fabric Originals presents Sho, a five track EP of introspective, transcendent electronics from Japanese techno icon DJ Nobu. Inspired by the Buddhist Brahmaviharas - joy, compassion, loving-kindness and equanimity - Sho unfolds as a meditative, emotional journey rooted in Nobu’s experiences of Tokyo, mindfulness and inner clarity. From kinetic renewal to serene minimalism, the EP channels presence, acceptance and the simple truth that breathing itself is living. Each track on ‘Sho’ marks a step in an emotional and spiritual journey, channelling the foundational virtues of the Brahmaviharas, which are the four ‘Sublime States’ of Buddhist practice: ‘Mudita’ (joy), ‘Karu?a’ (compassion), ‘Metta’ (loving-kindness), and ‘Upekkha’ (equanimity). Together these principles form a path towards an open, boundless heart, which is mirrored in the EP’s unfolding sonic narrative. “In recent years I became overly sensitive to my surroundings and society, finding myself strongly affected by every daily occurrence. It was during this time that I discovered meditation. And beyond that lay Buddhism. Through this, my sensibilities became able to express themselves more naturally. I decided to portray my feelings, and the scenery in Tokyo, conveying what I was experiencing in real-time, as music. The EP title ‘Sho’ denotes views, thoughts, and actions aligned with Buddhist truth, and encapsulates my striving for presence, clarity, and acceptance. It also represents the conscious, mindful understanding that simply breathing is living.” DJ Nobu

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Apiento and Lexx join forces on some super nice edits for Discotecas. The first one has long been a staple of Apiento’s Test Pressing show and finally hits vinyl. The others are all new edits which sit perfectly in the current climate.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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Chicago legend K. Alexi returns to Dark Entries with K.A. Posse’s Strkes Again, an EP of preleased unreleased acid and house mayhem. K’Alexi Shelby’s illustrious career has included releases on legendary labels such as Trax, DJ International, and Transmat, as well as collaborations with high-profile artists like Marshall Jefferson and Pet Shop Boys. But his musical journey began at the young age of 12, when he befriended Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles while frequenting the Music Box and Warehouse. In high school, he began to write songs and hone his poetic craft. “I recognized I had a gift to say what I was thinking. I would study Prince and Marvin Gaye, figure out what they meant and put my spin on it. The power of the word. I was writing love notes for all my boys in high school and making a killing. I would know what to say and what they should do.”
Dark Entries previously reissued Shelby’s debut record, Essence of a Dream, which was recorded under the name Risque III in 1987. Strikes Again brings us six tracks recorded in Chicago between 1988 and 1990, which come courtesy of Mike Dunn’s personal archive. This record showcases the rawer, more immediate side of Shelby’s sound, with tracks full of overdriven 808’s, careening sirens, and dangerously funky breakbeats. “Imported Taste” brings Shelby’s signature deep pads to the front of wild congo-laced percussion. “Suckas Be Ready” is a slamming hip-house cut featuring vocals from MCD-TA, while disco-samples duel with crunchy 909s on the jacking “Muzic Box.” Strikes Back showcases the real underground sound of Chicago, where sonic abstraction meets full-body kinetics. The record comes housed in a retro-styled sleeve designed by Eloise Shir-Juen Leigh.

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Khruangbin did not know if they were actually making an album. All they knew in the first frigid days of 2025, as they shivered in the Central Texas barn where they’ve recorded almost all of their music, was that the 10th anniversary of their debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, was steadily approaching. Months earlier, they’d bandied about ways to mark the occasion, debating orchestral arrangements or compendiums of bonus materials and alternate takes. Thing was, back before Khruangbin helped establish a new modern idiom of semi-instrumental and gently psychedelic American music, there had been no bonus material, no unused songs. And how interesting would alternate takes or symphonic extravagance really be for a band whose aesthetic—essential vibes, infinite grooves, riffs that rippled across the horizon—seemed so direct and pure, anyway? What if, they had instead wondered, they went back to the barn where it all began and recut the record that had started it all, on the actual 10th anniversary of those sessions? They decided, at least, to try.

It did not take long for Laura Lee, Mark Speer, and DJ Johnson to know that the idea was indeed a good one, that in holding up a mirror shaped by the past 10 years to their formative set of songs they could feel and hear how they had changed as people and players. The result is The Universe Smiles Upon You ii, 10 entirely new renditions of the songs from Khruangbin’s oldest album, played and sequenced in a way that works for them now without being strictly allegiant to who they were then. Watchful eyes, for instance, will notice that “Bin Bin ii”, a bonus track back in 2015, has moved toward this album’s center. More importantly, attentive ears will hear how liberated Khruangbin sound from any expectations rendered by their own success, how this is once again the sound of three longtime friends deciding how this material might move in real time.

