London producer Kel McKeown celebrates the release of his tenth album as Kelpe, with a vinyl edition of uncategorisable dance music on Kit Records.

Kelpe's work combines live drumming with synthesis and guitars. Like the nine records that came before it, LP10 treads the line between gauzy melancholia and bustling, dancefloor-ready energy.

Listening to Kelpe's music can feel like fluttering through a photo album at speed. Familiar faces and locations are revealed, nostalgic scenes assembled then scattered by unruly rhythms and samples.

Analogue percussion takes centre stage on LP10. This restless drumming - gear-shifting from hip-hop through to jungle - showcases McKeown's chops as an instrumentalist, while harking back to the scrambled beats that were a hallmark of his early releases.

Kelpe has worked closely with the visual artist Nikita Iziev on this record. Inspired by pioneering film director John Schlesinger, the serendipitous geometry of new wave cinema is mapped out in fractured moments across the music and artwork.

While the track 'Schlesinger' echoes the bouncing unpredictability of the sleeve, 'The Palace Guard Loop' pours neon fertiliser over fender rhodes jazz keys. Adrenalin reaches a zenith on 'Events Proved Me Wrong', as Kelpe hits his stride for a homespun drum and bass workout.

LP10 will be the final full length Kelpe album. More

Love Is Yes is the first album by Sander van der Toorn and Dax Niesten, an audio-visual duo de force of the same name.

This heady debut is rooted equally in the worlds of fine art and experimental music. Sound and image meld wonderfully across 10 tracks, with shifting movements of music accompanied by a wealth of paintings and animations.

Niesten's work summons the likes of Philip Guston and Maurice Sendak - with its crestfallen, cartoonish voids and cockle-warming grotesquery. Serenely contorted creatures are rendered on large canvases, and brought to fuzzy, maudlin life through a full-length animation that can be viewed alongside the record.

Musically, the pair cite influences ranging from Vashti Bunyan to Morton Feldman. There is an ornate fragility, smeared by zero gravity focus shifts. Some glimpses suggest a corroded grail of Boards of Canada samples; motorik guitar, whispered messages, euphoric vistas and tangled memories all bathing in atomic glow.

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Mr Beatnick & Richard Greenan present their debut full length collaboration, "????????????". Brought together by their twin residencies on NTS Radio, the duo have forged distinct paths in respective scenes over the last decade - as producers, DJs and label heads of imprints Mythstery and Kit Records. The strength of their partnership is built on contrasting styles; Mr Beatnick's sound orbits the woozier fringes of house and hip-hop, while Richard Greenan has settled in the cracks between ambient, textural experimentation and the avant-garde. Here, these approaches coalesce in unexpected ways - with violin, harp, guitar and saxophone finding themselves serrated by volleys of percussion and punchily melodic bass. With much of the music recorded during the pair's residency in Margate, the album documents a weekend toasted and skewed progressively sideways. The opening salvo of cascading synth muscle ("Goodnight Mush") and fragmented acoustic stepper ("Superb Crafty Gardens") could evoke Devo and Pete Rock breaking fried toast over a dirty fry up. Side A's pop sensibilities peak on the lucidly string-laden "Harbour Arms", complete with pristine guest vocal by bb sway. Then, like the work of a pair of pissed beavers, things start to get pretty weird. Familiar structures ferment laterally, from the midi swamp-hop of "Bellows of the Earth", to the cooked techno-funk stylings of "Bronze Pears". "How to Draw Roger" offers a magma-like credits roll, the sun's purple yolk poached over a hoppy sea of amber. More

