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With their first LP in over three years, Californian psych-dub duo Peaking Lights offer an outlet from the mundane with a kaleidoscopic collection of lo-fi, escapist-electronic pop. Over their illustrious twelve-year-plus career, the husband and wife duo of Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis have set themselves apart with their characteristic dreamy, and melancholic sound that blends together elements of dub, and delicate-but-quirky electronics. E S C A P E, Peaking Light’s sixth album, and first for Dekmantel, finds them at their finest, replete with atmospheric landscapes crafted out of homemade-percussive loops, that sit alongside wondrous electronic pop and krautrock-like hooks, all tied together by Indra Dunis’ composed and hypnotic vocal charm.

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Now based out in Amsterdam, and having firmly established themselves on Dekmantel with their 2018 EP Sea of Sand, Coyes and Dunis’ unique brand of indie-synthwave yet further explores their ongoing delve into transcendental, psychedelic music. With E S C A P E, the production duo illustrate their pragmatic use of instrumentation and dubbing to create more heady and celestial avant-pop. From the very outset on opening track ‘Dharma’, the band’s iconic retro-dub aesthetic kicks in, before being accompanied by a litany of drum machines, sweeping compressed effects, and Dunis’ hypnotic serene vocals. Coyes, somewhat of a connoisseur and collector of varying studio gear adopts his steadfast dynamic approach to production, playing with new mixing techniques, tape loops, compression and effects throughout. It’s this freedom to indulge, and create new instruments, processes and sounds that have made Peaking Lights unique; an ever-present industriousness that characterises E S C A P E, whether it be on the deep textures of ‘Change Always Comes’, to the cathartic 80s pre-rave-wave of ‘The Damned’.

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E S C A P E is a vibrant moment full of multi-spectral melodies crafted in an aesthetic the group have excelled in and made their own; a style exemplified by their breakout 2011 LP 936. And throughout E S C A P E, whether it’s on the esoteric ‘Eyes Alive’ to the mesmerising beach rhythms of ‘Dreams’, Peaking Lights’ rich and reverberated sonic palette shines through. For both dreamers and dancers alike, the latest offering to Peaking Lights’ illustrious catalogue is a true mind-expanding and fantastical listen full of passion and catharsis. – Bandcamp

Acid bass, slow funk and cosmic energy make for a mind expanding trip in the Liquid Canoe.

Load up on edibles, make it a macro-dose and let the music lead the way.

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Whether you’re hard at work on a Hamburg allotment, basking in the heat of a Balinese beach or enjoying the cool waters of the Salish Sea, remember that the same sky stretches over all of us. And if you forget your finger for a minute and soak in the heavenly beauty instead, you might just catch the cosmic vibrations of Liquid Canoe, the latest members of the Growing Bin family.

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A loose ensemble, Liquid Canoe is the brainchild of Wolfgang Matthes, a lost Angelino who’s swapped the rush and push of a mega city for the space of the Pacific Northwest - and listening to this eight track offering, you’ll realise that space is the place. Armed with an array of vintage synths and programmed rhythms, Wolfgang sketched out a slew of inter dimensional transmissions, inspired by the commune electronics and space rock of 70s Germany and inhabited by the spirit of the boogie. Inviting friends to drop by and lend their own instrumental skill, Wolfgang quickly turned Liquid Canoe into a true collaboration. Finalised in a converted stable on Galiano Island, the LP is a perfect marriage of the electronic and organic, shimmering arps and spheric synth bass intertwined with American primitive guitar, nuanced hand percussion and glassy chimes. As this mind expanding collection stretches out towards infinity, you’ll hear Floyd-ian funk, cosmic dub, tangerine daydreams and micro-dosed ambience, all imbued with the memories of New York lofts, Bay Area warehouses, skyscraping pines or the world wide web of fungi. Liquid Canoe taking you on an oarsome trip.

(Patrick Ryder)– Bandcamp

As PG Sounds, Philip Gelberg and Sven Reigler have delivered some of the most eccentric, interesting and off-kilter music on the SUED catalogue. On this much anticipated debut album, the pair continues in a similar vein, flitting between curious ambient experiments, sparse and ultra-dusty deep house, blunted instrumental hip-hop beats, mind-altering acid electronica, squelchy beat-scapes, rubbery techno wonkiness, deep space jack-tracks, twisted and brain-melting club stompers, and the kind of blink-and-you-miss-them interludes that will make you instantly rewind the vinyl to try and work out what's going on. It's the kind of set that defies easy categorization but is all the better for that. Recommended. – Juno

Tom ‘Konx-om-Pax’ Scholefield’s ‘Caramel’ is quite a different record from the dark, mould-pocked ambience of his debut ‘Regional Surrealism’. Although it’s primarily a beatless album, it’s one with a big smile on it’s face. 

Scholefield started making ‘Caramel’ after his last record in 2012, “My surroundings have a direct influence on the mood of what I make. I made Regional Surrealism when I was living in a big empty flat on my own in Glasgow town centre surrounded by concrete and junkies. Moving next to the park, closer to friends and getting to tour the world had a positive effect on the feel of the tracks.”

