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Midnight movies and anime have long played a crucial role in Flying Lotus’ aesthetic universe. Now, between the recently established film division of his Brainfeeder label, numerous scoring projects, and his foray into directing with the animated feature Kuso, the artist born Steven Ellison is increasingly making his mark on film as well as music. It’s a natural development for an artist who cites the influence of Shinya Tsukamoto’s grimy cyberpunk body-horror nightmare Tetsuo: The Iron Man as often as he does any given musician. The man did get his start composing Adult Swim bumpers, after all.

Taken into consideration alongside Ellison’s own growing body of animated work, Yasuke illuminates the kinship between Flying Lotus’ musical and visual instincts. Just as Thomas synthesizes sci-fi mecha and paperback fantasy with Japanese medieval history, Ellison’s universe is constructed out of jazz riffs, new-age synthesizer noodling, hip-hop drums, and the sounds of the many, many anime he’s ingested over the years, all coming together into one cohesive frame. In Yasuke’s self-consciously hybrid genre approach, Ellison finds himself well matched with a like-minded visual artist who dreams up new worlds and alternate timelines. Flying Lotus ultimately asks us to consider electronic music in similarly fantastical terms: Why limit yourself to one style or school of sound when an infinitude of timbres and textures is at your fingertips? - Pitchfork

• Four Flies Records keep on researching Alessandro Alessandroni’s limitless archive, compiling this time an LP of tracks composed between 1972-1978

• All the tracks were previously unreleased and are presented here for the first time - a truly ‘Lost & Found’ treasure that sees the light for the first time!

• After the incredible success of Afro Discoteca (Four Flies Records, 2017), Pierpaolo De Sanctis compiles a 15-tracks LP of forgotten soundtracks and library music treasures from the Italian Maestro

• Jazz, Disco, Electronic music – there’s no genre Alessandroni hasn’t explored – this compilation testifying the incredible diversity of his production and immense musical mind – Four Flies Records

Piano Viberations’ “small group jazz featuring piano and vibes with rhythm” makes for a gorgeous Francis Coppieters showcase, surely one of Belgium’s best-kept musical secrets. Released in 1975, and arguably the most low-key of the KPM and Themes records we’re re-issuing, this is easily our current favourite.
Piano Viberations is one of those rare library records the original description of which makes as much sense now as it did when it was first released. Piano and vibes with rhythm indeed.

As with all ten re-issues, the audio for Piano Viberations comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. We’ve taken the same care with the sleeves, handing the reproduction duties over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand identity. – Be With Records

Alan Hawkshaw (piano/Hammond) and Shadow’s drummer Brian Bennett are responsible for some of the slickest, funkiest and most sought-after library records ever made in the UK, particularly ones recorded on the legendary KPM label. Their work has now become the go-to place for sampling in music today. Artists such as Dilla, Nas, and the xx, right through to the billion selling Kanye & Drake have taken Hawkshaw’s and Bennett’s immaculate beat-driven soundscapes for their own usage.

Their new album, in full, iconic KPM cover is a return to the laidback jazz-funk that helped Alan and Brian demonstrate their library chops. The album is classic Hawkshaw/Bennett. It swings, it grooves, moves and thrills with a flair these two have perfected over years. Standout tracks such as "Hole In One", "In The Clouds", "Interchange", "Oasis", "On The Nile" and "Corcovado" are no mere excursions in nostalgia, for they carry lots of deft studio work that many a producer would give their right arm for. Hawkshaw’s arrangements allow the drums, guitar, bass, strings, Hammond, flute and brass to swirl elegantly around the 12 original tracks; a masterclass in recording.

Cut by Pete Norman, housed in a beautifully designed Richard Robinson sleeve and pressed at 180g by Record Industry in Holland, this release has been afforded the care and attention it rightly deserves. Essential. – Be With Records

Voices In Harmony was released in 1973 as “a selection of contemporary pop titles featuring voices, brass and rhythm”. We choose to describe this collection of works by Keith Mansfield and John Cameron as “a string-laced, harmony-drenched KPM classic”.
As with all ten re-issues, the audio for Voices In Harmony comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. We’ve taken the same care with the sleeves, handing the reproduction duties over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand identity. – Be With Records

James Clarke’s Mystery Movie was released in 1974 as “modern, small group compositions in various moods. Ideally suited to the new Americanised style of T.V. and cinema film where music is used to create the mood and carry the action”.

So this collection covers a lot of bases, but it does so brilliantly and has absolutely no right to be such a fantastic listen from start to finish.

Mystery Movie is best known for the slick drum breaks underpinning the top-notch jazz-funk chase theme “Car Patrol”, the fuzz riffing and ARP soloing of “The Heavies” and the slow-mo strut of “Mystery Moll”. “Study In Fear” and “Empty Streets” are horror soundtrack fodder of the finest sort.

