Featured

When House and Techno exploded out of America in the mid 1980s a whole generation was transformed not only musically but also culturally and chemically speaking. Peaking, quite literally, with a second ‘Summer of Love’ in 1988, millions of young people would experience the life-changing ups of a new world but with it of course came the downs; enter the concept of a ‘Chill-out’ room. Whilst early Chill-out rooms lacked a specific sound and were often sound-tracked by music such as reggae and soul, slowly young Techno and House producers themselves became increasingly interested in developing a futuristic ‘Ambient’ soundtrack to a world beyond the thud of the main room.

‘Ambient’ in this new age now though had sharper teeth than in Brian Eno's key text for ‘Music for Airports’, instead here the sounds were the mode of transport rather than the backdrop. While the melodies were pretty, the soundscapes steered away from the pastoral, often dreaming of outer-space and technology as opening up transformative new dimensions. Much like in the first Summer of Love; the musicians were again exploring psychedelic, mind-altering and transcendental possibilities of music. And also, much as in the first Summer of Love, a psychedelic visual language would accompany the music. Now though the tracks would be accompanied by music videos, often utilising early CGI techniques, and they would look almost entirely to the future: envisioning technology, nature and humanity intertwined in a new Utopia. These were the Virtual Dreams of a new world.

From Ambient and early Chill-out classics, to lesser known one-off projects, as well as Ambient deviations by some of House and Techno’s leading producers, Volume One of Virtual Dreams features tracks by Bedouin Ascent, David Moufang, LA Synthesis, LFO, Marc Hollander, Mark Pritchard & Kirsty Hawkshaw, Richard H. Kirk and more. – Music From Memory

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a mischievously gleeful carnival ride through groove-laden funk, hip-hop and soul. The Herbaliser rolls with a crew that is deep with fork-tongued lyricists and a badass horn section to add to the studio genius that is Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba. Tracks like "Worldwide Connected", "24 Carat Blag" and "Mr Holmes" carry the dramatic, mysterious orchestration of a James Bond movie soundtrack. Layers of thick funk instrumentation and rumbling basslines provide the foundation while Lyricists like Iriscience (of Dilated Peoples), MF Doom and Blade fuel the verbal fires. Each MC adds his/her own character to the personality of the album. Iriscience brings precise lyrical dexterity, Wildflower lives up to her name with her diamond-in-the-rough, heavily accented cockney rhymes and Phi Life Cypher comes with West Indian street wisdom. The whole album sounds like the aural equivalent of a Guy Ritchie movie – irreverent, carefully orchestrated but carried off with a devil-may-care shrug of perfectly stylized musical shoulders, and above all, cool as hell. A dark tone pervades the album, in keeping with its cheeky grin of a title. With Something Wicked This Way Comes the Herbaliser invites you not just to listen, but to step inside its world and meet the characters. – All About Jazz

“Garrett III is more of a swan project. A final installment, if you will. Garrett is now retreating more deeply, as evident by the album cover by @GangCulture into obscurity. The time has come for a landing via this 3rd installment of his ‘private life’. After surviving a lockdown x worldwide pandemic in 1 piece, without going insane, he has finally decided 2 conclude this phase of his tightrope walk between lush Ambient touched Modern-Funk & the choice of no vocals / strictly instrumental aural experiences, for listeners of all hues, backgrounds & taste. The hope is that it’s enjoyed in whatever way feasible for all human (& alien) kind.” – Music From Memory

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.

-

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.

-

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

Emotional ambient, soft focus synthesis and pastoral programming from German duo Cass. & Gianni Brezzo on Hamburg‘s Growing Bin. Hopeless romantic with GSOH seeks open minded audiophile for lifelong companionship.

The style might change, but the quality remains the same in the Growing Bin. For this autumnal edition, the Hamburg label looks South West to Osnabrück and Cologne, home to Cass. and Gianni Brezzo respectively. Sharing an appreciation for emotive tonality and expansive texture, the two musicians make the perfect partnership on ‚Masala Kiss‘, Brezzo‘s timeless melodies only serving to intensify the signature sensuality of the Cass. sound. Despite the occasional polyrhythms, you‘re hearing two hearts beat as one... 

Insistent and expressive, well travelled opener ‚Jaybo‘ joins the ethnic and esoteric with a new age optimism before giving way to the detailed ambience and good nature of ‚Umberella‘, a brief pitstop on the road to the meditative ‚Imence Sense‘. Alive with layered guitars, this opiated raga dances like hashish smoke in the evening sky, and then its up into the cloud forms of ‚Instabubu‘ and ‚Autoscooter Love‘, celestial serenades both off and on beat. Cass. and Brezzo set controls for the heart of the sun with the Froesean ‚Out Of Mind‘, a cinematic exercise in precision sequencing and frequency control then start the journey home with the dewy bells and delicate waveforms of ‚Koli‘. If you‘re in need of a little new age funk for your poolside playtime ‚Helge‘ and ‚Der Däne‘ are on hand with the chunky bass and languid grooves, while a last minute interlude provides a prenatal comfort and womblike warmth. I always cry at endings, and ‚Paterson‘ provides pure emotional release in utterly Balearic fashion. Pensive guitar and euphoric synths meet on the waterfront as you stare over the ocean with all the people you love. – Growing Bin | Soundcloud

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

.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. 