‘Caramel’ has a lightness and energy, an unrepentant joyful cheesiness even – like the rave piano and spiralling arpeggios of ‘Cosmic Trigger’ or the big beatless build up of the title track. “A lot of the tracks are very simple, that’s quite an important theme.”  He adds “I remember the Human League talk about how you can play their songs using only a couple of fingers on the synth, or Boards Of Canada saying its important to be able to hum their melodies really easily.” – Planet Mu

Low End Theory resident & veteran Los Angeles DJ Nobody creates the crucially timed full-length Vivid Green via Alpha Pup Records. Embracing the flux within LA underground musical movements of the last fifteen years, Elvin Estela has been on the studio grind while touring internationally refining chops in bass heavy beats, electronic bangers and psychedelic rock.

Vivid Green is strongly instrumental, but boasts the vocal collaborations of The Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala, electronic songwriter Baths, laid-back SoCal rapper Nocando, freak-soul Kendrick Lamar collaborator Anna Wise (Sonnymoon), and Teri Gender Bender of Les Butcherettes/Bosnian Rainbows. – On Bandcamp

Dva is a return to the music of her roots, a triumph of keenly felt and brilliantly expressed reflections of oppression and freedom, be it political, sexual or artistic. Dva is an exploration of self-expression and sound, taking dark dub pop, sound design inspirations and melding them with classical music of her upbringing, taking Emika's production a giant step forward. – Ninja Tune

.gif have earned critical comparison to the likes of Bjork, Yukimi Nagano, The xx and Portishead, but the illustrious pair have managed to retain a fresh and unique dynamic to their chimerical sound, one that proved so compelling that the pair began filling a void of their own making within the Singaporean music scene. 

Following the acclaim of their past releases, .gif's sophomore LP HAIL NOTHING still showcases the haunting vocals, deft lyricism and obsidian production that has become their distinctive sound. The album is named after a line in Ernest Hemingway' s A Clean Well Lighted Place - "Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee." 

The duo digs deeper on HAIL NOTHING; an ode to chaos and nothingness, a love song to the void. Expanding on their synth-driven soundscapes, haunting vocals and poignant lyrics, the album also features guests Bani Haykal and Usaama Minhas. 

The Analog Vault is supremely honoured to be working with .gif for their first-ever vinyl release on TAV Records. 

 A great Mr. Scruff set is like a living, dancing history of black music from around the world, from jazz to techno and beyond, with any number of stops in between. The length—the immersion, the trust—is part of the satisfaction of a great Mr. Scruff set. 

Not so on this great Mr. Scruff set. Concentrating 31 tracks into 73 minutes, his DJ-Kicks installation forgoes sonic stamina for condensed power. Many tracks were short to begin with—Rosa Maria’s three-minute froth bomb “Samba Maneiro” is just one delightful example—but the groove he builds has a coiled power that’s unusual for him. It can make you move a dozen different ways, but it feels aimed at the ear specifically. (The release’s timing is sadly appropriate on that front.)

If anything, this is a left field showcase, right from the start—the mix’s opening roundelay is mostly newer tracks with a freewheeling sense of auditory trickery, from Iona Fortune’s springy ambient to Sudan Archives’ plucked-string meditation. Another highlight, Archie Pelago’s “Brown Oxford,” reconfigures a walking stand-up bass and smeared brass as the basis of a trick-heavy house track that disguises its deeply psychedelic properties with a straight face. Remember the old term, “home listening album”? That’s what Mr. Scruff has made here. – Bandcamp Daily

TAV ESSENTIAL LISTENING 

Modal Soul is the second full-length album by Japanese hip-hop artist Nujabes, released on November 11, 2005, on Nujabes' own record label Hydeout Productions. Like its predecessor, Metaphorical Music, Modal Soul fuses jazzy, smooth rhythms and hip hop. The album features artists Cise Starr (of CYNE), Akin, Terry Callier, Shing02, Substantial, Pase Rock, Apani B and Uyama Hiroto. It was the final studio album released during Nujabes' lifetime; his third and final one, Spiritual State, wouldn't be released until nearly two years after his death. - Wiki

Within Seba's recipe exists all of the essential factors needed to be granted printing space in the book. He not only equips himself with jazzy instrumentals, but also with intelligent lyricists who are capable of gliding atop of them. Nujabes' reluctance to produce a track which isn't seemingly passionate or authentic, gives Modal Soul a flavor never encountered before.

The taste is bold, distinguishable, and unlike many other flavors, all of the elements are seamlessly blended. He meshes hip-hop rhythms with jazz samples from the likes of Miles Davis and Yusef Lateef. Background pianos and parts of saxophone solos are all incorporated. Although the sampled jazz artists are high profiled, the featured underground hip-hop acts are also an important spice to the dish. – Sputnik Music

Johnny Jewel just dropped one hell of a surprise in the form of unreleased material from Chromatics. Running From the Sun contains eight songs off the Kill For Love sessions, recorded between November 2009 and December 2011. – Consequence of Sound

"Cream of the crop, the crem'e de la creme." - Guru of Gang Starr

Alpha Pup Records is ecstatic to announce the signing of Crem’e to the family roster, scheduled to drop his debut full-length, Close Up, on August 26. Hitting both vinyl and digital formats upon release, Close Up is a highly personalized vehicle of sound, created over the last few years as a response to the passing of his mother. Crem’e summed up this transition in his life with the following, “It’s like getting rid of a scar and then feeling naked without it.”

