Bandcamp Daily's Best Albums of 2018

Aïsha Devi has announced the release of her sophomore album ‘DNA Feelings’ out 11th May via Houndstooth. In conjunction with the album announcement comes first single ‘Inner State of Alchemy’. No one on this planet sounds like Aïsha Devi. Her voice is her most powerful tool in a repertoire that includes thumping beats and rave stabs, seraphic and guttural throat singing, mystical linguistics and corporeal sonics. Her music is spiritual and her live shows are transcendent experiences. She is a rebel and a radical alchemist who is breaking down barriers and traversing dimensions with her art. Born by the Swiss alps with Nepalese-Tibetan heritage, a transversal of cultural and spiritual identity was forged, guiding both her personal and creative process as a non-conformed seeker. Devi applies meditation techniques in her approach to production and performance, channeling metaphysical research, ritualistic practice and healing frequencies into an alternate club paradigm. Dislocating pop culture, also evident in her mixes for NTS, FACT, etc., is one of her foundational tools and stylistic signatures. In 2013 Devi co-founded Danse Noire, a label collective supporting insurrectional club music from around the world, where she released her breakout single ‘Aura 4 Everyone’ followed by ‘Hakken Dub / Throat Dub’ in 2014, giving context to her universe alongside artists including Vaghe Stelle, El Mahdy Jr., J.G. Biberkopf, GIL and IVVVO. In 2015 Houndstooth released Aïsha Devi’s debut album, 'Of Matter And Spirit', a significant sonic statement rich in political and philosophical subtext. The process led her to collaborating with Chinese visual artist Tianzhuo Chen on videos featuring profane and sacred iconography, as well as theatrical dance performances together with the Asian Dope Boys. Photographer Emile Barret is another longtime artistic collaborator, touring throughout the world with their spatially disruptive audiovisual show. But Aïsha Devi is just as magnetic performing solo. With her mesmeric digital mantras and a captivating stage presence she’s bowled over crowds at CTM, Mutek, Unsound, Boiler Room and countless festivals and venues from Siberia to Mexico and beyond. Look out for further updates on www.aishadevi.com

Noname releases her highly anticipated debut album, Room 25. The 11-track album was executive produced by fellow Chicago native Phoelix and sees Noname return as a more mature and experienced artist. Room 25 has received early praise from The New York Times, calling her a "Full-Fledged Maverick" in their Critic's Pick review yesterday. Noname also recently opened up in The FADER's Fall Fashion issue about her life since the release of her 2016 mixtape Telefone. Rather than cash in on the hype around her extremely well-received 2016 debut mixtape Telefone, Noname took two years to play shows backed by a full band and refine her craft before releasing her follow up project. Over the last few months anticipation for her new album steadily built with Nonamedropping a stream of hints that its release was approaching. Telefone established Noname as one of the most promising and unique voices in hip hop, and with Room 25 she stakes out her place as one of the best lyricists in the genre and comes into her own as a fully realized artist as she achieves mastery over the style she developed with her first tape. Room 25 arrives a little over two years after Noname released her breakout mixtape Telefone. Upon its release, Telefone received nearly universal acclaim and propelled Noname to become one of the most exciting new voices in music. The intimate mixtape cut through the noise of an oversaturated musical landscape like few other releases have in the last several years. Since the release of Telefone, Noname has built an international presence, successfully touring the world and playing the top festivals. In 2017, she also touched the Saturday Night Live stage alongside collaborator and childhood friend Chance the Rapper to perform a song of his Colouring Book album. The New York Times called her SNL performance "a master class in poise, delivery, and self-assuredness." Noname (AKA Fatimah Warner) grew up in Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago that famously attracted accomplished black artists and intellectuals of all types. Fatimah first discovered her love for wordplay while taking a creative writing class as a sophomore in high school. She became enamored with poetry and spoken word - pouring over Def Poetry Jam clips on YouTube and attending open mics around the city. After impressive appearances as Noname Gypsy on early Chance the Rapper and Mick Jenkins mixtapes, she gained a cult-like following online that helped set the stage for the life-changing release of Telefone. Coinciding with the album's release, Noname is also announcing her Fall tour, beginning next year in Detroit on January 2nd, she will play 19 shows across North America before concluding at Oakland's historic Fox Theater on March 15. Tickets for the tour will go on sale 9/21 at 10:00 AM local time and will be available at nonamehiding.com.

Los Angeles has often been described as a “dream factory”--both a mecca where dreamers converge to pursue long-held aspirations, and a topography of hallucinogenic contradictions: enchanting tangerine sunsets diffused by smog, crystal-clutching spiritualists mingling with deep-pocketed narcissists, rows of scenic palms competing with garish billboards for commuters’ attention. It was against this backdrop that the four members of La Luz--singer/guitarist Shana Cleve- land, drummer Marian Li Pino, keyboardist Alice Sandahl, and bassist Lena Simon--conceived of Floating Features, the band’s third studio album. For this, their most ambitious release yet, La Luz consulted landscapes both physical and psychological. References to dreams abound on Floating Features. “Loose Teeth” catalyzes nightmare fuel into a propulsive, intentionally-disorienting collision of honeyed harmonies and Takeshi Terauchi-esque jetstreams of distorted surf guitar. “Mean Dream” unsurprisingly mines dream- state imagery, and the lyrics and melody for “Walking Into the Sun” actually came to Cleveland during a particularly-vivid night of deep sleep. Looming over the album’s coterie of surreal figures (gargantuan cicadas, a monstrous “Creature,” The Sun King, aliens, the titular “Lonely Dozer”) is the magnificent “Greed Machine,” a skulking, insatiable engine of consumption- -Nathanael West’s “business of dreams” fearsomely manifested. Only La Luz could conjure up Floating Features’ Leone-on-LSD vibes, and the album finds the L.A. band at the height of their powers--golden rebels in a golden dream.

serpentwithfeet is an avant-garde vocalist and performance artist whose growing body of work is rooted in dueling obsessions with the ephemeral and the everlasting – key components of his artistic journey from a childhood stint as a choirboy in Baltimore through his time at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied vocal performance before relocating to New York City. His forthcoming debut full-length album soil is a return to the sensibilities and wide-eyed curiosity of his musical youth before symmetry and sterile soundscapes ruled the roost. With the release of soil the chameleonic serpentwithfeet (born Josiah Wise) rediscovers and ultimately returns to the unhinged version of himself he was sure he had outgrown. “soil is about me returning home then realizing that i carry home with me daily.” Following the release of Blisters – his 2016 foray into hybridized pop produced by Björk collaborator The Haxan Cloak – and two big tours, serpentwithfeet returned to the studio in 2017. There, he explored the fullness of his voice and became increasingly interested in playful singing which intrigued recording engineer Jason Agel. That vocal performance was only complicated by his feverish rumination on the dissolution of an impassioned love affair that left him stunned and speeding toward the inevitable – a more intimate relationship with himself. One in which he embraces and mocks his own flaws with abandon, lets an uncharacteristic shock of hair down over his infamously provocative forehead tattoos, makes room for his most pressing sexual desires and returns to the gospel that dominated his formative years. In this embrace of imperfection and romantic failure, serpentwithfeet has found soil; the forthcoming album is his first release for the label partnership between Tri Angle Records and Secretly Canadian. soil features contributions from rising experimental producer mmph, sound manipulator Katie Gately, A$AP Rocky contemporary Clams Casino, and Paul Epworth – one of the Grammy Award-winning minds responsible for Adele’s critically-acclaimed album 21. The project recorded between New York City’s WhiteWater production house and Epworth’s London studio was co-produced by serpentwithfeet. On this outing he trades glossolalia and peacocking showmanship for intricately layered harmonies, a sumptuous bottom register that appears for the first time to challenge his fluttering tenor, and ballsy sonic experimentation encouraged by Gately, whose talent he describes as “making voices sound like elephants and elephants sound like car engines.” Together they develop an unctuous sound that suggests billowing clouds and the dense, plodding stomp of 12-bar blues. Once concerned with perfect execution of gospel runs and dishing up a gossamer falsetto, serpentwithfeet is out of balance and reveling in the concept of mess on soil. Particularly, what it means to part ways with sterility and the urge to uncoil himself in order to occupy more space. soil is the moment at which he unfolds himself with zero intention of closing back up. “I’m constantly talking about how black men are always manspreading and pushed to be these super masculine, bovine – seven foot niggas. For a long time I was interested in what would happen if we rebelled against that and we were small. I was into the minutiae and then I realized I wanted to take up space again. I have practiced that smallness and quietness and that’s fine, but now I don’t want to be that delicate. I’m not interested in that right now. This album definitely pushed me in that way. There’s a certain naivete in this new music. With the blisters EP, I was trying to prove a point to myself and the listener. I was trying to string together a lot of ideas before. This time I wasn’t trying to sound smart. I was as crafty as I could be with the words, but I just wanted to keep my eyes open and be accountable for what I was seeing .” Evocative of the stillness of lying down and feeling the gravitational pull of the earth beneath the body, soil is a writhing, electronic melodrama that pairs synth woodwinds and sinister transitions with serpentwithfeet’s extra-terrestrial timbre. The album elevates his most persistent weaknesses, and revisits the trinity of r&b, gospel, and pop that drove earlier projects. serpentwithfeet busies himself with a manic range of emotion which includes sobbing, laughing, mocking his own truculence and identifying his proclivity to smother lovers as a trait antithetical to the kind of intimacy they seek. He speaks as tenderly to the mythical men of his dreams as he does former lovers. His humor is apparent on songs like “seedless,” “messy,” and “slow syrup,” which poke fun at his overbearing presence in the lives of partners. serpentwithfeet tinkers with the extremes of his ideals to illustrate the ways in which past partners have felt oppressed by his needs; he likens them to unreasonable questions like, “Will you show up for me if I ask you to sharpen your teeth because we don’t have any knives and I need someone to cut this food?” “cherubim” and “fragrant” elucidate the connection between romantic obsession and the sentiments of church songs about unwavering devotion to god in statements like, “I get to devote my life to him, I get to sing like the cherubim.” In seeking to commune with a higher power across a number of bodies, from the individual self to the embrace of a lover and the sanctity of partnership, serpentwithfeet is responsible for a compilation that forces consciousness of the myriad intersections at which god exists. At once whimsical and mechanical, soil traverses the depths of human emotion in search of love. The music inspired by “intense collaborative work” is an extension of the mourning ritual a crestfallen serpentwithfeet first created to grieve heartbreak. He cites influences as varied as lullabies, an affinity for pungent body odor, his doll collection, and his mother’s love of traditional hymns. soil conjures his early fascinations with Brandy and Björk as easily as it references the pageantry of anthemic compositions by Antonin Dvorak and the ecstatic praise of the black church; the abiding prayer house rhythm is established by industrial washing machines on Gately’s opener “whisper.” serpentwithfeet is explicit, however, in breaking with the condemnations of taboo subjects in order to deliver the language necessary to provide black, queer people with a heartfelt, futurist folk –– a new mother tongue constructed to override his prolonged inability to articulate his love life because he had no knowledge of an established standard for speaking about intimate experiences beyond the binary lens of heterosexuality. In being vulnerable enough to vocalize his journey, serpentwithfeet encourages a systematic dismantling of the shame that is appended to homosexuality through the creation of a sonic space buoyed by radical acts of love and sustained repetition of his innermost thoughts. “I remember growing up there was language for how men and women interact. I don’t have a lot of examples of black gay men that are out here thriving. Because of social media we see more examples but at the time when I was thinking about this and dealing with my own relationship, I had difficulty articulating my feelings. I hate to say it , but I think there is still a lot of shame around two black men dating and loving on each other and I was very aware of that. While working on soil, i was exploring and trying to make sense of my needs and my love language.  Because of this process, I’ve fallen in love with my idiosyncrasies. I’m growing my hair again. With this album I gave myself permission to let the leaves grow, let the flowers bloom, let myself be hairy and let my sound be hairy. I’m excited about the way things naturally come out of my body. I am always going to embrace discipline and streamlining. But I’m in a space at the moment where I don’t need or desire the corset. It’s time for expansiveness.”

Childqueen is something of a Hero's Quest. In the opening "Procession," above a muted drummer's march, an unseen oracle announces to you, the listener: "every morning is a chance to renew, a chance to renew." This is your first clue, setting you on a path to what Kadhja has christened the "childqueen," that innermost self that you were truthfully and instinctively before the weight of the world came crashing in. As with her 2016 debut The Visitor, the songs on Childqueen are never casual, never ditties. Instead, they invite us into a world not wholly our own, a half-mythical atmosphere where past and future meet in a parallel, yet faraway, present. Acting as a sort of diffuse chanteuse, Kadhja's achingly lovely voice achieves what can only be described as "ambient song." Particularly in songs like "Delphine" and "Nostalgia," we hear the jazzier intricacies of the vocal melodies brushed soft at the edges, at times so soft they vaporize into pure mood, or merge with other instruments or with backing vocals that seem to emanate from celestials bodies. And the instruments— played mostly by the polymathic Bonet herself— mix the cinematically and classically orchestral with the noticeably more synthetic. On tracks like "Thoughts Around Tea" or "Another Time Lover," flutes, violins, guitars, drums, and bells share or trade the stage with acousmatic warbles, whooshes, and lines, each gently couching the contours of the others. By combining softer enchantments with an ever-listenable experimentalism, Kadhja has created a soundscape the listener sinks into, unplaceable in genre and decade from beginning to end. Despite its soft tones, despite its listenability, Childqueen challenges us as much as Kadhja's self-description: "I don't like calling myself an artist. I don't like calling myself a singer— or even a musician." This isn’t just paradox. Kadhja came to music early through a maniacally rigorous classical training in her childhood, mastering the violin and viola, in addition to picking up the flute, guitar, and formal composition. But she abandoned classical music for wilder groves, and credits what she now creates as springing from a place of intuition and candid self-reflection rather than theory or her academic past. The Kadhja that leads us through Childqueen is unyielding, truth-seeking, and even mildly misanthropic, dismayed by humanity's talent for self-deception. She urges us to do better. These urges may come in rebuffs to our daily thoughtlessness, from the possible love sacrificed to business sense in "Thoughts Around Tea" to the caustic calls from the title track: "what's the matter, don't you got a man, to tell you what you're worth to him? Where you been at Childqueen?" At other points, her tone turns imploring, as in "Delphine," or encouraging as in "Second Wind" which serves to remind "sometimes I forget, moss grows from my lips. I am fertile. I am rich. I am moist and mineral." The lyrics and melodic lines nudge us along a path of self-discovery— or act as breadcrumbs along her own path. Everything that you hear on Childqueen was created by Kadhja, who has always produced all her own music, insisting on a total vision that is nearly as difficult to co-create as a dream. She does confess: "this record crushed my ego, and I'm surprised I'm still alive." Nevertheless, music remains for Kadhja Bonet a primarily solitary activity, one in which she can tender a connection with that innermost self, the childqueen. The rest of the world, if it pleases, is welcome to listen in, and join her quest.