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

DJ, record label impresario and former Swedish champion b-boy, Mad Mats knows a thing or two about finding good music. As well as iconic underground imprints Raw Fusion and GAMM, Mad Mats is a partner in the highly regarded Local Talk label, making it highly probable that most of the world’s influential DJs have at least one of his discoveries in their record bags.

For his first compilation on BBE, Mats has put together a diverse selection of cuts; from reggae, hip hop and soul to boogie, electronica and house, reflecting his open-minded approach to DJing. “The compilation is very mixed, just like how I like to DJ...all freestyle. Yes, I play a lot of house clubs nowadays because of Local Talk, but at heart I've always been a so called "eclectic" selector. Most of these tracks are tunes I’ve played all over the years, sprinkled with some brand new discoveries.”

Coming from a strictly vinyl background, when Mats embraced Serato around 2005, he carried his crate digger’s mentality with him. Believing firmly that digging should always about the discovery of great music regardless of the format, the concept of ‘Digging Beyond The Crates’ was born.

Ranging far and wide in terms of genre and tempo, the album is tied together by one common factor; this is feel-good music made for dancing. “I'm just as hungry (probably even more so) to find my personal gems as I was back in the day, I just look for them with more variation. This album is dedicated to those select few individuals, just like myself: highly driven music lovers, collectors and DJs that truly are DIGGING BEYOND THE CRATES!” – BBE on 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

Drew Lustman leaves his ‘Falty DL’ persona at the door and dons his Cowboy hat for a new alter ego - ‘The Crystal Cowboy’ - his cleanest, most concise record to date.

The eleven tracks here are a body of work that Drew put together quickly, free of the connotations and associations of his Falty DL moniker. Creating music in the small hours of the morning rejuvenated his sense of experimentation and freedom. Under this new name Drew found himself making the kind of music he would DJ with or play to friends without the pressure of the conceptual weighing him down. Like all great projects between Planet Mu and Mr. Lustman, these songs found themselves in Mike Paradinas' inbox with little fanfare, letting the music speak for itself. The album often uses the speed or tropes of hardcore and drum & bass, assembling tracks a bit like lego, but adding in Drew’s own almost opaque elements of sophisticated soul and funk to give the roughness some melodic light and emotional pull.

The album opens with ‘Watch A Man Die’ which relives memories of mid-nineties drum & bass, weaving delicate melodies and smooth strings into brisk latticed drums. ‘Time Machine‘ is a stab-heavy recall of hardcore, with reverbed animal calls giving the track a humid jungle feel. ‘Angel Flesh's‘ delicate looped soul voices blend into a gaseous haze over jazzy drums, while ‘Green Technique’ layers intense beat and synth loops into a dark and disorienting vortex. ‘Wolves’ is Drew's melodic take on dub techno building crunchy, rolling drums and shivery chords into one of the albums many highlights. Placed at the albums midpoint, ‘Hyena’ takes a broken diva vocal and repeats it into an intense howl, leading into the title track whose carefully poised rhodes jazz chords and vocals are balanced against rough hardcore breaks and dense distorting bass which makes you feel like your bouncing on water. Drew takes things slower with ‘Onyx’ which featuring the rapper Le1f’s first ever sung vocals, over xylophone and light raindrop rhythms. The album finishes on the pumping electro of ‘Sykle’ whose itchy overexcited rhythms rub up against plaintive childlike piano and shimmering synths making it one of the album's most memorable highlights.

"The Crystal Cowboy asks the listener to lose themselves and any inhibitions they may have as he takes the time to hold your hand and lead you through his thrilling and immersive wonderland. Good night and good luck." 

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.

Born in Assam, Gauhati, in Northeast India, but currently based in New York’s storied borough of Brooklyn, jitwam spent his formative years in New Zealand and Australia, before living in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and washed out apartments in London. Of everywhere and nowhere, his music draws influence from a litany of iconoclasts including, but not limited to RD Burman, Moondog, The Velvet Underground, Yayoi Kusama, Jay Electronica, Jay Dilla, Moodymann, Leon Thomas, Madlib and Asha Bhosle.

Across the album he utilises knowledge acquired through years spent digging through dusty crates, and talents honed as a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocalist. A series of stumbling, jazz/soul-rooted beat sculptures, each buried beneath a haze of fuzzy psychedelia, broken microphone blues, and articulated through a freestyled process he describes as “first thought, best thought”, ज़ितम सिहँ solidifies jitwam's spot as a major emerging talent.

Recalling the fourth world dreamscapes explored by oddball songwriters like Connan Mockasin, Clarence Clarity, Jai Paul, Silicon, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, it represents a time of transition and remembrance for jitwam, while still fulfilling the core qualities he looks for in song. In his words, “Music is a refuge. A shelter from the storm. A place you can go to close your eyes.” – Jitwam | Bandcamp

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

“A Grand Love Story is an irresistible romp through the lighthearted, pastoral side of trip-hop by way of orchestral pop paragons like Bacharach, Gainsbourg, and Love. Songs like the single "Relaxin' With Cherry" and "She's My Lover" are beautiful pop songs, constructed mostly from sampled material with a few live guitar and basslines plus vocals by Prieur and the Pastels' Katrina Mitchell. If the '70s fixations of Air were shifted back a decade, the results would be quite close to A Grand Love Story.” – All Music

Item description:        

“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

Item description:        

“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

Item description: