracas.
The songs were written and recorded in August 2024 in San Giorgio del Sannio, Benevento, during a month long artist
residency, made possible thanks to the kind invitation and hospitality of AUNA a.p.s.
A whole moon spent between local festivities, sagras and late nights in the best of worst bars, making new friends
forever and life-long memories (including an unforgettable Inti-Illimani concert), all infused with sweet drinks and ancient
lore of local witches.
The cover art depicts the view from the window on one of those nights, the rising moon, Liquore Strega yellow, and the
inlay hints at Nilsson's favourite crosswords magazine. With all these distractions it’s really a wonder any music was
made at all. But thanks in large part to endless espressi and ginseng, two new songs came to be. The first is Nilsson’s
first opus in the Italian language! The second, a hommage to her favourite joint and hang out, The Worst
Bar in Caracas.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Tracklist:
1. Un Po’ Più Vicino al Cielo
2. Il Peggior Bar di Caracas
D.S.A. and Night School Records are once more teaming up to release a limited edition 7”: Certe Notti by Molly Nilsson. The
record contains the two new songs Un Po’ Più Vicino al Cielo and Il Peggior Bar di Caracas.
The songs were written and recorded in August 2024 in San Giorgio del Sannio, Benevento, during a month long artist
residency, made possible thanks to the kind invitation and hospitality of AUNA a.p.s.
A whole moon spent between local festivities, sagras and late nights in the best of worst bars, making new friends
forever and life-long memories (including an unforgettable Inti-Illimani concert), all infused with sweet drinks and ancient
lore of local witches.
The cover art depicts the view from the window on one of those nights, the rising moon, Liquore Strega yellow, and the
inlay hints at Nilsson's favourite crosswords magazine. With all these distractions it’s really a wonder any music was
made at all. But thanks in large part to endless espressi and ginseng, two new songs came to be. The first is Nilsson’s
first opus in the Italian language! The second, a hommage to her favourite joint and hang out, The Worst
Bar in Caracas.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
2
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
3
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
4
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
5
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
6
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
7
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
8
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
9
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
10
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
11
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
12
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
13
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
14
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
15
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
16
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
17
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
18
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
19
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
20
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
21
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
22
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
23
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
24
VARIOUS ARTISTS - No Title
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/ Benelux
2LP Black Vinyl w/8pg 12” booklet
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
2LP Black Vinyl w/8pg 12” booklet
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/ Benelux
2LP LTD TRANSPARENT PINK VINYL Vinyl w/8pg 12” booklet
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
2LP LTD TRANSPARENT PINK VINYL Vinyl w/8pg 12” booklet
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/ Benelux
2LP ULTRA LTD MIRROR BOARD PRESSING ON CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL, HAS THE BOOKLET, AND AN EXTRA 6 PANEL FOLDED POSTER, ONE OF TWO IMAGES.
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
2LP ULTRA LTD MIRROR BOARD PRESSING ON CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL, HAS THE BOOKLET, AND AN EXTRA 6 PANEL FOLDED POSTER, ONE OF TWO IMAGES.
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP - territory: WW- UK/USA/CA/ Benelux
2CD w/ 24pg booklet
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
2CD w/ 24pg booklet
TRACKLIST:
1. Design - Premonition
2. Vision - Lucifer’s Friend
3. Richard Bone - Alien Girl
4. John Howard - I Tune Into You
5. Ian North - We’re Not Lonely
6. Selwin Image - The Unknown
7. Harry Kakoulli - I’m On A Rocket
8. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone
9. Billy London - Woman
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction
11. The Microbes - Computer
12. The Goo-Q - I’m A Computer
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter
16. Dee Jay Bert & Eagle - I Am Your Master
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Time Bomb
18. Sole Sister - It’s Not What You Are But How
19. Alasdair Riddell - Do You Read Me?
20. Karel Fialka - Armband (The Mystery Song)
21. John Springate - My Life
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names
23. Disco Volante - No Motion
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean
Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Molly Nilsson - The Lonely Planet
2
Molly Nilsson - 1995
3
Molly Nilsson - H.O.P.E.
4
Molly Nilsson - Mountain Time
5
Molly Nilsson - Bunny Club
6
Molly Nilsson - Intermezzo: Palimpsest Galore
7
Molly Nilsson - Happyness
8
Molly Nilsson - Lovers Are Losers
9
Molly Nilsson - Clearblue
10
Molly Nilsson - My Body
11
Molly Nilsson - Titanic
12
Molly Nilsson - Bus 194 (All There Is)
13
Molly Nilsson - Tomorrow
Territories:WW-US,CA,UK, BENELUX
LP 10th Anniversary - Red Gold Vinyl edition
Tracklist
1.The Lonely Planet
2.1995
3.H.O.P.E.
4.Mountain Time
5.Bunny Club
6.Intermezzo: Palimpsest Galore
7.Happyness
8.Lovers Are Losers
9.Clearblue
10.My Body
11.Titanic
12.Bus 194 (All There Is)
13.Tomorrow
To celebrate Molly Nilsson’s most enduring fan-favourite album to date, Night School and Dark Skies
Association are releasing a limited 10th anniversary pressing on Red-Gold vinyl, limited to 500 copies.
Since its release in late summer of 2015, Zenith has come to be considered Nilsson’s greatest album to date. Now
on its 6th pressing, in 2025 Zenith represents the mid-point in the songwriter’s career to date and contains firm fan
favourites in Mountain Time, Happyness and her most popular song, 1995. Zenith sits square between Nilsson’s
original flurry of DIY creativity and her later, outward-looking political material.
Original sales notes…
“A sweeping, cinematic, emotional change is in the air. Molly Nilsson’s sixth studio album Zenith begins with clear,
wide eyes open to Earth as we would love it to be but seldom is. Recorded in her home of Berlin and whilst touring
and, as ever, conceived, produced, written and recorded in solitude, Zenith is Nilsson’s big statement and
consequently her most affecting work to date. It sees her reveling in big arrangements, sweeping synth strings,
bigger choruses and emotions. Like the rest of us she looks within and to endless sunsets in wonder and
puzzlement.
That Molly Nilsson is a DIY cult figure is beyond question; she has always written directly and with wit straight down
the line between the universal and the personal. The difference with Zenith, and you can hear it in the opening
chords of opener The Only Planet, is that her scope is now much wider and her heart heavier than ever before:
over a post-ecstatic dusk, Nilsson serenades the globe in a loving embrace. Following on, 1995 is, arguably, one of
Nilsson’s finest songs to date. It’s one of those songs to learn the lyrics to, to listen to on repeat, a reason to wear
the grooves down to the bone, it’s why pop music can be one of the greatest art forms we have. It’s an example of
how, on this album, Molly draws the listener closer to her heart than ever before. There’s simply no escape from the
line “The plans that you made / when you still had the time / I’ve saved all the things that you left behind but by now
I guess I’d consider them all mine /Windows 95, is only a metaphor for what I feel inside / Although I’m older now /
there’s still an emptiness that’s never letting go somehow.” Show-stopper Mountain Time is the soundtrack to being
on the run, from societal conventions, from normative ideas of happiness, from your surroundings. It’s the
intoxicating call of the renegade. That’s not to say that Nilsson’s light touch has been forsaken for grandiose
statements. Bunny Club begins as a demo-sketch before breaking into a fast-paced tale of doomed romance with
big rave synths and Bus 194 (All There Is) sees Molly joyride through a city on a happy hardcore bus. But it’s
tracks like Tomorrow and another contender for best-ever-Molly moment, Happyness that the true scale of what
she’s accomplished reveals itself. We’re locked in a spiraling orbit, strings and bass whirling, gazing at the spinning
planet below us as we contemplate both the ultimate freedom in loneliness and the glimmer of hope in the Other.
Can we ever be truly with someone? Are we ever truly alone?
Over the 13 tracks here we get the impression that Nilsson may always be restless; like anyone else she has
conflicting feelings of love and hate. It’s just not many other people can tell you exactly how you feel before you
know it yourself.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
LP 10th Anniversary - Red Gold Vinyl edition
Tracklist
1.The Lonely Planet
2.1995
3.H.O.P.E.
4.Mountain Time
5.Bunny Club
6.Intermezzo: Palimpsest Galore
7.Happyness
8.Lovers Are Losers
9.Clearblue
10.My Body
11.Titanic
12.Bus 194 (All There Is)
13.Tomorrow
To celebrate Molly Nilsson’s most enduring fan-favourite album to date, Night School and Dark Skies
Association are releasing a limited 10th anniversary pressing on Red-Gold vinyl, limited to 500 copies.
Since its release in late summer of 2015, Zenith has come to be considered Nilsson’s greatest album to date. Now
on its 6th pressing, in 2025 Zenith represents the mid-point in the songwriter’s career to date and contains firm fan
favourites in Mountain Time, Happyness and her most popular song, 1995. Zenith sits square between Nilsson’s
original flurry of DIY creativity and her later, outward-looking political material.
Original sales notes…
“A sweeping, cinematic, emotional change is in the air. Molly Nilsson’s sixth studio album Zenith begins with clear,
wide eyes open to Earth as we would love it to be but seldom is. Recorded in her home of Berlin and whilst touring
and, as ever, conceived, produced, written and recorded in solitude, Zenith is Nilsson’s big statement and
consequently her most affecting work to date. It sees her reveling in big arrangements, sweeping synth strings,
bigger choruses and emotions. Like the rest of us she looks within and to endless sunsets in wonder and
puzzlement.