In 2018, Low will turn twenty-five. Since 1993, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker—the married couple whose heaven-and-earth harmonies have always held the band’s center—have pioneered a subgenre, shrugged off its strictures, recorded a Christmas classic, become a magnetic onstage force, and emerged as one of music’s most steadfast and vital vehicles for pulling light from our darkest emotional recesses. But Low will not commemorate its first quarter-century with mawkish nostalgia or safe runs through songbook favorites. Instead, in faithfully defiant fashion, Low will release its most brazen, abrasive (and, paradoxically, most empowering) album ever: Double Negative, an unflinching eleven-song quest through snarling static and shattering beats that somehow culminates in the brightest pop song of Low’s career. To make Double Negative, Low reenlisted B.J. Burton, the quietly energetic and adventurous producer who has made records with James Blake, Sylvan Esso, and The Tallest Man on Earth in recent years while working as one of the go-to figures at Bon Iver’s home studio, April Base. Burton recorded Low’s last album, 2015’s Ones and Sixes, at April Base, adding might to many of its beats and squelch and frisson beneath many of its melodies. This time, though, Sparhawk, Parker, and bassist Steve Garrington knew they wanted to go further with Burton and his palette of sounds, to see what someone who is, as Sparhawk puts it, “a hip-hop guy” could truly do to their music. Rather than obsessively write and rehearse at home in Duluth, Minnesota, they would often head southeast to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, arriving with sketches and ideas that they would work on for days with Burton. Band and producer became collaborative cowriters, building the pieces up and breaking them down and building them again until their purpose and force felt clear. As the world outside seemed to slide deeper into instability, Low repeated this process for the better part of two years, pondering the results during tours and breaks at home. They considered not only how the fragments fit together but also how, in the United States of 2018, they functioned as statements and salves. Double Negative is, indeed, a record perfectly and painfully suited for our time. Loud and contentious and commanding, Low fights for the world by fighting against it. It begins in pure bedlam, with a beat built from a loop of ruptured noise waging war against the paired voices of Sparhawk and Parker the moment they begin to sing during the massive “Quorum.” For forty minutes, they indulge the battle, trying to be heard amid the noisy grain, sometimes winning and sometimes being tossed toward oblivion. In spite of the mounting noise, Sparhawk and Parker still sing. Or maybe they sing because of the noise. For Low, has there ever really been a difference?

all songs produced by JPEGMAFIA all songs written by JPEGMAFIA all songs mixed & mastered by JPEGMAFIA To Baltimore: 💕 u

For a jazz drummer, Makaya McCraven has a rather unorthodox way of making albums. Back in 2014, he began hosting a live-improv series with other like-minded Chicago musicians. “We recorded everything, and I started to just mess with it as samples,” McCraven tells Apple Music. He would pluck out the best parts from those extended jams and, with digital editing software, build entirely new tracks. The result—2015’s aptly titled *In the Moment*—introduced a style of hip-hop-inspired production that owes as much to Madlib as it does Sun Ra. But it still comes down to that source material. “It’s always about playing with lots of people, in lots of situations, and exploring as many avenues as I can to push me to grow as an artist,” he says. Culled from what he calls “spontaneous compositions”—recorded live with different ensembles in four cities, then recomposed digitally—*Universal Beings*, McCraven\'s third official album, is both a testament to his creative ambitions and a pulse-taking of modern jazz. British tenor heavyweight Shabaka Hutchings, who appears on the Chicago sessions, plays with rhythmic ferocity, while fellow London saxophonist Nubya Garcia offers laidback counterpoint to Ashley Henry’s moody Rhodes piano. \"I think they’re coming from more of a groove sensibility,” McCraven says of his London collaborators, some of whom he met literally moments before they took the stage together for these recordings. “A lot of them are tapping into the diverse fabric of the city, with music from the West Indies, Afrobeat, British soul.” With abundant harp from Brandee Younger and cello from Tomeka Reid, the tracks from New York only hint at conventional jazz idioms, instead leaning more heavily on abstract elements of classical, rock, and R&B. And on the songs made from the LA session at guitarist Jeff Parker’s house, energetic free-jazz flourishes mix with gloriously off-kilter drums and the musicians themselves ruminating on consciousness, happiness, and human potential. When McCraven tells Apple Music, “The music exists in an alternate universe, an alternate reality,” it’s just as much a comment on the album’s sample-based structure as its overarching philosophy.

Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In The Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced & re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation & experimentation In The Moment established a procedural blueprint that he has since been sharpening & developing. Honing this process on narrower sets of source material, Makaya followed up In The Moment with 2 mixtape releases – 2017’s Highly Rare, a lo-fi free-jazz-meets-hip-hop suite he made from a live 4-track recording, and June 2018’s Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape), which he produced using live recordings from London jazz hub Total Refreshment Centre (captured at a showcase called CHICAGOxLONDON). Now, after 4+ years of refining his approach, Makaya McCraven puts forth an ambitious new work – Universal Beings – a culmination of concepts conceived by In The Moment, and his most elegant & articulated work yet. Spurred by a desire to connect with old friends & new collaborators in places where similar spirits & diasporic jazz innovations are thriving, Makaya worked with International Anthem across late 2017 & early 2018 to setup intimate live sessions in New York & Chicago, and pop-up “studio” sessions in London & Los Angeles. Though the contexts and logistics were D.I.Y. (as they almost always are with IARC), the friends & friends-of-friends that Makaya was able to enlist are top tier players across the board. Some might call them super groups of “new” jazz musicians from their respective cities, with Makaya as a common denominator. But more importantly, collectively they make an inspiring display of the organic global inter-connectedness of the Black American music tradition in 2018. Physically spanning national & international borders to create an album that musically spans deep spiritual jazz meditations, pulsing post-bop grooves & straight-ahead boom-bap, Makaya McCraven defies the simplifications of revisionism & regionalism while celebrating the sounds, settings & stories that define the provenance of his work. Universal Beings projects an all-encompassing message of unity, peace & power by embracing transcendence in all its expressions.

The Beths occupy a warm, energetic sonic space between joyful hooks, sun-soaked harmonies, and acerbic lyrics. Their debut album "Future Me Hates Me," forthcoming on Carpark Records, delivers an astonishment of roadtrip-ready pleasures, each song hitting your ears with an exhilarating endorphin rush like the first time you heard Slanted and Enchanted or “Cannonball.” Front and center on these ten infectious tracks is lead singer and primary songwriter Elizabeth Stokes. Stokes has previously worked in other genres within Auckland’s rich and varied music scene, recently playing in a folk outfit, but it was in exploring the angst-ridden sounds of her youth that she found her place. “Fronting this kind of band was a new experience for me,” says Stokes. “I never thought I had the right voice for it.” From the irresistible title track to future singles “Happy Unhappy” and “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” Stokes commands a vocal range that spans from the brash confidence of Joan Jett to the disarming vulnerability of Jenny Lewis. Further honeying "Future Me Hates Me"’s dark lyrics that explore complex topics like being newly alone and the self-defeating anticipation of impending regret, ecstatic vocal harmonies bubble up like in the greatest pop and R+B of the ‘60s, while inverting the trope of the “sad dude singer accompanied by a homogenous girl-sound.” All four members of The Beths studied jazz at university, resulting in a toolkit of deft instrumental chops and tricked-out arrangements that operate on a level rarely found in guitar-pop. Beths guitarist and studio guru Jonathan Pearce (whose other acts as producer include recent Captured Tracks signing Wax Chattels) brings it all home with an approach that’s equal parts seasoned perfectionist and D.I.Y. “There’s a lot of sad sincerity in the lyrics,” she continues, “that relies on the music having a light heart and sense of humor to keep it from being too earnest.” Channeling their stew of personal-canon heroes while drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Alvvays and Courtney Barnett, The Beths serve up deeply emotional lyrics packaged within heavenly sounds that delight in probing the limits of the pop form. “That’s another New Zealand thing,” Stokes concludes with a laugh. “We’re putting our hearts on our sleeves—and then apologizing for it.” The result is nothing less than one of the standout records of 2018.