Four years on since the portal to Glasgow outsider artist Kay Logan's Otherworld creaked open for the first time, we sit back and admire 'Mad Wee Light' in newly remastered form. Her masterpiece glows like a restored AI generated painting, binary scrubbed and winding with fractal strangeness towards its core.
Praise for Otherworld, from Boomkat: "Stunning, perfectly zonked and secretive drone visions from Kay Logan's Otherworld for her Anxiety bandmate Michael Kasparis' ever-surprising Night School - a real shout for fans of Zoviet France, Two Daughters, Coil, Kevin Drumm. A lowkey jaw-dropper ... The music is really of the rarest drone ambient ilk, spun from real instruments and tape loops with a sort of supernatural, atavistic and prelinguistic quality that gets us slack jawed and heavy-lidded in the most special way. Spanning tracts of scudding windswept ambience recalling the lushest sort of loopy ambient regressions of Zoviet France, to rawly Scelsi-esque one note drone intensities and the kind of acidic didgeridoo scapes Coil would dream of, Otherworld is making exactly the kind of quietly immanent, life-affirming, expansive musick that we need right now..." Otherworld is Kay Logan, a multi-disciplinary artist, instrumentalist and sound engineer from Airdrie, now living in Glasgow. Her guitar and bass work in sweaty, thrashing outfits like Herbert Powell and Anxiety are an inverse corollary to the curious tapestries in which Otherworld takes shape. The preternatural stylistic sensibility Logan exhibits in all of her work isn't limited to sound, either – she's a prodigious visual artist with the kind of signature sartorial sensibility that could launch a thousand ships, or lookalikes. Logan's Otherworld project is a musique concrete excursion likely to appeal to fans of Zoviet France or Coil. More

Robert Stillman's much-loved, homespun collection of Fender Rhodes improvisations receives the vinyl treatment from Kit Records.Recorded to tape in the solitude of Robert's Kent studio, PORTALS is truly a candid window into the trance-like process of making: melodies, ideas and themes are added folded, concealed and revealed like layers of paper and paint, combining to form an intimately transportive sonic mural. Most startling are the shifting voices of the Rhodes - from careening, glassy pads to strident basslines, curveball jazz breakdowns or kaleidoscopic marimba flutter. Keys players take note: PORTALS is a masterclass in restricted virtuosity. Quite how so many worlds are conjured from one instrument across the 35 minute duration of this record, we're not sure. Recommended if you like Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Arthur Russell, Kali Malone. This vinyl edition of Portals features a previously unreleased track, 'PORTAL 8'.

*Please note this release is on orange vinyl* More

Kit Records founder and NTS resident host Richard Greenan returns with his first solo record in six years. "Rehearsing Heat" paints layers of ornamental pop, rumblingly playful hip-hop, widescreen swathes of drone and beyond - with a wide cast of friends and collaborators taken along for the ride. Recommended if you like Rachel's, Susumu Yokota, Colleen. More

We're extremely proud to present HAPPENSTANCE, a sprawling jazz-concrète project produced by Johannesburg composer and double bass player Shane Cooper. Approached in 2020 by interdisciplinary arts space The Centre For The Less Good Idea to create audio work, Cooper drew on his network in the thriving South African jazz scene, bringing in Bokani Dyer (piano), Cara Stacey (bows), Daliwonga Tshangela (cello), Gontse Makhene (percussion), Jonno Sweetman (percussion) and Micca Manganye (percussion). Two days of free-flowing composition, improvisation and investigative recording followed, with the results captured on a vintage reel-to-reel tape machine. This tape was fractured and reassembled by Cooper, bringing into surreal focus tiny ecosystems of sound, like curls of static clasped from the air and brought under the magnifying glass. The results - two long, standalone pieces - are dizzying, weightless; musique concrète melding with jazz-schooled virtuosity in a dubbed out bricolage of interludes and u-turns. Recommended for fans of Abdullah Ibrahim, Tony Allen, Floating Points and Daphne Oram. More

NDATL continues with DJ Aakmael's vibrant EP, "The Xposd EP" Kicking things off is "Track 109" a lively and rhythmic blend of Latin jazz infused groove with a bouncy shuffle guaranteed to set hips in motion. Next "Imagination" a mesmerizing groove and Aakmael's signature solo work, transports the dancers into a hypnotic zone. On the B-side, we encounter the dynamic collaboration "This Is Not A Game," a potent creation by Aakmael and label head Kai Alcé, featuring sparse piano notes and a penetrating synth solo. Aakmael then draws upon his Windy City influences for the final track, "102.5" characterized by a smooth deep bassline and velvety keys. With its diverse soundscape, "The Xposd EP" with its captivating rhythms and melodies invites listeners to immerse themselves. More

Dialog return with the second instalment of their DOT series, exploring dub techno and soundsystem atmospherics through an experimental but deeply rooted lens, voiced by the father-son partnership of Benji and Josei.