That Molly Nilsson is a DIY cult figure is beyond question; she has always written directly and with wit straight down
the line between the universal and the personal. The difference with Zenith, and you can hear it in the opening
chords of opener The Only Planet, is that her scope is now much wider and her heart heavier than ever before:
over a post-ecstatic dusk, Nilsson serenades the globe in a loving embrace. Following on, 1995 is, arguably, one of
Nilsson’s finest songs to date. It’s one of those songs to learn the lyrics to, to listen to on repeat, a reason to wear
the grooves down to the bone, it’s why pop music can be one of the greatest art forms we have. It’s an example of
how, on this album, Molly draws the listener closer to her heart than ever before. There’s simply no escape from the
line “The plans that you made / when you still had the time / I’ve saved all the things that you left behind but by now
I guess I’d consider them all mine /Windows 95, is only a metaphor for what I feel inside / Although I’m older now /
there’s still an emptiness that’s never letting go somehow.” Show-stopper Mountain Time is the soundtrack to being
on the run, from societal conventions, from normative ideas of happiness, from your surroundings. It’s the
intoxicating call of the renegade. That’s not to say that Nilsson’s light touch has been forsaken for grandiose
statements. Bunny Club begins as a demo-sketch before breaking into a fast-paced tale of doomed romance with
big rave synths and Bus 194 (All There Is) sees Molly joyride through a city on a happy hardcore bus. But it’s
tracks like Tomorrow and another contender for best-ever-Molly moment, Happyness that the true scale of what
she’s accomplished reveals itself. We’re locked in a spiraling orbit, strings and bass whirling, gazing at the spinning
planet below us as we contemplate both the ultimate freedom in loneliness and the glimmer of hope in the Other.
Can we ever be truly with someone? Are we ever truly alone?
Over the 13 tracks here we get the impression that Nilsson may always be restless; like anyone else she has
conflicting feelings of love and hate. It’s just not many other people can tell you exactly how you feel before you
know it yourself.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Strawberry Switchblade - SIDE A: Spanish Song
2
Strawberry Switchblade - SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers
3
Strawberry Switchblade - SIDE AA: Go Away
Territories:WW-US,CA,UK, BENELUX
FORMAT: 7” LTD Black Vinyl (700) + Booklet
Tracklist:
SIDE A: Spanish Song
SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers / Go Away
2025 Repress.
Originally released in limited formats in 2017 and having since been repressed several times, 2025 sees
a new pressing to acknowledge the enduring legacy of this recording. In 2024, the song Trees & Flowers
became an unexpected hit on Tik Tok and introduced a new generation to these timeless songs.
“1982 4-Piece Demo” is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name
Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences
in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s
mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t a
complete picture.
Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative
partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant
Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation,
an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends
Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry
Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it’s in these raw, passionate
recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.
“Spanish Song” is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal
dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it’s the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry
Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indiepop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. Trees & Flowers is instantly
recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it’s given a more forceful rhythm
section: Goodlett and McGowan’s playing is in fact accomplished and doesn’t hint at the bands’ youth. Go Away
would also surface later on the band’s debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting
refrain.
These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.
Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single
photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and
new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT: 7” LTD Black Vinyl (700) + Booklet
Tracklist:
SIDE A: Spanish Song
SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers / Go Away
2025 Repress.
Originally released in limited formats in 2017 and having since been repressed several times, 2025 sees
a new pressing to acknowledge the enduring legacy of this recording. In 2024, the song Trees & Flowers
became an unexpected hit on Tik Tok and introduced a new generation to these timeless songs.
“1982 4-Piece Demo” is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name
Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences
in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s
mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t a
complete picture.
Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative
partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant
Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation,
an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends
Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry
Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it’s in these raw, passionate
recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.
“Spanish Song” is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal
dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it’s the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry
Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indiepop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. Trees & Flowers is instantly
recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it’s given a more forceful rhythm
section: Goodlett and McGowan’s playing is in fact accomplished and doesn’t hint at the bands’ youth. Go Away
would also surface later on the band’s debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting
refrain.
These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.
Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single
photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and
new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Strawberry Switchblade - SIDE A: Spanish Song
2
Strawberry Switchblade - SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers
3
Strawberry Switchblade - SIDE AA: Go Away
Territories:WW-US,CA,UK, BENELUX
FORMAT: 7” LTD Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl (300) + Booklet
Tracklist:
SIDE A: Spanish Song
SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers / Go Away
2025 Repress.
Originally released in limited formats in 2017 and having since been repressed several times, 2025 sees
a new pressing to acknowledge the enduring legacy of this recording. In 2024, the song Trees & Flowers
became an unexpected hit on Tik Tok and introduced a new generation to these timeless songs.
“1982 4-Piece Demo” is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name
Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences
in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s
mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t a
complete picture.
Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative
partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant
Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation,
an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends
Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry
Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it’s in these raw, passionate
recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.
“Spanish Song” is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal
dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it’s the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry
Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indiepop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. Trees & Flowers is instantly
recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it’s given a more forceful rhythm
section: Goodlett and McGowan’s playing is in fact accomplished and doesn’t hint at the bands’ youth. Go Away
would also surface later on the band’s debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting
refrain.
These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.
Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single
photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and
new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT: 7” LTD Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl (300) + Booklet
Tracklist:
SIDE A: Spanish Song
SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers / Go Away
2025 Repress.
Originally released in limited formats in 2017 and having since been repressed several times, 2025 sees
a new pressing to acknowledge the enduring legacy of this recording. In 2024, the song Trees & Flowers
became an unexpected hit on Tik Tok and introduced a new generation to these timeless songs.
“1982 4-Piece Demo” is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name
Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences
in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s
mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t a
complete picture.
Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative
partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant
Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation,
an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends
Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry
Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it’s in these raw, passionate
recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.
“Spanish Song” is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal
dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it’s the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry
Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indiepop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. Trees & Flowers is instantly
recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it’s given a more forceful rhythm
section: Goodlett and McGowan’s playing is in fact accomplished and doesn’t hint at the bands’ youth. Go Away
would also surface later on the band’s debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting
refrain.
These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized.
Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single
photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and
new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Mope Grooves - No Title
2
Mope Grooves - No Title
3
Mope Grooves - No Title
4
Mope Grooves - No Title
5
Mope Grooves - No Title
6
Mope Grooves - No Title
7
Mope Grooves - No Title
8
Mope Grooves - No Title
9
Mope Grooves - No Title
10
Mope Grooves - No Title
11
Mope Grooves - No Title
12
Mope Grooves - No Title
13
Mope Grooves - No Title
14
Mope Grooves - No Title
15
Mope Grooves - No Title
16
Mope Grooves - No Title
17
Mope Grooves - No Title
18
Mope Grooves - No Title
19
Mope Grooves - No Title
20
Mope Grooves - No Title
21
Mope Grooves - No Title
22
Mope Grooves - No Title
23
Mope Grooves - No Title
24
Mope Grooves - No Title
25
Mope Grooves - No Title
26
Mope Grooves - No Title
27
Mope Grooves - No Title
2LP, LTD 500 , Black Vinyl -- Territories: WW-US,CA,UK,FR,BENELUX
The final album from stevie’s Mope Grooves,
the seminal Portland collective. A 2 hour, 27
track masterpiece of touching, warped music
that transcends genre into a realm of pure
inspiration.
All profits from this release will be donated to
Survived and Punished charity.
Tracklist:
1.Controlled Burn
2.Aileen
3.Pieces Of God
4.Forever Is A Long Time 03:19
5.Do You Hear Music
6.Home Sick
7.We Won
8.Swail
9.Here Comes The Moon
10.Hallway Of Crucified Angels
11.Fox Highway
12.Harp Circles
13.Wind Follows Me Home
14.Cap Hits The Button
15.Si Fuese Violeta
16.Wall Of Swords
17.Switch Cars
18.Continue & Intensify
19.Les Anges Passent
20.Here Comes The Rain
21.Turning Fire
22.Simple As That
23.Life Is Good
24.Dora
25.Isn't It Hard
26.Tired All The Time
27.Box Of Dark Roses
Through the fog of our grief in the wake of the earth-shattering loss of our beloved angel Stevie, on this
day which would have been her 35th birthday, we announce the release of Mope Groove’s final album; Box
of Dark Roses. A 27 song, 2XLP of songs that Stevie prepared for release before she left. In addition to the
music, Stevie provided extensive liner notes to accompany the album. These are included with the album in
the form of a zine, or as a digital PDF, respectively.
"If i'm ever hard to get a hold of u can find my whole heart in here."
-Stevie (from her liner notes)
Rest in peace sweet angel. We love you forever.
Stevie provided the following statement on the album before her departure:
"all artist profits and digital proceeds will be redistributed in perpetuity to incarcerated or formerly
incarcerated survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, especially the many women and other
gender marginalized ppl incarcerated for defending themselves against their attackers. funds will be
allocated to the Survived and Punished NY Mutual Aid Fund, a comparable organization, or directly into
commissary funds or fundraisers of incarcerated survivors.
"box of dark roses is a 27 song LP where the same images repeat and repeat until you might have some
idea of what roses have to do with armed struggle, trans autonomy, losing your house (again), angels,
women political prisoners, violence returned to sender, suicided poets, refusing to recant, insisting on life,
& how the revenge of twenty billion screaming ghost women could unmake the worst of all possible
worlds”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
The final album from stevie’s Mope Grooves,
the seminal Portland collective. A 2 hour, 27
track masterpiece of touching, warped music
that transcends genre into a realm of pure
inspiration.
All profits from this release will be donated to
Survived and Punished charity.
Tracklist:
1.Controlled Burn
2.Aileen
3.Pieces Of God
4.Forever Is A Long Time 03:19
5.Do You Hear Music
6.Home Sick
7.We Won
8.Swail
9.Here Comes The Moon
10.Hallway Of Crucified Angels
11.Fox Highway
12.Harp Circles
13.Wind Follows Me Home
14.Cap Hits The Button
15.Si Fuese Violeta
16.Wall Of Swords
17.Switch Cars
18.Continue & Intensify
19.Les Anges Passent
20.Here Comes The Rain
21.Turning Fire
22.Simple As That
23.Life Is Good
24.Dora
25.Isn't It Hard
26.Tired All The Time
27.Box Of Dark Roses
Through the fog of our grief in the wake of the earth-shattering loss of our beloved angel Stevie, on this
day which would have been her 35th birthday, we announce the release of Mope Groove’s final album; Box
of Dark Roses. A 27 song, 2XLP of songs that Stevie prepared for release before she left. In addition to the
music, Stevie provided extensive liner notes to accompany the album. These are included with the album in
the form of a zine, or as a digital PDF, respectively.
"If i'm ever hard to get a hold of u can find my whole heart in here."
-Stevie (from her liner notes)
Rest in peace sweet angel. We love you forever.
Stevie provided the following statement on the album before her departure:
"all artist profits and digital proceeds will be redistributed in perpetuity to incarcerated or formerly
incarcerated survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, especially the many women and other
gender marginalized ppl incarcerated for defending themselves against their attackers. funds will be
allocated to the Survived and Punished NY Mutual Aid Fund, a comparable organization, or directly into
commissary funds or fundraisers of incarcerated survivors.
"box of dark roses is a 27 song LP where the same images repeat and repeat until you might have some
idea of what roses have to do with armed struggle, trans autonomy, losing your house (again), angels,
women political prisoners, violence returned to sender, suicided poets, refusing to recant, insisting on life,
& how the revenge of twenty billion screaming ghost women could unmake the worst of all possible
worlds”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Customers who bought this also bought this
1
Bonobo - Intro
2
Bonobo - Sleepy Seven
3
Bonobo - Dinosaurs
4
Bonobo - Kota
5
Bonobo - Terrapin
6
Bonobo - The Plug
7
Bonobo - Shadow Tricks
8
Bonobo - Gypsy
9
Bonobo - Sugar Rhyme
10
Bonobo - Silver
Repress!
An awe-inspiring showcase of a young man´s staggering musical ability. Greeted with swoons of delight and vast mountains of fawning praise from the press on its release, its heart-meltingly lysergic melodies, with everything from bellchimes to backwards vocals weaving a thick gauze of sound around the tunes, slayed practically anyone who heard it.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
An awe-inspiring showcase of a young man´s staggering musical ability. Greeted with swoons of delight and vast mountains of fawning praise from the press on its release, its heart-meltingly lysergic melodies, with everything from bellchimes to backwards vocals weaving a thick gauze of sound around the tunes, slayed practically anyone who heard it.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Label:WRWTFWW
Cat-No:WRWTFWW111
Release-Date:10.04.2026
Genre:Electronic, Electronica
Configuration:LP Excl
Label:WRWTFWW
Cat-No:WRWTFWW111
Release-Date:10.04.2026
Genre:Electronic, Electronica
Configuration:LP Excl
1
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - An Old Postcard
2
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Music Of Silence
3
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Open The Door
4
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Midnight
5
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Dream Dancer
6
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - The Call
7
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Raining
8
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Early Morning
9
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Night Dream
10
Azumi Okamura & Andrea Esperti - Nighthawks
Territories: WORLD
Genre: Classical, Ambient, Piano, Electronic, Minimalism, Environmental
LP: Limited Edition of 300, 45rpm, Heavyweight Sleeve with inside out print, Sticker
Tracklisting LP
A1. An Old Postcard
A2. Music Of Silence
A3. Open The Door
A4. Midnight
A5. Dream Dancer
B1. The Call
B2. Raining
B3. Early Morning
B4. Night Dream
B5. Nighthawks
Info
WRWTFWW Records is very happy to announce the release of Nighthawks, the new collaborative album from composer Azumi Okamura and musician / sound designer Andrea Esperti, available on limited edition LP (300 copies worldwide!) cut at 45rpm, and housed in a heavyweight sleeve with inside-out print.
A sublime convergence of Japanese piano poetry and Swiss sonic craftsmanship, Nighthawks brings together Azumi Okamura's intimate, emotionally resonant compositions with Andrea Esperti's refined approach to sound design. Esperti is known for his work alongside ambient legend Takashi Kokubo, and here he extends that sensibility into an intimate and immersive space.
Echoes of dreams from an imaginary world drift through the album: forgotten memories rising gently, only to fade again. The music unfolds like a series of inner scenes - reflective, rich with atmosphere - where minimal piano motifs meet organic textures and subtle electronic detail.
Rooted in the emotional solitude of Edward Hopper's urban landscapes, Nighthawks balances stillness and warmth. Gentle, simple melodies glow softly, wrapped in environmental music that evokes autumn air and walks by the beach.
Resisting excess and spectacle, the record embraces poetic minimalism and emotional clarity. Each piece feels suspended in time, offering quiet moments that linger long after the sound has faded...a drifting, cinematic journey shaped by sensitivity and restraint.
Points of interest
- For fans of classical music, poetic minimalism, ambient, environmental music, soundtracks, Joe Hisaishi, Satoshi Ashikawa, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satsuki Shibano, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brian Eno, gentle human warmth, memories.
- A unique collaboration between Japanese composer Azumi Okamura and Swiss sound designer Andrea Esperti (known for his work with Takashi Kokubo).
- Limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, 45rpm cut, housed in a heavyweight sleeve with inside-out print.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Genre: Classical, Ambient, Piano, Electronic, Minimalism, Environmental
LP: Limited Edition of 300, 45rpm, Heavyweight Sleeve with inside out print, Sticker
Tracklisting LP
A1. An Old Postcard
A2. Music Of Silence
A3. Open The Door
A4. Midnight
A5. Dream Dancer
B1. The Call
B2. Raining
B3. Early Morning
B4. Night Dream
B5. Nighthawks
Info
WRWTFWW Records is very happy to announce the release of Nighthawks, the new collaborative album from composer Azumi Okamura and musician / sound designer Andrea Esperti, available on limited edition LP (300 copies worldwide!) cut at 45rpm, and housed in a heavyweight sleeve with inside-out print.
A sublime convergence of Japanese piano poetry and Swiss sonic craftsmanship, Nighthawks brings together Azumi Okamura's intimate, emotionally resonant compositions with Andrea Esperti's refined approach to sound design. Esperti is known for his work alongside ambient legend Takashi Kokubo, and here he extends that sensibility into an intimate and immersive space.
Echoes of dreams from an imaginary world drift through the album: forgotten memories rising gently, only to fade again. The music unfolds like a series of inner scenes - reflective, rich with atmosphere - where minimal piano motifs meet organic textures and subtle electronic detail.
Rooted in the emotional solitude of Edward Hopper's urban landscapes, Nighthawks balances stillness and warmth. Gentle, simple melodies glow softly, wrapped in environmental music that evokes autumn air and walks by the beach.
Resisting excess and spectacle, the record embraces poetic minimalism and emotional clarity. Each piece feels suspended in time, offering quiet moments that linger long after the sound has faded...a drifting, cinematic journey shaped by sensitivity and restraint.
Points of interest
- For fans of classical music, poetic minimalism, ambient, environmental music, soundtracks, Joe Hisaishi, Satoshi Ashikawa, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satsuki Shibano, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brian Eno, gentle human warmth, memories.
- A unique collaboration between Japanese composer Azumi Okamura and Swiss sound designer Andrea Esperti (known for his work with Takashi Kokubo).
- Limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, 45rpm cut, housed in a heavyweight sleeve with inside-out print.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - Transport 07:28
2
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - Odyssey 07:28
3
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - Lightyears 06:08
4
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - 2600 06:44
5
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - Merkur 04:09
6
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - Riod 09:14
7
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald present - Zeolites 10:30
2026 Repress
FORMAT 2LP 180g vinyl, printed sleeve, dl card
TRACKLIST
1. / A1 Transport 07:28
2. / A2 Odyssey 07:28
3. / B1 Lightyears 06:08
4. / B2 2600 06:44
5. / C1 Merkur 04:09
6. / C2 Riod 09:14
7. / D1 Zeolites 10:30
Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald – the two indispensable protagonists of the Electric Garden – plug back into the wilderness.
‘Transport’ – the full length effort brings together a set of studio-refined sequences aimed at colonizing some of the dark energy that
pulsates through those areas that are thoroughly electrified, even if not ‘on the grid’.
The Detroit-Berlin axis triangulated to a third point which, like the atomic particle that lives in two places at once, flickers between a
form of techno-charged ambience and a futuristic club-jazz which cannot be broken down into constitutive parts.
Borderland remains caught in a state of enraptured stillness, invisibly moving between every imagined future for electronic sound
making.
The result: a font from which springs serene and exhilarating musical ideas that vibrate with refined energy for sixty seconds in every
minute.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT 2LP 180g vinyl, printed sleeve, dl card
TRACKLIST
1. / A1 Transport 07:28
2. / A2 Odyssey 07:28
3. / B1 Lightyears 06:08
4. / B2 2600 06:44
5. / C1 Merkur 04:09
6. / C2 Riod 09:14
7. / D1 Zeolites 10:30
Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald – the two indispensable protagonists of the Electric Garden – plug back into the wilderness.
‘Transport’ – the full length effort brings together a set of studio-refined sequences aimed at colonizing some of the dark energy that
pulsates through those areas that are thoroughly electrified, even if not ‘on the grid’.
The Detroit-Berlin axis triangulated to a third point which, like the atomic particle that lives in two places at once, flickers between a
form of techno-charged ambience and a futuristic club-jazz which cannot be broken down into constitutive parts.
Borderland remains caught in a state of enraptured stillness, invisibly moving between every imagined future for electronic sound
making.
The result: a font from which springs serene and exhilarating musical ideas that vibrate with refined energy for sixty seconds in every
minute.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Alva Noto - Xerrox Topia
2
Alva Noto - Xerrox Sans Nom I
3
Alva Noto - Xerrox Sans Nom II
4
Alva Noto - Xerrox Ascent I
5
Alva Noto - Xerrox Ascent II
6
Alva Noto - Xerrox Sans Repit
7
Alva Noto - Xerrox Nausicaa
8
Alva Noto - Xerrox Xenonym
9
Alva Noto - Xerrox Ada
10
Alva Noto - Xerrox Arc
11
Alva Noto - Xerrox Kryogen
12
Alva Noto - Xerrox Isotope
CD
Tracklist:
01. Xerrox Topia
02. Xerrox Sans Nom I
03. Xerrox Sans Nom II
04. Xerrox Ascent I
05. Xerrox Ascent II
06. Xerrox Sans Repit
07. Xerrox Nausicaa
08. Xerrox Xenonym
09. Xerrox Ada
10. Xerrox Arc
11. Xerrox Kryogen
12. Xerrox Isotope
NOTON is pleased to announce the release of Xerrox Vol. 5, the final installment of Alva Noto’s Xerrox series.
For anyone who has been following the series since its inception in 2007, the concept of Xerrox no longer requires introduction. Originally, it aimed to create copies of images—both visual and acoustic—that are more memorable than the originals. The exploration of the relationship between the original and the copy, along with the invention of the copier, not only inspired the series name but also informed its underlying concept. In 2024, this series comes to an end, marking the culmination of a journey that began with the first recording in 2005/2006. Over nearly two decades, the five albums in this series have accompanied the artist's evolving perspective and conceptual approach.
Initially characterized by rawness and a conceptual focus on seeking resolution in white noise, the later works engage with themes of dissolution while shifting their emphasis toward acoustic particles. The copying process is now less visible through software manipulation; rather, it unfolds as the artist describes melodic and acoustic images that are then manipulated, copied, and transformed into new patterns during composition.
Nicolai describes this evolution as a journey encompassing buildup, exploration, and resolution, drawing parallels to the Odyssey and the stories of Jules Verne, particularly those featuring Captain Nemo.
The conclusion of this album holds a sense of finality for the artist. “I aimed to create a whole cycle of tracks that frame both the beginning and the end,” Nicolai explains. “The motif of the journey continues, but this time, the story reaches a dissolution through a conceptual object that embarks on its own journey into infinity. The word “dissolution” (“Auflösung” in German) is a wonderful concept. On one hand, you can solve a riddle, on the other hand, a pill can completely dissolve in water. Here, I am deliberately describing the process of dissolution.”
In crafting Volume 5, Nicolai has evolved his compositional process, eschewing samples in favor of original melodies. “This album probably took the longest to complete,” he reveals. “I first created melodic sketches, which became the foundation for the pieces. These recordings are created entirely from scratch. Based on these sketches, I constructed the process of copying, manipulating, and reshaping.”
Drawing from his recent experiences working with film and larger ensembles, Nicolai's approach to composition reflects a growing influence of classical instrumentation. “This experience of working with acoustic classical instruments has flowed into the compositional process for Xerrox Vol. 5. Certain instruments are designed with potential orchestral translation in mind.”
The sonic atmosphere of Xerrox Vol. 5 is one of profound dissolution. “I wasn’t initially interested in strong, emotional melodic aspects,” Nicolai shares, “but I realized that the fragment plays a central role.” This shift leads to an emotionally charged experience, imbued with melancholy and the bittersweet essence of farewell. The passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto, an admirer of the series, has further deepened the album’s emotional resonance.
“Xerrox Vol. 5 has a lot to do with farewell,” the artist explains. "Not only the farewell to the series itself, which I’ve nurtured for almost two decades, but also there have been many farewells to people who were close to me. I believe these people are recognizable in the music. It’s a very emotional, personal album.”
Listeners can expect a visual dimension to the music, though Nicolai intentionally leaves this open to interpretation. “I prefer to allow the music to evoke personal experiences and images rather than dictate a specific narrative,” he states. The result is a layered listening experience that invites tenderness and introspection.
Xerrox Vol. 5 will be released as a limited edition vinyl, digitally, and on CD by NOTON on November 29, 2024.
Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai & Nibo.
Mastering by Bo at Calyx.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Tracklist:
01. Xerrox Topia
02. Xerrox Sans Nom I
03. Xerrox Sans Nom II
04. Xerrox Ascent I
05. Xerrox Ascent II
06. Xerrox Sans Repit
07. Xerrox Nausicaa
08. Xerrox Xenonym
09. Xerrox Ada
10. Xerrox Arc
11. Xerrox Kryogen
12. Xerrox Isotope
NOTON is pleased to announce the release of Xerrox Vol. 5, the final installment of Alva Noto’s Xerrox series.
For anyone who has been following the series since its inception in 2007, the concept of Xerrox no longer requires introduction. Originally, it aimed to create copies of images—both visual and acoustic—that are more memorable than the originals. The exploration of the relationship between the original and the copy, along with the invention of the copier, not only inspired the series name but also informed its underlying concept. In 2024, this series comes to an end, marking the culmination of a journey that began with the first recording in 2005/2006. Over nearly two decades, the five albums in this series have accompanied the artist's evolving perspective and conceptual approach.
Initially characterized by rawness and a conceptual focus on seeking resolution in white noise, the later works engage with themes of dissolution while shifting their emphasis toward acoustic particles. The copying process is now less visible through software manipulation; rather, it unfolds as the artist describes melodic and acoustic images that are then manipulated, copied, and transformed into new patterns during composition.
Nicolai describes this evolution as a journey encompassing buildup, exploration, and resolution, drawing parallels to the Odyssey and the stories of Jules Verne, particularly those featuring Captain Nemo.
The conclusion of this album holds a sense of finality for the artist. “I aimed to create a whole cycle of tracks that frame both the beginning and the end,” Nicolai explains. “The motif of the journey continues, but this time, the story reaches a dissolution through a conceptual object that embarks on its own journey into infinity. The word “dissolution” (“Auflösung” in German) is a wonderful concept. On one hand, you can solve a riddle, on the other hand, a pill can completely dissolve in water. Here, I am deliberately describing the process of dissolution.”
In crafting Volume 5, Nicolai has evolved his compositional process, eschewing samples in favor of original melodies. “This album probably took the longest to complete,” he reveals. “I first created melodic sketches, which became the foundation for the pieces. These recordings are created entirely from scratch. Based on these sketches, I constructed the process of copying, manipulating, and reshaping.”
Drawing from his recent experiences working with film and larger ensembles, Nicolai's approach to composition reflects a growing influence of classical instrumentation. “This experience of working with acoustic classical instruments has flowed into the compositional process for Xerrox Vol. 5. Certain instruments are designed with potential orchestral translation in mind.”
The sonic atmosphere of Xerrox Vol. 5 is one of profound dissolution. “I wasn’t initially interested in strong, emotional melodic aspects,” Nicolai shares, “but I realized that the fragment plays a central role.” This shift leads to an emotionally charged experience, imbued with melancholy and the bittersweet essence of farewell. The passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto, an admirer of the series, has further deepened the album’s emotional resonance.
“Xerrox Vol. 5 has a lot to do with farewell,” the artist explains. "Not only the farewell to the series itself, which I’ve nurtured for almost two decades, but also there have been many farewells to people who were close to me. I believe these people are recognizable in the music. It’s a very emotional, personal album.”
Listeners can expect a visual dimension to the music, though Nicolai intentionally leaves this open to interpretation. “I prefer to allow the music to evoke personal experiences and images rather than dictate a specific narrative,” he states. The result is a layered listening experience that invites tenderness and introspection.
Xerrox Vol. 5 will be released as a limited edition vinyl, digitally, and on CD by NOTON on November 29, 2024.
Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai & Nibo.
Mastering by Bo at Calyx.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Charlotte de Witte - No Title
2
Charlotte de Witte - No Title
3
Charlotte de Witte - No Title
4
Charlotte de Witte - No Title
Track Listing
A1. Sgadi Li Mi
A2. Return To Nowhere
B1. Ensemble
B2. What's In The Past
Charlotte de Witte? marks the homecoming to her own imprint ?KNTXT? with her brand new EP ‘?Return to Nowhere?’. The captivating record exists out of four long-awaited tracks called ‘Return to Nowhere, ‘Ensemble’, ‘Sgadi Li Mi’ and ‘What’s In The Past’.
Further exploring her sonic realm, the record features techno sound reminiscent of her ‘Selected’ EP, but switches out the acid stabs for haunting hymns. The result is a gripping dismal soundtrack that feels desolate yet hopeful. With this spellbinding EP which combines her iconic hard-punching techno with mesmerizing chants effortlessly, Charlotte proves once again why she remains at the forefront of the industry.