The barn is an essential piece of Khruangbin lore. In 2009, many years before Khruangbin’s early singles started to shape their course or even before they were really a band, they began to head to the barn, bought by Speer’s parents in the ’80s on a modest cattle farm midway between Houston and Austin. They’d been looking for a place to rehearse in Houston when Speer’s parents volunteered the spot and the small house next door—three bedrooms downstairs, dorm-style bunks above, a century-old stove in a small kitchen. The process was so consummately D.I.Y. that, when they convened there in January 2015 to make what would become The Universe Smiles Upon You, Speer and Lee rushed to remove a nest of bees by playing bass and smashing cymbals loudly before Johnson (famously not into bees, mind you) arrived. They made the record for $1,500.

This time around, Khruangbin decided to try a few functional updates. They finally ripped out the plywood dancefloor that had been installed for a wedding nearly two decades earlier but had since become something of a sanctuary for critters that would inevitably destroy any gear left behind. They rented a new floor, then bought silent new space heaters and boxes of hand warmers that they’d stuff into gloves during sessions. The first day was Central Texas paradise—T-shirts in January, the sun shining as they set up their instruments, ran cables, and even recorded the seven-minute version of “Two Fish and an Elephant” that appears here, the rhythm that Lee and Johnson built offering a welcoming group hug for Speer’s flickering lead. But then the cold set in, a cold so gripping that they stuffed bits of construction flotsam into every crack and crevice they could find inside the barn. They moved closer and closer as the four days progressed, as if trying to absorb one another’s radiant heat.

Perhaps, then, that’s why The Universe Smiles Upon You ii feels so warm, as if they were tending a fire simply by playing together. Early into “August Twelve ii,” Johnson watched an eastern meadowlark sing just outside the barn, its song picked up by the microphones. It wasn’t their favorite performance, but they knew it captured the magic of the time and place, the yellow beauty’s melody calling these six gorgeous minutes to order. They are likewise jubilant during this very extended take on “People Everywhere (Still Alive),” applying the lessons about pace, momentum, and dynamics they’ve learned during a decade on the road to start and sustain this dance party. It is an immaculate map of the moment.

Funnily enough, while on tour with this electric trio during the last several years, Speer became fascinated with early European instruments that could sound full without being loud—the viol de gamba, for instance, or the clavichord. He imported that enthusiasm into these sessions, not only often playing acoustic guitar alongside Lee’s hollow-body Höfner bass and Johnson’s brushed drums but also covering instruments in contact mics, so that they sounded close and real. You can hear that pursuit clearly on “White Gloves ii,” a song that has become such a Khruangbin staple they initially struggled with how to remake it here. When Johnson suggested it become “country disco,” though, the track suddenly unlocked. A rural-funk canter buttresses the bittersweet vocals and twilit guitars; the recording makes it feel as if you’re sitting in the center of the barn, head pressed between the bass amp and bass drum as Khruangbin drift away.

In many ways, The Universe Smiles Upon You ii represents the close of Khruangbin’s first chapter, the complete culmination of the music they made when they arrived at the barn in January 2015. During the last decade, they have reached an apotheosis of sorts, their love of Thai pop and heavy dub and American soul and Ethiopian haze perfectly crystallized in a string of splendid records and live shows that have hypnotized massive theaters and festival crowds alike. They’ve repeatedly sold out the United States’ most famous venues, from Red Rocks and Forest Hills to the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City, and they’ve crowned festivals from Glastonbury to Bonnaroo. Paul McCartney plucked them to reimagine one of his songs, while they’ve collaborated with Mali legend and band inspiration Vieux Farka Touré to honor his late father on 2022’s Ali. After more than a decade of relentless touring and recording, their expertly polyglot 2024 album, A LA SALA, helped earn a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Not bad for a band that recorded its debut in a barn of bees and mice for a grand or so.

So, then, what is next? The Universe Smiles Upon You ii provides a point of pause for Khruangbin, a chance to step back from a sound they now know so well and figure out where it may go from here. They talk about woodshedding, about spending a few hours every day with their instruments to see what new shapes they can make. Khruangbin’s splendid next run, then, begins where the first one did, too—in the barn, finding their way into the world through the songs of The Universe Smiles Upon You, second time even more absorbing than the first.

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Contact: [email protected]More