The studio and stage collaboration finds Samuel van Dijk (aka celebrated Dutch electro innovator VC-118A) and Finnish producer Rasmus Hedlund pooling their considerable production expertise into expansive cut which channel the experimental tendencies and sonic traditions of dub into their own distinctive riddims, matching vintage processing with modernist sound design and holding down a physical pulse suited for the dance as much as private meditation.

Following an initial ambient double LP for noted label Astral Industries, they met Benji, originally from Jamaica but a resident of Finland for more than 30 years, and his son Josei through a studio neighbour in Helsinki. A productive run of sessions has resulted in a strong body of material which will appear on this inspired series, carrying dub techno forwards with an approach to the culture which is all their own. More

Soul Jazz of the First Order from Robert Dubwise Browne with two epic takes on tunes that should be in every DJ's grab bag of goodies. Sun Goddess originally by Ramsey Lewis and written by Earth, Wind and Fire's Maurice White together with a Ruff and Tuff version of the Grover Washington Jazz Funk classic "Mister Magic" featuring Jamaican Sax Man Dean Fraser. Guitarist Browne's appearance credits include the likes of his father Dennis Brown, as well as Gregory Isaacs, Beres Hammond and Toots Hibbert.. Produced by Japanese Reggae Legend Hayassen for his label Vortex and signed up on first hearing by Jazz Room Supremo Paul Murphy. If you've got a dancefloor you need these tunes! More

With her new single release "Uh-Ah Song" the Ghanaian Frafra Soul singer Florence Adooni announces her debut album "Fo Yelle" on Philophon.

A lot has happened since the release of her first single "Mam Pe'ela Su'ure" in 2021. While this release was a pure studio project, Florence Adooni is now an eight-member live formation, made up of young talents from the highlife scene of Kumasi. The group has already considerable credentials: In 2023, they toured Europe twice and thrilled their audiences at festivals such as Roskilde, Down The Rabbit Hole and Überjazz. And this year, with the debut "Fo Yelle" under the belt, Florence and her group embarking on a 50+ concert summer tour through Europe, from Sweden to Portugal to UK and at festivals like FMM Sines, Xajazz, Africa Oye, Fusion, End of The Road.

The title track "Uh-Ah Song" is based on a rhythm typical of Kumasi and shines with its playful and cheerful character. Florence remembers the process of creating the piece: "When my producer Max Weissenfeldt came to me to play me on the piano an idea for a new piece, my daughter, who had just been born, began to sing in rhythm ah-ah-ah, with all joy in her face ever imaginable, while Max was playing. Max turned around and answered her with uh-uh-uh, to which she replied again with ah-ah-ah. We laughed so much and decided to make it a piece that would capture that very moment of joy we just had experienced. That's why it's somehow a children's song".

"Otoma Da Naba" (The Creator Has Done Well) has a sequencer bass line from a Roland TB-303 as its foundation. While Florence holds her verse in a kind of Ethiopian pentatonic scale, in the pre-chorus she switches to a sweetly swinging heptatonic motif, with a typical highlife guitar in the background creating the atmosphere. In the chorus, the singing then changes in that unique choir style, which is the trademark of Frafra music.

The international debut album "Fo Yelle" will be released on Philophon this summer. More

UK jazz ensemble The Jazz Defenders release their third album "Memory In Motion" in April on Haggis Records (home of The Haggis Horns and Malcolm Strachan). The Bristol jazz boppers deliver another quality release of original material that takes in their usual diverse mix of influences and genres, from timeless acoustic jazz referencing the classic sounds of Blue Note Records, to a more contemporary fusion where jazz meets soul, funk and hip-hop.