Speaking to *The Guardian*, British singer-songwriter-producer Dev Hynes described his fourth LP under the Blood Orange name as “an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, an honest look at the corners of black existence, and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of color.” Recorded on-the-go in studios around the world (Tokyo, Florence, Copenhagen) with whatever was lying around at the time (“If I go to a studio and they only have an acoustic guitar, then I’ll go with that.”), *Negro Swan* splices Hynes’ impressionistic R&B with recorded conversation and spoken word, the most haunting snippets taken from writer and transgender-rights activist Janet Mock (“Family”) and a surprisingly vulnerable Puff Daddy (“Hope”). The result is dreamy but incisive, melancholic but alive, lonesome but communal. “When you wake up/It’s not the first thing you wanna know,” he sings on “Charcoal Baby,” a highlight. “Can you still count/All the reasons that you’re not alone?”

Producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter and vocalist Devonte Hynes returns with his fourth album as Blood Orange, Negro Swan. Raised in England, Hynes started out as a teenage punk in the UK band Test Icicles before releasing two orchestral acoustic pop records as Lightspeed Champion. In 2011, he released Coastal Grooves, the first of three solo albums under the moniker Blood Orange. His last album, Freetown Sound, was released to critical acclaim in 2016, and saw Hynes defined as one of the foremost musical voices of his time, receiving comparisons to the likes of KendrickLamar and D’Angelo for his own searing and soothing personal document of life as a black man in America. He has collaborated with Solange Knowles, FKA Twigs, and many other artists, and was recently one of four artists invited to the Kennedy Center to perform alongside Philip Glass. In addition to his production work, he scored the film Palo Alto, directed by Gia Coppola and starring James Franco. Hynes’ newest album, Negro Swan, was written and produced by Hynes. Says Hynes: "My newest album is an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, an honest look at the corners of black existence, and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of color. A reach back into childhood and modern traumas, and the things we do to get through it all. The underlying thread through each piece on the album is the idea of HOPE, and the lights we can try to turn on within ourselves with a hopefully positive outcome of helping others out of their darkness."

As one of Berlin’s rising-star DJ/producers, Peggy Gou stirs up vintage-sounding house and disco with tribal rhythms, burbling acid basslines, and sensual vocals. *Once*, her first EP for London label Ninja Tune, finds her singing over her own compositions for the first time ever—and in her native Korean. Hear her breathy vocals on “It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)” and whisper-rapping on the party cut “Han Jan,” which features an English-sung chorus.

Laying solid foundations in the underground through 2016 and 2017, Peggy Gou is poised to blow up in 2018. In April she will make her debut at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, but she is kicking off the year in impeccable style with a Resident Advisor Podcast, closing her mix with stunning new single ‘It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)’ lifted from her forthcoming EP “Once” for Ninja Tune (due on 2nd March 2018). Sleek, instantly danceable and effortless in its simplicity, it shows off a new dimension to Peggy’s signature production style, featuring her singing for the first time - and in her mother tongue Korean too - “I’ve recorded my voice before but this time I tried to sing… I'm not a pro singer but I did my best,” she laughs. Describing the 3-track 12” entitled “Once”, she says: “I really wanted to represent different styles and moods on this EP, from 'open air' warm-up vibes to ‘proper party’. I tried to draw on all my influences of the last few years, from electro, African music, early 90s house music and also techno, especially Maurice Fulton and DMX Krew.” Korean born and residing in Berlin, Peggy Gou has built a sterling reputation for herself via a handful of standout 12”s on Rekids, Phonica White and 2016’s “Seek For Maktoop” EP on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint. The combination of her own profoundly groove-led musical output partnered with her passion and flair in the DJ booth playing week in, week out across the globe - from Glastonbury Festival to Panorama bar, De School, DC-10 and Dekmantel Festival - has won her fans in rapidly increasing numbers. Among them are Jackmaster who invited Peggy to play his Mastermix parties in Glasgow, Dublin and Manchester; plus the annual Numbers showcase in London; and a special B2B in Lisbon, and Btraits who invited Peggy to record a coveted “Future 12” mix series for BBC Radio 1. Stream/Download ‘It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)’ now. “Once” 12”/Digital will be released on 2nd March 2018 featuring stunning artwork by fellow Korean illustrator Jee-ook Choi.

Since they appeared with their self-titled, self-released EP back in 2016, Flasher has exuded both a clarity of intent and a radiant self-confidence. Critically applauded from the start, that initial release offered a clear blueprint. By turns razor sharp and woozy, skipping from shoegaze to punk and back again, it offered confirmation of a band whose wiry energy and melodic ease made them instantly arresting. After the release of one more 7” (the wonderfully nervous stutter of Winnie), they quickly found themselves signed to Domino and have since been quietly working on their full-length debut - Constant Image. Recorded in 2017 across a few sleep-deprived weeks at Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, NY, it was produced by Nicolas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, War On Drugs) and crackles with invention. This isn’t the sound of a band finding their feet, it’s the rare sound of three people who know exactly what they want to achieve from the start. From their hometown of Washington, DC, with its rich history of idiosyncratic underground music, Flasher - Taylor Mulitz on guitar, bassist Daniel Saperstein and drummer Emma Baker - has emerged at the forefront of a vibrant musical present. The three of them share vocal duties, sometimes harmonizing in gorgeous counter-melodies that sweep you away, sometimes taking turns to sing in nervous fits of emotion. Constant Image is an album of anxiety and escape, but also one of euphoria and freedom. There’s weight and lightness here. It’s not often a debut album arrives in so complete a form but when it does you know you’ve got something special on your hands.