The release of ‘?Return to Nowhere?’ fits perfectly in these uncertain times. ?Charlotte? says: “I made the EP before the current COVID-19 crisis. After being inspired by recordings of age-old traditional chants. So, I never intended it to be a “Corona record”. However, it did grow on me during this period of isolation.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
A1. Sgadi Li Mi
A2. Return To Nowhere
B1. Ensemble
B2. What's In The Past
Charlotte de Witte? marks the homecoming to her own imprint ?KNTXT? with her brand new EP ‘?Return to Nowhere?’. The captivating record exists out of four long-awaited tracks called ‘Return to Nowhere, ‘Ensemble’, ‘Sgadi Li Mi’ and ‘What’s In The Past’.
Further exploring her sonic realm, the record features techno sound reminiscent of her ‘Selected’ EP, but switches out the acid stabs for haunting hymns. The result is a gripping dismal soundtrack that feels desolate yet hopeful. With this spellbinding EP which combines her iconic hard-punching techno with mesmerizing chants effortlessly, Charlotte proves once again why she remains at the forefront of the industry.
The release of ‘?Return to Nowhere?’ fits perfectly in these uncertain times. ?Charlotte? says: “I made the EP before the current COVID-19 crisis. After being inspired by recordings of age-old traditional chants. So, I never intended it to be a “Corona record”. However, it did grow on me during this period of isolation.”
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Scan 7 - Random Soul
2
Scan 7 - Invisible Invasion
3
Scan 7 - Black Wall
4
Scan 7 - Sound Escape
5
Scan 7 - Unit Seven
6
Scan 7 - Digital Dreams
7
Scan 7 - The Craft
8
Scan 7 - Twisted Groov
Territory: WORLD minus UK
FORMAT 2LP vinyl, full printed sleeve, download code
TRACKLIST
1. / A1 Random Soul 07:46
2. / A2 Invisible Invasion 07:45
3. / B1 Black Wall 08:14
4. / B2 Sound Escape 06:21
5. / C1 Unit Seven 08:41
6. / C2 Digital Dreams 06:25
7. / D1 The Craft 07:15
8. / D2 Twisted Groov 06:50
Info:
As the label turns 35 years, Tresor Records’ ongoing reissue series comes round to Scan 7’s 1999 album, Resurfaced.
A true exemplar in the canon of Detroit techno, the LP is a further reminder of Scan 7’s confidence to patiently let the music unfold, never needing to overplay their hand. This is demonstrated from the first second as Random Soul opens with a slow downbeat and soft, almost imperceptible synths before quickly settling into a perfect groove whose power is present without the need for a hard edge. This strategy is utilised throughout the album in tracks like Black Wall and Unit , while Invisible Invasion and Twisted Groov add in some intensity for deeper moments in the club.
Remastered by Mike Grinser from the original DATs, the double vinyl features the original eight tracks from the album, while the digital version (and cassette tape) includes two bonus tracks: Custom Made and Mind Trap.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT 2LP vinyl, full printed sleeve, download code
TRACKLIST
1. / A1 Random Soul 07:46
2. / A2 Invisible Invasion 07:45
3. / B1 Black Wall 08:14
4. / B2 Sound Escape 06:21
5. / C1 Unit Seven 08:41
6. / C2 Digital Dreams 06:25
7. / D1 The Craft 07:15
8. / D2 Twisted Groov 06:50
Info:
As the label turns 35 years, Tresor Records’ ongoing reissue series comes round to Scan 7’s 1999 album, Resurfaced.
A true exemplar in the canon of Detroit techno, the LP is a further reminder of Scan 7’s confidence to patiently let the music unfold, never needing to overplay their hand. This is demonstrated from the first second as Random Soul opens with a slow downbeat and soft, almost imperceptible synths before quickly settling into a perfect groove whose power is present without the need for a hard edge. This strategy is utilised throughout the album in tracks like Black Wall and Unit , while Invisible Invasion and Twisted Groov add in some intensity for deeper moments in the club.
Remastered by Mike Grinser from the original DATs, the double vinyl features the original eight tracks from the album, while the digital version (and cassette tape) includes two bonus tracks: Custom Made and Mind Trap.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Khan Jamal - Nubian Queen
2
Khan Jamal - Infinity
3
Khan Jamal - Lovely Afternoon
4
Khan Jamal - The Known Unknown
5
Khan Jamal - The Angry Young Man
Vibe's Maestro Khan Jamal's "Infinity" features a Stellar line up, a drums and percussion-rich sextet that features altoist Byard Lancaster and a Philadelphia-based rhythm section, Clifton Burton on harmonica and the legendary free drummer Sunny Murray. Khan Jamal contributed four of the five songs, while pianist Bernard Sammul brought in a cooking "The Angry Young Man." The music stands up to and can be compared to anything released on the great Jazz labels and just like a Classic Blue Note, Prestige, Verve or Impulse release this is an absolute Stand Out Session. For the London, Tokyo and all points West End crowd the Worldwide Sound is "The Known Unknown" which has been featured on several underground compilations back in the Acid Jazz Heydays of the 1990's, but the whole album is a complete undiscovered gem. Self released in 1984 and long out of print, original copies fetch $1000 and upwards, so Jazz Room Records are proud and pleased to bring this Spiritual Soul Jazz gem out to a wider audience.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Alva Noto - A1 Xerrox Kirlian (00:06:12)
2
Alva Noto - A2 Xerrox Neige (00:04:55)
3
Alva Noto - A3 Xerrox Voyage (00:03:50)
4
Alva Noto - A4 Xerrox Cosmos (00:03:52)
5
Alva Noto - B1 Xerrox Plongée (00:05:36)
6
Alva Noto - B2 Xerrox Île (00:06:24)
7
Alva Noto - B3 Xerrox Argo (00:05:32)
8
Alva Noto - C1 Xerrox Calypsoid 1 (00:04:32)
9
Alva Noto - C2 Xerrox Canaux (00:04:13)
10
Alva Noto - C3 Xerrox Utopia (00:03:06)
11
Alva Noto - C4 Xerrox Sans Retour (00:04:23)
12
Alva Noto - D1 Xerrox Calypsoid 2 (00:11:06)
13
Alva Noto - D2 Xerrox Apesanteur (00:04:32)
14
Alva Noto - D3 Xerrox Néant (00:02:54)
Track list 2LP:
A1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Kirlian (00:06:12)
A2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Neige (00:04:55)
A3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Voyage (00:03:50)
A4 Alva Noto - Xerrox Cosmos (00:03:52)
B1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Plongée (00:05:36)
B2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Île (00:06:24)
B3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Argo (00:05:32)
C1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Calypsoid 1 (00:04:32)
C2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Canaux (00:04:13)
C3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Utopia (00:03:06)
C4 Alva Noto - Xerrox Sans Retour (00:04:23)
D1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Calypsoid 2 (00:11:06)
D2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Apesanteur (00:04:32)
D3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Néant (00:02:54)
Release Info:
Alva Noto returns to his much awaited Xerrox project with Vol. 4, the fourth installment of the five-piece intended series based on the concept of digital replication of source material.
Using the process of copying as a basis, the Xerrox series deals with the manipulation of data by means of endless reproduction. Due to the inherent fallacy of the procedure involving the making of copies made from
other copies, everyday’s sounds become so altered that they can be hardly associated with the source material. As a result, entirely new sounds are created: copies of originals become originals themselves.
Following Xerrox Vol. 1 (2007), Vol. 2 (2009), Vol. 3 (2015), Carsten Nicolai continues the pentalogy eluding the accuracy and precise sound design for which he’s renowned, and turning to a more harmony-driven composition technique.
Unlike the previous Xerrox albums, whose starting point is a set of samples extracted from external sources and fragments of recordings, Vol. 4 compounds under a unified cinematic soundscape, warm chords, thrumming digital ambiences, liquified
electronics, drones, and noise sustained by floods of strings. The tension between the organic warmth and static curves, broads tones into distant roars and electronic cascade of sounds.
While Alva Noto's oeuvre is predominantly affiliated with pristine sound design, Xerrox holds more intimate
gestures and emotional sensibility. This fourth volume shuns further from the conceptualism and orderliness of prior musical outputs, ranging from heart-warming elegies to mind-bending sci-fi projections in extrasolar territories.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
A1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Kirlian (00:06:12)
A2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Neige (00:04:55)
A3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Voyage (00:03:50)
A4 Alva Noto - Xerrox Cosmos (00:03:52)
B1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Plongée (00:05:36)
B2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Île (00:06:24)
B3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Argo (00:05:32)
C1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Calypsoid 1 (00:04:32)
C2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Canaux (00:04:13)
C3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Utopia (00:03:06)
C4 Alva Noto - Xerrox Sans Retour (00:04:23)
D1 Alva Noto - Xerrox Calypsoid 2 (00:11:06)
D2 Alva Noto - Xerrox Apesanteur (00:04:32)
D3 Alva Noto - Xerrox Néant (00:02:54)
Release Info:
Alva Noto returns to his much awaited Xerrox project with Vol. 4, the fourth installment of the five-piece intended series based on the concept of digital replication of source material.
Using the process of copying as a basis, the Xerrox series deals with the manipulation of data by means of endless reproduction. Due to the inherent fallacy of the procedure involving the making of copies made from
other copies, everyday’s sounds become so altered that they can be hardly associated with the source material. As a result, entirely new sounds are created: copies of originals become originals themselves.
Following Xerrox Vol. 1 (2007), Vol. 2 (2009), Vol. 3 (2015), Carsten Nicolai continues the pentalogy eluding the accuracy and precise sound design for which he’s renowned, and turning to a more harmony-driven composition technique.
Unlike the previous Xerrox albums, whose starting point is a set of samples extracted from external sources and fragments of recordings, Vol. 4 compounds under a unified cinematic soundscape, warm chords, thrumming digital ambiences, liquified
electronics, drones, and noise sustained by floods of strings. The tension between the organic warmth and static curves, broads tones into distant roars and electronic cascade of sounds.
While Alva Noto's oeuvre is predominantly affiliated with pristine sound design, Xerrox holds more intimate
gestures and emotional sensibility. This fourth volume shuns further from the conceptualism and orderliness of prior musical outputs, ranging from heart-warming elegies to mind-bending sci-fi projections in extrasolar territories.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Gap Mangione - Boy With Toys
2
Gap Mangione - Diana In The Autumn Wind
3
Gap Mangione - Long Hair Soulful
4
Gap Mangione - Yesterday
5
Gap Mangione - The XIth Commandment
6
Gap Mangione - St. Thomas
7
Gap Mangione - You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You
8
Gap Mangione - Pond With Swans
9
Gap Mangione - You Are My Sunshine
10
Gap Mangione - Free Again
11
Gap Mangione - Dream On Little Dreamer
12
Gap Mangione - Graduate Medley
Territories:
Worldwide no restrictions
Format Notes:
2026 first time ever vinyl reissue of this undisputed "holy grail", *the* most sought after album for J Dilla / Madlib sample collectors. Produced with the full and extensive participation of Gap, tip-on sleeve, 2 page insert, 140g vinyl.
Track List:
A1 Boy With Toys
A2 Diana In The Autumn Wind
A3 Long Hair Soulful
A4 Yesterday
A5 The XIth Commandment
A6 St. Thomas
B1 You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You
B2 Pond With Swans
B3 You Are My Sunshine
B4 Free Again
B5 Dream On Little Dreamer
B6 Graduate Medley
Release Notes:
Gap Mangione's monumentally influential Diana In The Autumn Wind. AKA BEWITH200LP. And, without question, Be With's White Whale.
They said it could never be done. And with good reason.
We've spent the past 12 years trying to license this legendary 1968 recording from Gap and, after much work, it's finally here. Remarkably, this is the first ever vinyl reissue of Gap Mangione's Diana In The Autumn Wind, produced with the full and extensive participation of Gap. An exceedingly rare album, it's been coveted by funk, soul, jazz and hip-hop sample fiends for decades.
It's unarguably *the* most sought after album for J Dilla / Madlib sample collectors. It has also been brilliantly sampled by A Tribe Called Quest, Large Professor, Ghostface Killah, Kendrick Lamar and Talib Kweli.
But this record is so much more than a sample-spotters curio. It's solid gold throughout. Bursting with killer funky-jazz grooves and tracks adorned with warm electric piano, the release is notable for featuring some extremely significant players at the very outset of their careers; Tony Levin, at 21, whose superb playing on both acoustic and electric bass was the harmonic mainstay of the trio and Steve Gadd, at 23, one of the greatest drummers of his generation.
With acceptable copies of this holy grail changing hands for $400, to call this reissue "much-needed" underplays just how vital it is. Gap's story is told in his words alongside rare photos across a sumptuously designed 2-page insert and, to augment this deluxe edition further, its all wrapped up in a beautiful, no-expense-spared luxury tip-on sleeve, as per the original hens-teeth release. And, while we're talking packaging, just take a look at that cover - a work of art in and of itself.
The tracks are short but complex, with that extraordinary rhythm section backing the beautiful piano, organ and electric piano work of Gap. It's like the best ever library funk breaks record you never heard - but all your favourite golden age rap producers were all over it, long ago. It's a stunning blend of the vibrant, driving music of the Gap Mangione Trio coupled with the sensitive composition and superb orchestration of Gap's legendary brother, Chuck Mangione, who helmed an amalgam of seemingly disparate elements – rock, big band jazz, solo improvisation and "classical" music - into a spectacularly cohesive whole that has aged wonderfully well. As Gap himself notes in the liners, "with this group I was able to explore and add new and exciting elements from rock, Brazilian and then-current pop music."
Opener "Boy With Toys" triumphantly swaggers out the gate, all big band horns, flutes and dextrous organ work. The synthesis of everything going on is nothing short of stunning. When one wise YouTube commentator called this tune "old school superhero music", Gap agreed. Rap luminaries did, too, amongst them Talib Kweli, who rapped over DJ Scratch's chopped up intro for "Shock Body" on his Quality album back in 2002.
You've barely recovered from that incredibly affecting opener when you get hit over the head with the exquisite title-track. And now you see how two of the greatest beats of all time emerged from one single track produced nearly 50 years earlier. Unforgettably utilised by Dilla for Slum Village's heartbreakingly good "Fall In Love" and then Madlib for his "Official" beat for Dilla to rap over, on the Jaylib record. Regardless of the records it went on to spawn, this is just a staggering tune in its own right. Be beguiled by the flutes and the flutter tonguing, the counter-melody from the trombones, the soprano sax solo. All of it. Simply beautiful.
The questing organ and horn workout "Long Hair Soulful" deserves a lot more attention, overshadowed somewhat by the opening two monsters but no less fantastic. It swings, it grooves and Gadd and Levin truly cook. Up next, Gap's wonderfully percussive, mellifluously piano-heavy cover of "Yesterday" by some fellas called The Beatles. It's a subtly arresting gem. "The XIth Commandment" is damn fine, with thick, gorgeous electric piano and snappy drum work underpinning chaotic soundtracky horns. To close out the side, "St. Thomas" showcases the "fourth" member of the Gap Mangione Trio, conga drummer Dhui Mandingo. Having performed with the Trio since 1965, Dhui‘s African-based and jazz-latin-influenced style amazed listeners and its way to hear why.
Opening the B-Side, standard "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" breezes along in the late-night jazz club fashion before things get super deep with the outstanding and - up to now - un-sampled "Pond With Swans". It's simply heavenly, and how its moody, melancholic intro has yet to be pilfered is anybody's guess. It oscillates between gentle, sombre movements and bombastic grooves, equally hypnotic and joyous. The rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" is yet another showcase for Gap's virtuoso playing and Gadd's mastery of the pocket. Indeed Gadd's drumming on "Free Again" is nothing short of neck-SNAPPING! Ghostface took it for not one but two "Iron's Theme" tracks across his seminal Supreme Clientele. It's got that Galt MacDermot "Coffee Cold" feel. Suuuuuper cool. The frantic "Dream On Little Dreamer" hurtles along and must've surely had the whole room absolutely swinging from the chandeliers back in Rochester in the late 60s. The album closes with the magnificent Graduate Medley, featuring memorable renditions of "Scarborough Fair", "The Sounds of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson". The warm electric piano lines of the former were sampled by The Ummah (Dilla again!) for Tribe's "Pad & Pen" from their reappraised final album, The Love Movement, as well as by Large Professor on his much-loved "The LP (For My People)".
Under the watchful eye - and extremely attentive ears - of Gap Mangione himself, the audio for Diana In The Autumn Wind has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, with a few much needed tweaks here and there, according to the artist's wishes. At the prestigious Abbey Road Studios, Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at the always stellar Record Industry in Holland. The artwork restoration has taken place here at Be With HQ and has that drop-dead gorgeous cover artwork popping like new. Buy on sight!
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Worldwide no restrictions
Format Notes:
2026 first time ever vinyl reissue of this undisputed "holy grail", *the* most sought after album for J Dilla / Madlib sample collectors. Produced with the full and extensive participation of Gap, tip-on sleeve, 2 page insert, 140g vinyl.
Track List:
A1 Boy With Toys
A2 Diana In The Autumn Wind
A3 Long Hair Soulful
A4 Yesterday
A5 The XIth Commandment
A6 St. Thomas
B1 You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You
B2 Pond With Swans
B3 You Are My Sunshine
B4 Free Again
B5 Dream On Little Dreamer
B6 Graduate Medley
Release Notes:
Gap Mangione's monumentally influential Diana In The Autumn Wind. AKA BEWITH200LP. And, without question, Be With's White Whale.
They said it could never be done. And with good reason.
We've spent the past 12 years trying to license this legendary 1968 recording from Gap and, after much work, it's finally here. Remarkably, this is the first ever vinyl reissue of Gap Mangione's Diana In The Autumn Wind, produced with the full and extensive participation of Gap. An exceedingly rare album, it's been coveted by funk, soul, jazz and hip-hop sample fiends for decades.
It's unarguably *the* most sought after album for J Dilla / Madlib sample collectors. It has also been brilliantly sampled by A Tribe Called Quest, Large Professor, Ghostface Killah, Kendrick Lamar and Talib Kweli.
But this record is so much more than a sample-spotters curio. It's solid gold throughout. Bursting with killer funky-jazz grooves and tracks adorned with warm electric piano, the release is notable for featuring some extremely significant players at the very outset of their careers; Tony Levin, at 21, whose superb playing on both acoustic and electric bass was the harmonic mainstay of the trio and Steve Gadd, at 23, one of the greatest drummers of his generation.
With acceptable copies of this holy grail changing hands for $400, to call this reissue "much-needed" underplays just how vital it is. Gap's story is told in his words alongside rare photos across a sumptuously designed 2-page insert and, to augment this deluxe edition further, its all wrapped up in a beautiful, no-expense-spared luxury tip-on sleeve, as per the original hens-teeth release. And, while we're talking packaging, just take a look at that cover - a work of art in and of itself.
The tracks are short but complex, with that extraordinary rhythm section backing the beautiful piano, organ and electric piano work of Gap. It's like the best ever library funk breaks record you never heard - but all your favourite golden age rap producers were all over it, long ago. It's a stunning blend of the vibrant, driving music of the Gap Mangione Trio coupled with the sensitive composition and superb orchestration of Gap's legendary brother, Chuck Mangione, who helmed an amalgam of seemingly disparate elements – rock, big band jazz, solo improvisation and "classical" music - into a spectacularly cohesive whole that has aged wonderfully well. As Gap himself notes in the liners, "with this group I was able to explore and add new and exciting elements from rock, Brazilian and then-current pop music."
Opener "Boy With Toys" triumphantly swaggers out the gate, all big band horns, flutes and dextrous organ work. The synthesis of everything going on is nothing short of stunning. When one wise YouTube commentator called this tune "old school superhero music", Gap agreed. Rap luminaries did, too, amongst them Talib Kweli, who rapped over DJ Scratch's chopped up intro for "Shock Body" on his Quality album back in 2002.
You've barely recovered from that incredibly affecting opener when you get hit over the head with the exquisite title-track. And now you see how two of the greatest beats of all time emerged from one single track produced nearly 50 years earlier. Unforgettably utilised by Dilla for Slum Village's heartbreakingly good "Fall In Love" and then Madlib for his "Official" beat for Dilla to rap over, on the Jaylib record. Regardless of the records it went on to spawn, this is just a staggering tune in its own right. Be beguiled by the flutes and the flutter tonguing, the counter-melody from the trombones, the soprano sax solo. All of it. Simply beautiful.
The questing organ and horn workout "Long Hair Soulful" deserves a lot more attention, overshadowed somewhat by the opening two monsters but no less fantastic. It swings, it grooves and Gadd and Levin truly cook. Up next, Gap's wonderfully percussive, mellifluously piano-heavy cover of "Yesterday" by some fellas called The Beatles. It's a subtly arresting gem. "The XIth Commandment" is damn fine, with thick, gorgeous electric piano and snappy drum work underpinning chaotic soundtracky horns. To close out the side, "St. Thomas" showcases the "fourth" member of the Gap Mangione Trio, conga drummer Dhui Mandingo. Having performed with the Trio since 1965, Dhui‘s African-based and jazz-latin-influenced style amazed listeners and its way to hear why.
Opening the B-Side, standard "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" breezes along in the late-night jazz club fashion before things get super deep with the outstanding and - up to now - un-sampled "Pond With Swans". It's simply heavenly, and how its moody, melancholic intro has yet to be pilfered is anybody's guess. It oscillates between gentle, sombre movements and bombastic grooves, equally hypnotic and joyous. The rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" is yet another showcase for Gap's virtuoso playing and Gadd's mastery of the pocket. Indeed Gadd's drumming on "Free Again" is nothing short of neck-SNAPPING! Ghostface took it for not one but two "Iron's Theme" tracks across his seminal Supreme Clientele. It's got that Galt MacDermot "Coffee Cold" feel. Suuuuuper cool. The frantic "Dream On Little Dreamer" hurtles along and must've surely had the whole room absolutely swinging from the chandeliers back in Rochester in the late 60s. The album closes with the magnificent Graduate Medley, featuring memorable renditions of "Scarborough Fair", "The Sounds of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson". The warm electric piano lines of the former were sampled by The Ummah (Dilla again!) for Tribe's "Pad & Pen" from their reappraised final album, The Love Movement, as well as by Large Professor on his much-loved "The LP (For My People)".
Under the watchful eye - and extremely attentive ears - of Gap Mangione himself, the audio for Diana In The Autumn Wind has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, with a few much needed tweaks here and there, according to the artist's wishes. At the prestigious Abbey Road Studios, Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at the always stellar Record Industry in Holland. The artwork restoration has taken place here at Be With HQ and has that drop-dead gorgeous cover artwork popping like new. Buy on sight!
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
TYGAPAW - Can I live feat. Precious Okoyomon
2
TYGAPAW - M32 Riddim
3
TYGAPAW - One exists or agrees to exist
4
TYGAPAW - Don't panic feat. Ms. Carrie Stacks
5
TYGAPAW - Duppy Know Who Fi Frighten
6
TYGAPAW - Helicopter hovers over my Crown Heights Apartment
7
TYGAPAW - Exorcise the Language of Domination feat. Juliana Huxtable
8
TYGAPAW - B2B feat. SUUTOO
9
TYGAPAW - Effects of Resistance feat. Khanyisile Mbongwa
10
TYGAPAW - Black Trans Masculine Experience (Instrumental)
Territories: World excl. UK
FORMAT 2LP vinyl, gatefold sleeve, dl card
TRACKLIST
A1. Can I live feat. Precious Okoyomon 02:36
A2. M32 Riddim 04:06
A3. One exists or agrees to exist 05:00
A4. Don't panic feat. Ms. Carrie Stacks 02:58
B1. Duppy Know Who Fi Frighten 06:31
B2. Helicopter hovers over my Crown Heights Apartment 05:19
C1. Exorcise the Language of Domination feat. Juliana Huxtable 06:12
C2. B2B feat. SUUTOO 05:32
D1. Effects of Resistance feat. Khanyisile Mbongwa 06:12
D2. Black Trans Masculine Experience (Instrumental) 08:55
Release Info:
May 2026 marks the arrival of TYGAPAW (aka Dion McKenzie)’s first full-length album on Tresor Records, entitled Together You Gather All Power Applied Worldwide. An acronym of its creator’s name, TYGAPAW’s third studio album is a deeply personal collection of music building worlds where Black queer and trans siblings can thrive, while unifying dancefloors worldwide. A proposition that collective wisdom liberates us from the matrix of domination we live within. The album unfolds as the latest chapter in TYGAPAW’s ongoing techno opera opus, continuing to center the voices of Black women, which surface as layered incantations rather than lyrics - powerful, haunting, sensual, activating.
With the process of creating the album starting in 2023, as TYGAPAW (Dion McKenzie) was in the first year of their transition, the music reflects the intensity of that period, where they were experiencing deplatforming as a response to the shift in their physical appearance: Tracks like ‘M32 Riddim’ and ‘Helicopter hovers over my Crown Heights Apartment’ feature high-paced rhythms intersecting with intense siren-like synths to form demanding compositions echoing a heightened sense of alert. Yet throughout the album, relief comes in the form of TYGAPAW’s vocal features, co-conspirators, and chosen family, whose voices are treated with reverb and echo, a sonic fingerprint that leads back to the pioneers in the legendary studios of TYGAPAW’s native land, Jamaica, an important reminder that the past will always inform the future. It is an album for dancers first and foremost, where joy, defiance, and integration with the natural body coexist, and every drop feels less like a climax than a transformation. Expect a bass that permeates your soul and melodic synthesized sequenced phrases echoing the dancehall eras of TYGAPAW’s youth, reshaped into hypnotic melodies that glow over industrial kicks designed to command attention, reasserting Jamaica's pioneering yet often overlooked contribution to electronic music.
In the opening track, ‘Can I Live’, Precious Okoyomon’s words feel like the beginning of a ritual; setting the intentions for the rest of the proceedings. As McKenzie puts it, their “work is about regeneration, resetting, getting integrated into nature, and about rebirth. That’s the tone I wanted to set at the outset of the album.” Ms Carrie Stacks continues this thread of support in ‘Don’t Panic’ with heavily processed vocals on top of a beat that takes inspiration from another important ingredient in the antidote to the oppression of isolation: Ballroom culture. “ I feel like I found my queerness in Ballroom, that’s why this track is very important to me.”
Echoes of NYC Black queer nightlife scene also permeate in the energetic drums of ‘Exorcise the Language of Domination’, in which Julianna Huxtable’s spoken performance complements the various movements and tones of the music. “My producer brain thought this was the one that Juliana’s vocals would be best suited for. I hinted: ‘what do you think of this one?’ She just went into her notes and picked some passages to go with the first section of the track. From there, it was a year-long process of development. It required time and space for this thing to evolve, but I think it’s one of the most powerful tracks on the album.” London’s SUUTOO contributes the album’s only musical collaboration on ‘B2B’, a track that emerged from sessions in McKenzie’s New York studio where the real objective was to connect and have fun; a time out from the demands of life outside.
The album closes out with a double hit of emotion in the form of ‘Effects of Resistance and Black Trans Masculine Experience’. The former features South African scholar Khanyisile Mbongwa drawing connections that exist between Africa and the Black diaspora, whilst looking to the future and calling for a shared sense of community.
The latter piece, an instrumental version of the piece which featured on the IMMIGRANT E.P. of 2025 is a gentle and deeply affecting end to the record, a place of peace and acceptance. This end-of-cycle tone is mirrored in the sleeve photography, which also ties back to IMMIGRANT by finally revealing what was hidden: a portrait of the artist fully self-actualized; a step towards true inner liberation. TYGAPAW is sonically defiant across this album; bass frequencies feel tactile — less heard than inhabited — infectious lead synth melodies remain with you long after the track ends. An overall sound that leaves asserting an urgent need for connection. From Detroit to New York to Berlin to Jamaica, despite geographic distance, this album reminds us that we remain in solidarity, recognising that meaningful world-building requires collective input and action, both personal and communal, if we are to move toward liberation.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
FORMAT 2LP vinyl, gatefold sleeve, dl card
TRACKLIST
A1. Can I live feat. Precious Okoyomon 02:36
A2. M32 Riddim 04:06
A3. One exists or agrees to exist 05:00
A4. Don't panic feat. Ms. Carrie Stacks 02:58
B1. Duppy Know Who Fi Frighten 06:31
B2. Helicopter hovers over my Crown Heights Apartment 05:19
C1. Exorcise the Language of Domination feat. Juliana Huxtable 06:12
C2. B2B feat. SUUTOO 05:32
D1. Effects of Resistance feat. Khanyisile Mbongwa 06:12
D2. Black Trans Masculine Experience (Instrumental) 08:55
Release Info:
May 2026 marks the arrival of TYGAPAW (aka Dion McKenzie)’s first full-length album on Tresor Records, entitled Together You Gather All Power Applied Worldwide. An acronym of its creator’s name, TYGAPAW’s third studio album is a deeply personal collection of music building worlds where Black queer and trans siblings can thrive, while unifying dancefloors worldwide. A proposition that collective wisdom liberates us from the matrix of domination we live within. The album unfolds as the latest chapter in TYGAPAW’s ongoing techno opera opus, continuing to center the voices of Black women, which surface as layered incantations rather than lyrics - powerful, haunting, sensual, activating.