As with all ten re-issues, the audio for Mystery Movie comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. We’ve taken the same care with the sleeves, handing the reproduction duties over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand identity. – Be With Records

Alex Zhang Hungtai, formerly known by his stage name Dirty Beaches, is a Taiwanese-born musician who spent his formative years in Honolulu, Hawaii. As Dirty Beaches, Alex released a number of albums, including Badlands, which was subsequently nominated as a long-list nominee for the Polaris Music Prize. The composition for August at Akiko's takes his instrumental work with Dirty Beaches to more personal and experimental levels. Alex was recently featured in Showtime’s “Twin Peaks: The Return.” Alex also starred in“August at Akiko’s”which will have it's theatrical premiere in March 2019 after successful theatrical run. – Record Store Day

Over the last decade Belladonna Of Sadness has risen from the ashes and now shines brighter than ever. Now on the eve of its third or fourth global DVD release, fans no longer have to wait four months for third generation VHS telecine rubs from “that guy” in the States, or stuff their ambitious wish lists into the hands of any lucky friends visiting Tokyo in the summer. Belladonna has been used as nightclub projections by clued-up VJs and been restored by discerning feminist folk singers and improv bands while influencing illustrators, fashion designers and other creative types along the way.

Original copies of the soundtrack, however, are much less likely to rear their heads on a weekly basis, with prices literally doubling each time the original stock copies swap hands amongst the same Italian dealers at central European record fairs. Italian soundtracks are expensive anyway, but this one, as I’m sure you’ll agree, has got extra credentials. Finders Keepers Records, in direct collaboration with Sato himself, agree that this record should finally be liberated amongst those who know the magic words. With our decision to keep this album “strictly Sato” we removed a track – the main orchestral love theme by Asei Kobayashi and Mayumi Tachibana, which in all honesty is very much detached from Sato’s psychedelic soundtrack. Kept intact, however, are the songs sung and penned by Sato’s then wife Chinatsu Nakayama, including the track entitled TBFS (answers on a postcard?) that only appears on the master tapes and never actually made it to the theatrical cut of the film (although the theme is briefly alluded to, in different instrumentation, in a cut-scene available on the German DVD). This reissue project also marks the beginning of a longer intended relationship between Finders Keepers and Masahiko Sato, exploring his recorded work in both film music, jazz and avant garde composition. – Finders Keepers

In 1969, Marion Brown, who moved to Europe two years earlier, records, in the legendary Parisian studio Davout, the soundtrack of the movie by Marcel Camus entitled “Le temps fou”. The movie starred Nino Ferrer, it was out in 1970 under the title “Un été sauvage”. Fallen into oblivion, “Le temps fou” was printed in very few copies and is almost impossible to find in its original pressing - Bandcamp

Finders Keepers Records' continued and unwaning commitment to preserving the archives of composer Suzanne Ciani pays off in an avalanche of dividends with this latest master tape discovery, placing further markers in the historical development of electronic music and cinematic composition. Developed at a lesser-documented axis combining Ciani's key disciplines as a revolutionary synthesist and an accomplished pianist, these early works from 1973 capture a rare glimpse of one of the world's most important electronic music figures embarking on the early throes of a fruitful career as a film composer and sound designer with this rare and previously unheard documentary music illustrating the first-ever skiers' decent from the peak of the tallest mountain in Alaska. Capturing innocence and optimism in its composition, but never less than masterful in its realisation, Denali takes what would later become the yin and yang in Ciani's versatile musical personality and provides unrivalled vistas from both side of the mountain, scaling a treacherous and fine creative line.

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Within the context of Suzanne Ciani's achievements the words “maverick” and "pioneer" have regularly shared sentences amongst a list of "firsts" when documenting her expansive CV as a Grammy nominated, million-selling recording artist, and genuine revolutionary in the progression of future music in all its early capacities. But it is with this important release of uncovered recordings from early 1973 that Ciani's "exploratory" compositions from her formative years find kinship alongside the exploits of other radical and historic trailblazers, as the music for the film known only as Denali finally achieves a wider vantage point. Commissioned in the early years of Suzanne's "professional" life, in a period that bridged her activities with art installations, experimental theatre and her rising reputation as a film composer and sound designer, the Denali tape reels preceed Suzanne's film work such as Lloyd Michael Williams Rainbow's Children (1975) and Bryan Forbe's The Stepford Wives (1975) by just 18 months, and capture Suzanne at her wide-eyed best two years after scoring her first-ever paid work providing synthesiser loops for aquariums in Middle America shopping malls  – Bandcamp

Music from throughout sigur ros's career, twisted, bent, broken and finally added to in the band's reyjavik studio, to create a new perspective for a dance piece of the same title initiated and created by taiwanese choreographer Cheng Tsung-ling. Musical director Kjartan Holm.  - Linear Notes

This is the soundtrack to the first film of Chan-wook Park’s Vengeance trilogy, released in 2002. The film is a crime thriller that follows a botched plot to kidnap the daughter of a small business owner, the plan having been to use the ransom money to pay for a kidney transplant. When the child is accidentally killed, the situation flies out of control as the plot unfolds unpredictably. The film portrays the aspects of human psychology as the protagonists are pulled into the maelstrom, while also focusing on the nature of evil. The soundtrack was provided by UhUhBoo Project, an experimental unit by Hyun-jin Baek (singer) and Young-gyu Jang (producer / bass) who seek to fuse local traditional music with avant-garde /contemporary rock. This is an astounding soundtrack that includes several experimental tracks that fully embody the unique style of UhUhBoo, as well as some folk songs and contemporary pieces. The soundtrack, which was released at the same time as the film, was sold out almost immediately. This left no more copies in circulation, making it nearly impossible to find in its entirety. This vinyl issue is the first reissue of this soundtrack since its original release in 2002. – Light In The Attic