Close Up is music that represents the very essence of human connection and particularly the relationships Crem’e fostered over the last two decades. The detail and dynamics of the LP were amplified with the mixing and mastering work of Alpha Pup label head and Low End co-founder Daddy Kev at Cosmic Zoo. Close Up is the fullest realization of Crem’e’s creative path, standing as a formidable debut from a rising visionary in the LA beat scene. – Bandcamp

As the title suggests, Magnetic Syndromes is the sonic description of a life filled with unpredictable changes, carved out from the lens intensive view of Gypsy Mamba’s life. It can also be seen outside of the artist, defining the inner conflicts many conquer in their lifetime. Gypsy Mamba finds a battleground between the darkness and the light in Magnetic Syndromes. A unique music environment where tracks fluctuate between the frenetic and the subdued. It’s all pulled off with a wild array of colors and rhythms that can’t be associated to any other artist. - Alpha Pup Records

Belt up for a mind-altering journey through time and space stopping by Japanese enka, 8-bit psychedelica and mutated digi dub on this genre-defying long player from King Midas Sound’s Kiki Hitomi and Jahtari bossman disrupt.

TRACKLIST

• A1. Endless Memento
• A2. Regression
• A3. Wading Through The Underworld
• B1. The Future Is Hurt
• B2. Dirt And Fields
• C. Hinter Der Vitrine
• D1. Our Sharpened Blade
• D2. Rid Yourself Of The Parasites
• D3. Endless Longing

Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Hubert aka the Austrian electronic group Tosca released their eighth album Going Going Going in February 2017. Now they are reprising the LP with a slew of remixers from across electronic music, renaming the album Boom Boom Boom.

The original was “very much a winter album” according to the duo and the remix LP- only builds on that.

Brute is the second studio album of Kuwait musician Fatima Al Qadiri. A protest album inspired by events such as the 2015 Baltimore protests and the Ferguson unrest, the album regards the authoritarian power of law enforcement in the United States and the illusion of democracy existing in the western part of the world. Its cover art by Josh Kline, Babok Radboy, and Joerg Lohse is a photograph of one of the "police teletubbies" found in Kline's art piece "Freedom," which was intended to present how civil rights were being destroyed in the 21st century. Brute features samples of the Ferguson protest, an MSNBC report of Occupy Wall Street by Lawrence O'Donnell, and an interview with a former member of the LAPD regarding the power of the police. - Wiki

Released by Hyperdub in March 2016, Brute garnered significant media coverage for its unique political message and was listed in the "Top Ten Protest Albums Of 2016" by Shadowproof, where Kevin Gosztola described it as "the kind of album that will carry even more resonance in the era of President Donald Trump."

Coastlines are a new production unit formed by DJ/ Producer, Masanori Ikeda and keyboard player from the group, cro-magnon, Takumi Kaneko. In 2018 and early 2019, they made their debut releasing, 2 well received and quickly sold out 7" singles from Flower Records. Although both Masanori and Takumi are renowned for being active in the Japanese dance music scene for many years, they also work together to produce music for video works and that is where their Coastlines project was born. Their musical vision is focused on creating a laid back, for listening, modern library music-like musical sceneries that one can imagine a beautiful & breathtaking "coastline". On top of the down tempo, balearic, jazz fusion and other various musical vibes that Masanori creates, Takumi layers his beautiful, melodic keyboard solos to grand effect. Coastline’s music is all about presenting, a joyous, relaxing, summery soundtrack for everyone's after hours wind down. – Bandcamp

“Anders Trentemøller’s career is a travel-heavy one, with his touring schedule taking him pretty much all over the world.

But it’s his home port that’s inspired his latest project, the sprawling, stunning compilation mix ‘Harbour Boat Trips Vol. 02: Copenhagen’. Clocking in at just over an hour long, the compilation sees Trentemøller curate and craft sixteen songs into a heavy, hazy mix that ranges from shoegaze to electronica, featuring both familiar and celebrated artists like A Place to Bury Strangers (with a new Trentemøller remix) and Slowdive to more obscure finds, as well as Trentemøller’s own tracks and remixes, most notably a brand new Trentemøller cover of Neil Young’s classic ’Transformer Man.” – Bandcamp

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“In 2003 Kutmah started Sketchbook as a radio show on Dublab in Los Angeles and a year later Sketchbook became the city’s first all instrumental beat night. This was the breading grounds for the already flourishing beat community in Los Angeles. Artists would bring beat cd’s to showcase their talent whenever they pleased and Kutmah always got their cd at the end of the night. Often the party was outside the club because Dibia$e’s boombox was always knocking. Sketchbook Radio Archives is a compilation the dates back to this era and the present day.” – Bandcamp

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