With the process of creating the album starting in 2023, as TYGAPAW (Dion McKenzie) was in the first year of their transition, the music reflects the intensity of that period, where they were experiencing deplatforming as a response to the shift in their physical appearance: Tracks like ‘M32 Riddim’ and ‘Helicopter hovers over my Crown Heights Apartment’ feature high-paced rhythms intersecting with intense siren-like synths to form demanding compositions echoing a heightened sense of alert. Yet throughout the album, relief comes in the form of TYGAPAW’s vocal features, co-conspirators, and chosen family, whose voices are treated with reverb and echo, a sonic fingerprint that leads back to the pioneers in the legendary studios of TYGAPAW’s native land, Jamaica, an important reminder that the past will always inform the future. It is an album for dancers first and foremost, where joy, defiance, and integration with the natural body coexist, and every drop feels less like a climax than a transformation. Expect a bass that permeates your soul and melodic synthesized sequenced phrases echoing the dancehall eras of TYGAPAW’s youth, reshaped into hypnotic melodies that glow over industrial kicks designed to command attention, reasserting Jamaica's pioneering yet often overlooked contribution to electronic music.
In the opening track, ‘Can I Live’, Precious Okoyomon’s words feel like the beginning of a ritual; setting the intentions for the rest of the proceedings. As McKenzie puts it, their “work is about regeneration, resetting, getting integrated into nature, and about rebirth. That’s the tone I wanted to set at the outset of the album.” Ms Carrie Stacks continues this thread of support in ‘Don’t Panic’ with heavily processed vocals on top of a beat that takes inspiration from another important ingredient in the antidote to the oppression of isolation: Ballroom culture. “ I feel like I found my queerness in Ballroom, that’s why this track is very important to me.”
Echoes of NYC Black queer nightlife scene also permeate in the energetic drums of ‘Exorcise the Language of Domination’, in which Julianna Huxtable’s spoken performance complements the various movements and tones of the music. “My producer brain thought this was the one that Juliana’s vocals would be best suited for. I hinted: ‘what do you think of this one?’ She just went into her notes and picked some passages to go with the first section of the track. From there, it was a year-long process of development. It required time and space for this thing to evolve, but I think it’s one of the most powerful tracks on the album.” London’s SUUTOO contributes the album’s only musical collaboration on ‘B2B’, a track that emerged from sessions in McKenzie’s New York studio where the real objective was to connect and have fun; a time out from the demands of life outside.
The album closes out with a double hit of emotion in the form of ‘Effects of Resistance and Black Trans Masculine Experience’. The former features South African scholar Khanyisile Mbongwa drawing connections that exist between Africa and the Black diaspora, whilst looking to the future and calling for a shared sense of community.
The latter piece, an instrumental version of the piece which featured on the IMMIGRANT E.P. of 2025 is a gentle and deeply affecting end to the record, a place of peace and acceptance. This end-of-cycle tone is mirrored in the sleeve photography, which also ties back to IMMIGRANT by finally revealing what was hidden: a portrait of the artist fully self-actualized; a step towards true inner liberation. TYGAPAW is sonically defiant across this album; bass frequencies feel tactile — less heard than inhabited — infectious lead synth melodies remain with you long after the track ends. An overall sound that leaves asserting an urgent need for connection. From Detroit to New York to Berlin to Jamaica, despite geographic distance, this album reminds us that we remain in solidarity, recognising that meaningful world-building requires collective input and action, both personal and communal, if we are to move toward liberation.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Francisco Foo - Europe After The Rain
2
Francisco Foo - The Wood For The Trees
3
Francisco Foo - Where Love Lay Sleeping
4
Francisco Foo - With Stones In Our Pockets
Genre: ChillOut, Downtempo
Tracklist:
A1. Europe After The Rain
A2. The Wood For The Trees
B1. Where Love Lay Sleeping
B2. With Stones In Our Pockets
Short Info:
Francisco Foo gives us a beautifully pensive 4-track chillage EP as his vinyl debut. Europe After The Rain perfectly captures the ideas of healing, regeneration, and rebuilding.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Tracklist:
A1. Europe After The Rain
A2. The Wood For The Trees
B1. Where Love Lay Sleeping
B2. With Stones In Our Pockets
Short Info:
Francisco Foo gives us a beautifully pensive 4-track chillage EP as his vinyl debut. Europe After The Rain perfectly captures the ideas of healing, regeneration, and rebuilding.
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
1
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Microon I
2
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Reverso
3
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Halo
4
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Microon II
5
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Pionier IOO
6
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Ionoscan
7
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - By This River
8
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Naono
9
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Microon III
10
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - By This River – Phantom
11
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Monomom
12
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Kizuna
Release Info:
Released for the first time in 2011, 'Summvs' is the fifth and final installment of Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's V.I.R.U.S. series. The title 'Summvs' refers to the Latin word "summa" (eng. sum) and "versus" (eng. towards); it serves as a metaphor for the work being oriented towards a collaborative result. The album features "Microon" compositions containing recordings of a 16th tone interval tuning piano - Piano Metamorfoseador Carrillo en Dieciseisavos de Tono. The album also features two covers of the track "By This River," composed by Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius in 1977.
In the album's twelve compositions, Sakamoto's haunting piano arrangements coalesce with Nicolai's digital rhythms, creating a sonic aura as magnetic as it is meditative. Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album's recordings are accompanied by two new compositions titled 'Monomom' (released digitally in December 2021) and 'Kizuna.' Like 'Monomom,' 'Kizuna' is the studio version of the homonymous composition recorded during Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto's 2019 Australian tour and included in the album' TWO Live at Sydney Opera House" (2019, NOTON). The work 'Kizuna' means 'human bond' in Japanese and refers to the title of an animation piece by the Italian contemporary artist Valerio Berruti released in Japan in January 2011.
Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai
Mastering by Bo @ Calyx
Tracklisting
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 1
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Microon I
Playtime: 00:03:06
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719515
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 2
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Reverso
Playtime: 00:07:00
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719516
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 3
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Halo
Playtime: 00:07:10
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719517
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 4
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Microon II
Playtime: 00:02:39
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719518
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 5
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Pionier IOO
Playtime: 00:05:47
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719519
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 6
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Ionoscan
Playtime: 00:04:09
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719520
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 7
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: By This River
Playtime: 00:04:03
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719521
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 8
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Naono
Playtime: 00:11:20
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719522
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 9
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Microon III
Playtime: 00:03:02
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719523
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 10
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: By This River – Phantom
Playtime: 00:08:14
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719524
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 11
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Monomom
Playtime: 00:05:31
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719525
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 12
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Kizuna
Playtime: 00:05:42
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719526
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More
Released for the first time in 2011, 'Summvs' is the fifth and final installment of Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's V.I.R.U.S. series. The title 'Summvs' refers to the Latin word "summa" (eng. sum) and "versus" (eng. towards); it serves as a metaphor for the work being oriented towards a collaborative result. The album features "Microon" compositions containing recordings of a 16th tone interval tuning piano - Piano Metamorfoseador Carrillo en Dieciseisavos de Tono. The album also features two covers of the track "By This River," composed by Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius in 1977.
In the album's twelve compositions, Sakamoto's haunting piano arrangements coalesce with Nicolai's digital rhythms, creating a sonic aura as magnetic as it is meditative. Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album's recordings are accompanied by two new compositions titled 'Monomom' (released digitally in December 2021) and 'Kizuna.' Like 'Monomom,' 'Kizuna' is the studio version of the homonymous composition recorded during Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto's 2019 Australian tour and included in the album' TWO Live at Sydney Opera House" (2019, NOTON). The work 'Kizuna' means 'human bond' in Japanese and refers to the title of an animation piece by the Italian contemporary artist Valerio Berruti released in Japan in January 2011.
Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai
Mastering by Bo @ Calyx
Tracklisting
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 1
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Microon I
Playtime: 00:03:06
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719515
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 2
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Reverso
Playtime: 00:07:00
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719516
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 3
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Halo
Playtime: 00:07:10
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719517
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 4
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Microon II
Playtime: 00:02:39
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719518
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 5
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Pionier IOO
Playtime: 00:05:47
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719519
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 6
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Ionoscan
Playtime: 00:04:09
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719520
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 7
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: By This River
Playtime: 00:04:03
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719521
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 8
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Naono
Playtime: 00:11:20
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719522
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 9
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Microon III
Playtime: 00:03:02
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719523
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 10
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: By This River – Phantom
Playtime: 00:08:14
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719524
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 11
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Monomom
Playtime: 00:05:31
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719525
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Medium: 1 // Side: // Track: 12
Artist: Alva Noto; Ryuichi Sakamoto
Title: Kizuna
Playtime: 00:05:42
Explicit Lyrics: No
ISRC: UK6821719526
(P): 2022 NOTON
Country: Germany
Composer: Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto
---------------------------------------------------------
Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More