Marie Davidson’s new album turns the mirror on herself. "Working Class Woman” is the Montreal-based producer’s fourth and most self-reflective record: it’s a document of her state of mind, a reflection of the past year she’s spent living in Berlin, and a comment on the stresses and strains of operating within the spheres of dance music and club culture. Drawing on those experiences, as well as an array of writers, thinkers and filmmakers who’ve influenced her, Davidson’s response to such difficult moments is to explore her own reaction to them and poke fun. “It comes from my brain, through my own experiences: the suffering and the humour, the fun and the darkness to be Marie Davidson.” It’s an honest document of where she currently stands. As she puts it, “It’s an egotistical album – and I’m okay with that.” She builds on the dancefloor-minded trajectory charted by her previous record "Adieux Au Dancefloor” [Cititrax / Minimal Wave], which drew praise from the likes of Pitchfork (“a project that indicates exciting and near-exponential growth in her ability as a writer and producer”), The Fader and Resident Advisor, and opened up her sound to a new, wider audience, earning support from peers such as Nina Kraviz and Jessy Lanza. The record is informed by a career which has spanned an ambient-influenced album as Les Momies De Palerme for Montreal’s Constellation label (home to Godspeed! You Black Emperor); her synth-disco styled duo DKMD with David Kristian; and Essaie Pas, signed to DFA, and with whom she’s shaped minimal synth and "cyberpunk coldwave” (the Guardian) sounds into a fresh mould, in partnership with husband and collaborator Pierre Guerineau. The sound of "Working Class Woman" is more direct than any of her previous outings. She still mines the same influences, from Italo Disco, to proto-industrial and electro, but leadens them with a gut-punching weight, making for a record that’s more visceral than any she’s released before. It’s combined with her characteristically-deployed spoken text – rather than spoken word, which she sees as a distinct tradition – that carries a more darkly humourous edge than before, making observations on both aspects of club culture as well as more oblique critiques of the modern world. It’s a record poised between dark and light. Industrial heaviness is balanced by Davidson’s words; dark, textured soundscapes are counterweighted by statements or observations which never take themselves too seriously. It’s something that’s encapsulated in the driving momentum of ‘So Right’: it matches pared back lyrics with a melodic bassline and bright synths, her words sketching out a euphoric feeling that chimes with the music. It’s the first single from the record, and comes backed by a John Talabot remix, where he slows down the momentum, creating a mellow pace guided a languorous bassline. In ‘Work It’, she probes her workaholic nature. In her opening spoken line, she declares, “You wanna know how I get away with everything? I work, all the fucking time.” The track is, appropriately, unrelenting: it’s a robotic, jacking groove that’s short but sweet. This track also hints at another influence on the record, which is Davidson's response to her life as a touring musician. Both under her own name, and with Essaie Pas, touring has taken up the best part of her last year and is an experience which she’s found both enriching and draining. Her stops have included Sonar Festival - where she performed her "Bullshit Threshold” show, combining performance, spoken text, video projections and analogue hardware - Primavera, Dekmantel and MUTEK in recent times. On the one hand, her live set is a creative endeavour that feeds back into her music. Playing, and travelling, on her own - which means marshalling a table of gear including sequencers, synths and a mic for her to sing and talk into (as well as transporting them between each of her shows) - allows her to improvise and play each set in a different way to the last. But at the same time, it requires her to project a persona: a demand that can become dispiriting. Another of the album’s early moments is ‘The Psychologist’, carried by a moody techno swagger that suggests a playfulness evident throughout the record. On ‘Day Dreaming’, soft chimes provide a moment of colourful respite, swirled around with a soft-focus ambience. In contrast, ‘The Tunnel’ is an ominous deep-dive into industrial sound-blasts, where Davidson darkly narrates, “I'm in the tunnel with all the other monsters and it's so messy.” And in ‘Burn Me’, she takes a turn at a more straightforward club rhythm, building up drones, an acid bassline and flashes of percussion into a tense slow-burn. Part of her response to these difficult scenarios is to turn to writers whose work offers guidance or inspiration. Recently, this has meant the likes of psychologist Alice Miller, physician Gabor Maté and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (in particular, his book Psychomagic). Their work explores ideas of the self and the ways in which people develop; relating their theories or stories to herself, it’s pushed her to explore the notion of therapy in relation to art and dreams. In turn, she has filtered her own reflections through their ideas. She’s always reached outward for the diverse influences that have informed her music, touching on big concepts and musical touchstones alike. But it’s with this release that she’s applied the same degree of focus to herself. The album is the product of a personal process: she looks inward to project a more expansive vision to the world.

Trombonist Ryan Porter has gained exposure with saxophone sensation Kamasi Washington, but *The Optimist*, his debut, was recorded some years before Washington hit the limelight. The grooves run from sultry to driving and powerful, with open, ecstatic stretches of improvisation, on tracks like “Anaya” and “The Instrumental Hip-Hoppa.” It’s a sound that runs through the blood of West Coast Get Down—through players like pianist Cameron Graves, bassist Miles Mosley, and Washington himself. They acquit themselves well here, buoyed by Porter’s big tone and pliant legato lyricism.

On February 23, 2018, West Coast Get Down's Ryan Porter will launch the 2CD / 3LP set The Optimist on World Galaxy. The Optimist pulls together veterans of the LA music scene, including West Coast Get Down alumni Kamasi Washington (tenor saxophone), Miles Mosley (upright bass), Cameron Graves (piano, fender rhodes), Tony Austin (drums), Jumaane Smith (trumpet), Edward Livingston (upright bass), Aaron Haggerty (drums), Brandon Coleman (fender rhodes), Dominic Therioux (electric bass), Robert Miller (drums), and Lyndon Rochelle (drums). The Optimist was recorded at Kamasi's parents house between 2008 and 2009, captured inside a small tiny basement area their crew called "The Shack." This was before The Epic catapulted the group into the highest stratospheres of jazz music and feature associations started to populate through the world of Kendrick Lamar. Ryan Porter has spread his craft to the masses for decades, included on critically acclaimed albums such as the Original Netflix Series soundtrack The Get Down, Push The Sky Away from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Epic LP and Truth EP from Kamasi Washington, To Pimp A Butterfly from Kendrick Lamar, and many more. The Optimist represents these albums and the incubation period that's continually reverberated through his career, seasoned with the brilliance these individuals build on as a unified cell.

3. renaissance man ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ executive producer - darryl johnson ~~~~~~~~~ 1. Negro World (Intro) w/ joygill moriah 2. Sidewalk Soldier (Wat-Da-Policies4?) w/ anthony marshall 3. Goliath w/ anthony marshall 4. Decision Tower 5. Time will tell 6. Why I’m Here? w/ red lee 7. resistant man w/ adé hakim 8. MOTHER OF GOD w/ victoria bonema 9. INVESTIGATE 311 INVESTIGATE 311 INVESTIGATE 311 10. Peace Offering w/ fleece files 11. For the Nation w/ king carter & camden malik 12. Rebirth (Outro) ~~~~~~~ (soundcloud.com/t6mikee/renaissance-man) (www.youtube.com/watch?v=f52m5jf6dgA) resistant man video ! <3 <3 grateful 2k18

How To Socialise & Make Friends anchors on the cycles of life, loss, and growth through resilience, and those moments of finding and being yourself. The title track and “Animal and Real” celebrate the joys of being an independent unit and knowing who you are without any influencing external factors, while “Anna” and “Sagan-Indiana” speak to the love you feel towards friends – the women who shape you and work together to find strength in numbers. “The Face of God” is a raw account of sexual assault and the feelings of isolation that follow, and album closer “I’ve Got You” showcases vocalist and guitarist Georgia Maq solo, singing of her late father’s battle with cancer and their close friendship that prevails, even in death. Throughout the nine songs on How To Socialise & Make Friends, it becomes clear that if their 2016 self-titled debut was the flame, this is Camp Cope rising from the ashes, stronger and more focused than ever. Camp Cope – Maq (vocals/guitar), Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich (bass) and Sarah Thompson (drums) – have become a force in music since forming in 2015. Their Australian Music Prize-shortlisted debut saw critical acclaim from all corners, including Pitchfork (8.0, “effusive, empathic, and emphatic”), Noisey (‘Best Albums of 2016’), Brooklyn Vegan (“one of the most promising debuts from a young new band this year”), and DIY (“it’s rare to find a band with the sheer songwriting ability and integrity of Camp Cope”), among others. They sold out two shows at Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid LIVE 2017, headlined Melbourne’s Weekender Fest 2017, and toured the US for the first time earlier this year, playing through 13 states with Worriers.

Hey guys, check out our new merch page!

by Will Toledo download to get a lyrics sheet with illustrations by Cate Wurtz (lamezone.net)

“Dear listeners. This is the first track from my new album, Dead Magic! Me, my band and Randall Dunn spent 9 days in Copenhagen recording this record. The great pipe organ you’re hearing is a 20th century instrument located in Marmor Kirken, "The Marble Church", Copenhagen. Here is a poem for you by the Swedish writer Walter Ljungquist (1900-1974): ”Take the fate of a human being, a thin pathetic line that contours and encircles an infinite and unknown silence. It is in this very silence, in an only imagined and unknown centre, that legends are born. Alas! That is why there are no legends in our time. Our time is a time deprived of silence and secrets; in their absence no legends can grow." Please enjoy the music. Yours sincerely, Anna von Hausswolff"

A distillate, by it’s very nature, is purified, clearer than that which is left in it’s wake. When we talk of finding the heart of something, what to make of the rest, of everything that is flayed away searching for an imagined greater truth. Then comes Victor Frankenstein in the boneyard, with a Tesla coil and a wooden wagon with a creaky wheel. Looking for freshly turned earth. Chances are they’re only a few feet deep, it’s cheap work, and they get lazy, same as anyone. The spade sinks right in, the ground is soft. It’s been a wet spell. The townspeople will be raging soon, but tonight, they sleep. Backwoodz Studioz will be releasing Paraffin, the new project from Armand Hammer (ELUCID & billy woods), on August 30th. Paraffin is less a follow up to 2017’s Rome than an un-guided tour through the labyrinths beneath it. Paraffin features production from Messiah Musik, ELUCID, Ohbliv, August Fanon, Willie Green and Kenny Segal, along with a blistering feature from Sketch185. The digital version of the album differs in certain ways from the vinyl , and makes for what we hope is a more expansive listen.

mastered by PJ Ricks bless to everybody apart. love prosperity peace and power. cover shot by Kara Yancey @yng_kara

D.C. grindcore titans Pig Destroyer—like Agoraphobic Nosebleed, the enigmatic troupe with whom they’ve shared multiple members over the years—have always excelled at finding beauty in brutality. *Head Cage*, their multilayered, ambitious sixth album, keeps in that vein—J.R. Hayes’ dark lyrics, set against aggressive, off-kilter riffs and thunderous blast beats, use poetry as a weapon. This LP is also a more of a collaborative effort than usual: ANb bassist John Jarvis makes his recorded debut with the band (resulting in the first bass to feature on a Pig Destroyer album), and significantly thickens the overall sound. Additionally, ANb vocalists Richard Johnson and Kat Katz show up (on the pummeling hardcore anthem “Army of Cops” and the short, nasty blast “Terminal Itch,” respectively), while Jason Hodges (Suppression, Brown Piss, Bermuda Triangles) joins in on the thrashy, self-explanatory “The Adventures of Jason and Jr.”

After six long, harsh years of absence, the mighty PIG DESTROYER have reassembled to eradicate eardrums and split skulls with their highly anticipated sixth full-length opus, entitled Head Cage (named after a grisly medieval torture device). A visceral vortex of animalistic rage and extreme sonic brilliance, Head Cage is a true work of extreme metal art, that with the addition of a bass player, is hands down their most dynamic and heaviest recording to date. Across twelve tracks, PIG DESTROYER weave together harrowing tales of philosophical dualities, touching on mortality and depression, fear and violence, and the darkest complexities of the human condition, all told through the distorted lens of delightfully transgressive vocalist/lyricist JR Hayes. Musically, the band continues to push the boundaries of metal, grindcore, noise and punk, ramping up the intensity and leaving you bludgeoned in a state of utter shock, all in less than 33 minutes. Head Cage was recorded by guitarist Scott Hull at Visceral Sound Studios, mixed and mastered by Will Putney (Exhumed, Every Time I Die, Body Count) and features striking artwork by Mark McCoy (Full of Hell, Nothing) along with guest vocal appearances by Agoraphobic Nosebleed's Richard Johnson and Kat Katz plus Full Of Hell's Dylan Walker. PLAY AT MAXIMUM VOLUME!

Like Nina Simone and Sun Ra, Georgia Anne Muldrow is one of those artists who manifests more as an attitude than a sound. She’s made hip-hop, she’s made soul, she’s made jazz (or something like it); she may have—through her guest spot on Erykah Badu’s 2008 track “Master Teacher”—helped warm the culture up to the word “woke.” Executive-produced in part by Flying Lotus (and released on his Brainfeeder label), *Overload* is easily one of the most concise albums of her career. It’s proof that while Muldrow’s presence (earthy but avant-garde) and range (generous, limitless?) remain her deepest philosophical offerings, she can squeeze herself into songs, too: the slanted hip-hop of the title track, the zero-gravity R&B of “Canadian Hillbilly,” the wonky ragtime of “These Are the Things I Really Like About You.” Lotus, yes, Solange, yes, Kendrick, yes—but *Overload*, too. In 2019, the album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album, presumably because the culture has nowhere else to put it.

Georgia Anne Muldrow releases her new album - a modern soul classic in the making - titled “Overload” via Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder record label. During her 12 year career she has earned the respect and admiration of listeners and peers alike via her incredible talent not only as a vocalist and songwriter spanning jazz, soul and hip-hop, but her long standing role as a producer and musician. “You’re my Jay Electronica… you take it there,” declares Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest. He is one of a long list of admirers including Mos Def (“She’s incredible. She’s like [Roberta] Flack, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, she’s something else.”), Erykah Badu, Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange (“She is one of my favourite musicians in the world”), Bilal and Robert Glasper who invited Georgia to perform on his “Miles Ahead” OST in 2016. “Music is my discipline. It’s my way of meditating, it’s my way of thanking God, it’s my way of communicating… It’s my way of life,” Georgia explains. Typically working alone, her new album flips that dynamic and takes Georgia out of her comfort zone for the first time since “Seeds” (2003) which was entirely produced by Madlib. “Overload” bears the fruits of numerous collaborations, most notably with duo Mike & Keys (50 Cent, Nipsey Hussle, Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy) who contribute production to four tracks including the sleek, anthemic title track - Pitchfork ‘Best New Track’ on 25 June 2018 - alongside Khalil (Dr Dre). “Overload [the album] is an experiment in restraint,” she explains. I pack myself into something as clear as possible with the help of gifted artists from all over the world. The live show is an experiment in interpretation. That's when [my band] The Righteous and I unpack into a joyful noise. Both of these dynamics have been striving to balance themselves within me since birth… since wanting to record anything. And by the grace of Patience, Discipline and Devotion, a sweet spot has started to appear.” Elsewhere Dutchman Moods and Manila’s Lustbass bring the slo-mo funk heat on ‘Aerosol’ and ‘Vital Transformation’ respectively, and Shana Jenson (Muldrow) and Georgia’s partner Dudley Perkins crop up on ‘You Can Always Count On Me’ (a cover of the Gap Band classic) and ‘These Are The Things I Like About You’. Flying Lotus, Aloe Blacc and Dudley Perkins share Executive Production credits on the album. Themes of Love, Spirituality, Self-Actualisation are woven into Georgia’s music, but she also does not shy away from politics and has been loudly and vigorously critical of the persistent state of inequality between Black and White in the US. Nowhere more directly than on ‘Blam’ - a song about self-defence. “I believe that it has the bones of spiritual song,” says Georgia. “It’s an updated negro spiritual in aesthetic”. Georgia was 17 when she began making beats in earnest, but first lit up the scene with her debut album “Olesi: Fragments Of An Earth” in 2006. It was at this time that Georgia met, befriended and collaborated with the likes of Madlib, Oh No, MED (fka Medaphoar), Wildchild, DJ Romes and her future partner Dudley Perkins aka Declaime. She co-founded the SomeOthaShip Connect record label with Dudley in 2008, the platform and springboard for many of her musical travels that have expanded and extended down myriad pathways. Georgia has collected many names over the years: Ms. One, Pattie Blingh & The Akebulan 5, an electro fusion collaboration with DJ Romes called Blackhouse and astral jazz outings as Jyoti - a Hindu name given to Georgia by her Aunt Radha’s friend Alice Coltrane (they attended the same ashram) and serendipitously Great Aunt to one Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus. “She showed me so much love as a child. She knew I was going to work with synthesisers before I did,” laughs Georgia. It is fitting that a decade on in 2018, Georgia should sign to Brainfeeder - a record label deeply embedded in LA, with a ton of shared history, shared beliefs and a united vision of the future - to release her stunning new album “Overload”.

With every record, Damon McMahon aka Amen Dunes has transformed, and Freedom is the project’s boldest leap yet. The first LP,  D.I.A., was a gnarled underground classic, recorded and played completely by McMahon in a trailer in upstate New York over the course of a month and left as is. The fourth and most recent LP Love, a record that enlisted Godspeed! You Black Emperor as both producers and backing band (along with an additional motley crew including  Elias Bender  Rønnenfelt of Iceage and Colin Stetson), featured songs confidently far removed from the damaged drug pop of Amen Dunes’ trailer-park origins.  Love  took two years to make. Freedom took three. The first iteration of the album was recorded in 2016 following a year of writing in Lisbon and NYC, but it was scrapped completely. Uncertain how to move forward, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends, and began anew. Along with his core band members, including  Parker Kindred  (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came  Chris Coady  (Beach House) as producer and  Delicate Steve  on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground musician Panoram from Rome. McMahon discovered Panoram’s music in a shop in London and became enamored. Following this the two became friends and here Panoram finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record. The bulk of the songs were recorded at the famed  Electric Lady Studios  in NYC (home of Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, D’Angelo), and finished at the similarly legendary  Sunset Sound in L.A., where McMahon,  Nick Zinner, and session bass player extraordinaire  Gus Seyffert  (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings. On the surface, Freedom  is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording. The characters that populate the musical world of  Freedom  are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy: father and mother, Amen Dunes, teenage glue addicts and Parisian drug dealers, ghosts above the plains, fallen surf heroes, vampires, thugs from Naples and thugs from Houston, the emperor of Rome, Jews, Jesus, Tashtego, Perseus, even McMahon himself. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past. Yet, if anything, these 11 songs are a relinquishing of all of them through exposition; a gradual reorientation of being away from the acquired definitions of self we all cling to and towards something closer to what's stated in the  Agnes Martin quote that opens the record, “I don’t have any ideas myself; I have a vacant mind” and in the swirling, pitched down utterances of “That's all not me” that close it. The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The combination of a powerhouse rhythm section, Delicate Steve’s guitar prowess filtered through Amen Dunes heft, and Panoram’s electronic production background, makes for a special and unique NYC street record. It’s a sound never heard before on an Amen Dunes record, but one that was always asking to emerge. Eleven songs span a range of emotions, from contraction to release and back again. ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Calling Paul the Suffering’ are pure, ecstatic dance songs. ‘Skipping School’ and ‘Miki Dora’ are incantations of a mythical heroic maleness and its illusions. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Believe’ offer a street tough’s future-gospel exhalation, and the funk-grime grit of ‘L.A.’ closes the album, projecting a musical hint of things to come.

Hilary Woods’ artistry is one of rare emotive reach. Her minimalist and compositional finesse combine with densely layered atmospheric instrumentation and dreamlike vocals to create music rich with both delicacy and intensity. The Sunday Times hailed her early solo recordings as “a revelation.” After the release of two critically acclaimed EPs, Woods spent 2017 writing and recording songs on an eight-track in an abandoned flat she was living in at the time. Layering piano, synth, tape machine, field recordings, vocals, drone, unadorned beats, and old string instruments, these songs culminate in her debut solo LP Colt. Straddling the acoustic and electronic worlds, Colt is an intensely personal journey through grief, abandonment, and mutating love. Woods navigates this journey with a lyrical potency that cuts through stark piano, sensuous synth work, and textural acoustics. Somewhere between Marissa Nadler, Grouper and Julee Cruise, these songs evoke both the anguish of their content and the ecstasy of their craft. The power at the heart of Colt is a siren’s song, at once mysterious, dark and beautiful, pulling you in. Opening song “Inhaler” is a conceptual cry for oxygen, illustrating the desolation felt in the absence of a lost lover, but the song’s velvet fluidity feels like a long, enveloping exhale. “Jesus Said” is an entrancing expression of abandonment and catharsis, seeking absolution where none can be found. Percussion is sparse and intentional throughout the record, and “Jesus Said” is one of few songs with prominent beats. When the beat finally breaks the tension of the longing introduction, it creates an intoxicating kaleidoscope of rhythm and improvised piano. Written and recorded at home in Dublin, Colt was mixed by and co-produced with James Kelly (WIFE, Altar of Plagues) in Berlin in the winter of 2017. The dynamics of the production serve to temper layers of instruments, giving the compositions breathing room to match their pacing. Growing up in an artistic household on Dublin’s Northside, Woods studied film and literature, dropping in and out of fine art school. In 2014, she returned to music to record in whatever free space was available in and around the city. A singular vision and tenacious creativity has seen Woods cross multi-disciplinary thresholds, exploring visual and performance art alike. In 2017, she was chosen as Dublin Fringe Festival's “Wild Card” artist after writing a theatre piece from sound design. Whilst earlier in the year she was asked to compose original scores for horror film as part of the Irish Film Institute's season celebrating the cinema of the Weimar Republic. “Colt was created as a way to process and make sense of the everyday,” Woods imparts. “As a means to speak with inner voices, explore aloneness, and understand the complexities of desire. As a vehicle for imaginative flight, as a quest for resilience and connectivity to the outside world, as a medium through which to journey into the present, to temper the mind and inhabit the body.”

This is the debut album release from Toronto based singer/songwriter Witch Prophet. 'The Golden Octave' is a multi-layered offering, mirroring Witch Prophet's intersectionality and lived experiences as an East African, queer, mother living in the diaspora. Recorded at 88th Dimension Studios Mixed + Mastered by Francesca Nocera ** Manifest Mixed + Mastered by Mikaelin 'Blue' Bluespruce **Listen Mixed + Mastered by Brett Zilahi **Reprogram Remix Mixed by Stephen Murray Featured artists: Lido Pimienta - Time Traveler Rosina Kazi - Mirror Lucas Silveira - Listen Production: Sun Sun (Toronto) - Time Traveler, Manifest, Love me, Listen, Indigo Remix, Love Me Remix Sikh Knowledge (Montreal) - Weight Of The World OldSmile (New Jersey) - Stars OCnotes (Seattle) - Indigo Murr (Toronto) - Mirror, Reprogram Phen Ray (Vancouver) - Reprogram Remix All songs were written by Etmet Musa *Listen written by Etmet Musa, Lucas Silveira *Mirror was written by Etmet Musa, Rosina Kazi Executive Produced 88 Days Of Fortune/Heart Lake Records Album Artwork by Francesca Nocera

Deep TR-808 bass meets pan-Maghreb beats, timeless voices and futurist visions. AMMAR 808 is Sofyann Ben Youssef, the sonic mastermind behind the Tunisian sensation: Bargou 08. The future is right now. We have driverless cars, robots taking over jobs, and commercial space travel is on the event horizon. Somehow, humanity has slipped into a science fiction life. But you can’t have a future without a past, something AMMAR 808 knows very well. On his debut release, Maghreb United, featuring the singers Mehdi Nassouli (Morocco), Sofiane Saidi (Algeria) and Cheb Hassen Tej (Tunisia), he connects the two to offer a radical, electronic reinvention of ancient North African music. “The past is a collective heritage,” explains AMMAR 808. He started the project a year ago, after working with the lauded Bargou 08, searching for something to link the sense of what has been with what will be. “It’s what we all call on, what we all share. The music on Maghreb United is the past with now and the future with now. I’m trying to weave threads from folklore and mythology into futurism. And I’m not necessarily projecting a positive image; from all we can see, things aren’t going in the right direction. What I hope is that it will raise an alarm.” Yet there’s also plenty of hope here. With singers from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, songs from the Targ, Gnawa, and Raï histories, and a TR-808 alongside a distorted gumbri (Nassouli), gasba flute and zokra bagpipes (Lassaed Bougalmi), this is an album that reaches out to encompass the entire Maghreb area of North Africa. “In the past the Maghreb was one huge region, yet very diverse within its borders. But today, the world keeps every person separated. The album isn’t so much about a united Maghrebi region, but how we can connect while observing our differences – our differences are also our connection - and using them to unify as humans. This is an example of that.” The choice of songs was also very deliberate for AMMAR 808, with nine of the ten cuts taken from the deep tradition. “It makes a difference when a song survives,” he observes. “It has power. We all die, but a song lives on, it travels through time. I’m trying to pass it forward in a different shape, trying to predict the music in 10, 50, 100 years. Not today, but tomorrow. And if you understand what’s important in the songs, you can use it to bring even more power to the tracks. I grew up with some of those songs; knowing them inside out gives a different perspective. It’s an album that brings power and traditional music together.” The idea for Maghreb United (which is also the name for the album’s performing group) has long been burning in AMMAR 808, but it burst into flame after the musician and producer met all the singers on his regular trips in the region, before returning home to start building the tracks. “The recording itself didn’t take long; everyone involved is very professional. The production took much longer. I ended up with 25 tracks, and I had to pare it down to the one idea that connected them all.” The deep, rumbling growl of the gumbri, the dry, airy tenderness of the gasba, and the softly slithering zokra give a powerful North African root to the music, a thread that spins back through centuries. And the singers burn with fire and grace and passion on lyrics like ‘Tonight our happiness will be complete/Tonight our energy will be complete’ (Layli). But it’s the TR-808 that’s at the heart of Maghreb United and sends it spiraling into the future. “As soon as you put on distortion, filters, samples, the 808 can shape the sound any way you want,” AMMAR 808 points out. It’s a sound shifter, another sense of the future now. “I’m a big science fiction fan; I dream about it. This project is a way to try and build a possible understanding of the world and the musical identity of the world today. It puts everything in a futuristic frame that opens ways to reflect on the present. Experimenting is my way of doing things, and this project is an experiment about a possible future through music and video. Not what will happen, but one possible outcome.” AMMAR 808 intends Maghreb United to be a completely immersive experience, something that will carry over into the live shows. “We’ll be accompanied by a VJ,” he says. “We’ve worked with a team of visual researchers, designers and actors to create a vision, to give the audience a total experience in real time, with everything coming together. The music is quite brutal live, all that bass and heaviness, and it’s not all pre-programmed. I can switch on the fly and go in any direction, we can change arrangements just by looking at each other.” Things can change in the blink of an eye. In life as well as music. “When you talk about today’s problems,” Ammar 808 says, “it’s already too late. People talk about what should be, when you need to project about the future.” And with Maghreb United, that’s exactly what AMMAR 808 does. It’s the great reinvention of a region’s music. It’s a call to action. It’s the future, right now.

Such was the wildly imaginative brilliance of Let’s Eat Grandma’s 2016 debut, *I, Gemini*, that some refused to believe it was the work of two 17-year-old girls from England. “The worst \[response\] was: ‘There must be some guy behind this,’” Jenny Hollingworth told Britain’s *The Times* newspaper in June 2018. Still teenagers, Hollingworth and Rosa Walton shatter misogynistic and patronizing expectations even further with this follow-up. They continue to weave multiple genres into a beguiling alt-pop tapestry, where songs journey through excitingly unpredictable left turns and trap doors. This time though, the melodies are sharper and the rhythms more club-ready. The intervening years have also enriched their words and voices: They examine the frustrations of love with crackling emotion on “Falling into Me” and reach out to a lost soul on aching piano ballad “Ava.”

Haley Heynderickx - Vocals, Acoustic & Electric Guitar Lily Breshears - Electric Bass, Piano, Backing Vocals Tim Sweeney - Upright Bass, Electric Bass Phillip Rogers - Drums & Percussion, Backing Vocals Denzel Mendoza - Trombone, Backing Vocals All songs written by Haley Heynderickx Produced by Zak Kimball Co-produced by Haley Heynderickx Engineered & Mixed by Zak Kimball at Nomah Studios in Portland, Oregon Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Mastering in Portland, Oregon Vinyl cut by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Mastering in Portland, Oregon Cover Photo by Alessandra Leimer Design by Vincent Bancheri

Literally a collection of songs that speaks to; generally, black manhood and the realities of existing in certain spaces. And personally, Mick’s perspective or “lesson learned” interpretations of some of those same ideas. This is exhibited perfectly with the transition of songs like ‘soft porn’ and ‘consensual seduction’ being next to each other in track listing. These are snapshots, accompanied and contextualized by the small excerpts of male conversation you will hear at the ends of songs and twice as interludes on the project. Similar to the healing component. But drawn back a bit after considering the critiques of its presence on the last album. I hope to start discussions much like the one we will record for this album.

The Return is a natural evolution from the Yussef Kamaal project, mining the influence of visionary jazz but blended with all kinds of texture, sounds and signals from the over-saturated London streets. Notable tracks for old and new listeners are ‘Salaam', 'Situations', 'Medina', 'LDN Shuffle' which features Mansur Brown (of Mansur's Message) and for those die hard Yussef Kamaal fans - they should hear the interpolated roots of 'Strings of Light' in the title track 'The Return’. And that signature Wu Funk can be heard on 'Broken Theme', and 'High Roller'. The Return will be the debut album released on Wu's new label Black Focus Records.

Jae expands on his production and speaks in the persona of his alter ego to express a darker side. The 16-track self-produced album was recorded in both Chicago and his Los Angeles home studio The Black Light. Contributions by fellow Black Jungle Squad brethren Oliver The 2nd ("Backpacks"), The Koreatown Oddity ("Figure Skating"), Busdriver ("In Da Zone"), KarenBe ("All Me"), and his legendary band leader (for Miles Davis) and musician father Robert Irving III ("Nefertiti") help carry the album to exalted heights and somber lows. It is with much merit for any one to experience such a wide range of emotions, yet return to an even heightened state of artistry with such artistic beauty and grace. With HIT+RUN creating the glorious double vinyl offering (plus 16-page full-color art book featuring stunning supplementary graphic work by Jae) with multiple collectible one-of-a-kind screenprinted & hand-painted artist gatefold jackets, as well as limited-edition cassette tapes available. All vinyl formats of this modern classic include five bonus tracks ("Bells", "Field", "Harpoon", "Know You" ft. Trenttruce, and a Jae remix of "Streetwatchers") not available on the digital release. “I needed to take sometime away from the scene, social media, everything. A lot of stuff happens in life, sometimes good, sometimes bad. I was in a not good period for some years. Although I still continued to create and release things here and there, It felt like this mass of stress and frustration was surrounding me, and weighing me down. I got to points where I wanted to just give up on everything, for different reasons. One of the hard parts for me is opening up and talking about those feelings to anyone. I’ve always been pretty anti social and it doesn’t help to not communicate, hold everything inside, and act like nothings wrong. I did realize though, the blessing of having music and art a part of my life, and that I needed to use that creative outlet to express these feelings. I began focusing on making a record that could hold that weight and make something new from it. Something that could move you through the darkness to find light at the end of the tunnel. Daffi is a character I used to channel this energy. He is able to say and do the things I can’t.” - Jae

Physical copies and downloads can be purchased via 20 Buck Spin Records (SPIN107)