Although they love to mix things up, their roots are in the classic acoustic jazz quintet sound of the late 1950s/early 1960s, back when hard bop and modal jazz ruled. They have already explored this musical path well on their previous albums but they still deliver a couple of classic inspired jazz cuts here. "Chasing Fantasies" and "Fuffle Kerfuffle" both give the band some space to cut loose on solos over swing jazz beats that will keep their original jazz audience happy. The latter bubbles away with a jazz shuffle beat that would make drum legend Art Blakey smile.

"Meanderthal" and "Snakebite Playfight" bring soul to this jazz party. Exactly like jazz legends Lee Morgan/Herbie Hancock/Freddie Hubbard etc did back in the early-mid 1960s. The first is a feel-good, toe-tapping gem that's heavy on the backbeat and short and snappy on the solos, the exact reasons that made it the perfect opening single from the album. "Snakebite Playfight" comes with a jaunty New Orleans shuffle before transforming into a heavy psychedelic soul jazz burner, flipping back with ease to the NOLA shuffle for the Mardi Gras meets bebop piano solo by band leader George Cooper.

"Rolling On A High" is a hip-hop/jazz banger that sees the band continue their collaborations with UK rapper Doc Brown, a perfect combination that began on their second album "King Phoenix''. This time, the Doc spits some old-school block party-style bars over a bouncy uptempo funky beat with the band cooking up some soul stew behind him. Definitely dancefloor material.

Another uptempo jam is the heavy jazz fusion jam "Net Zero". It kicks off with some live broken beat kit playing and piano/bass staccato vamping before taking off into Headhunters territory on the solos, sounding both contemporary and classic at the same time. This is The Jazz Defenders at their fiercest and toughest and delivering a track that will have jazz dancers worldwide in an utter frenzy.

It's not all uptempo numbers or dancefloor-oriented compositions on this album. Two tracks take the musical dynamics right down to give a temporary break from the high-energy numbers. "Take A Minute" has a rolling double bass line locked into the groove while the horns play a lazy and laid-back theme with vibes embellishment, sounding like some trippy independent film soundtrack. Another recurring musical reference point for this band over the years.

The album finishes on a poignant and introspective note with a beautiful piano and double bass feature for George Cooper and bassist Will Harris. It's called "Enigma", it was recorded live in Paris and it closes the album on a peaceful note evoking the music and playing of Bill Evans. The perfect way to close this brilliant third album from The Jazz Defenders.

With Memory In Motion, pianist George Cooper and his band undoubtedly pay great homage to a golden era of jazz music that they love, but also elaborate on this influence with a wealth of modern musical experience, to create their own raw and vibrant compositions. The result is an enthrallingly unique sound that is as danceable as it is listenable. More

To describe an album as "electronic music" has long been an understatement. "Romanticismo siempre" is a good example. Recorded mainly using synthesizers, the album travels a territory that borders on the experimental and the dancefloor, entering at times in both fields.

Andrés Téllez, Delone, states in its title a clear commitment: "an ode to life, to never lose that passion that is the engine that pushes everything, no matter how many obstacles there are along the way, such as love, madness or death". The need to express this is at the origin of the record.

His musical language is rich and varied. Among synthesizers, analog experimentation, drones and psychedelia, many of the subcultures that have shaped what was once called "electronic music" appear. Flashes of trip hop, new age and proto-electronics are amalgamated throughout the album, together with hints of mutant house, breakbeats, IDM and trance. Other genres peripheral to club sounds, such as post-rock or kraut, also appear.

The idea of creating something that could almost be considered a soundtrack is present, but Delone's singularity has taken the album down a different path, using his own musical vocabulary to articulate a narrative that leads him towards his desired destination, keeping experimentation and dance culture, constants in his career, very much in mind.

In 2014 and together with his partner and friend Carlos Trujillo, Andrés created Riverette, a record label that became a record store in the center of Madrid, with his studio in the basement. From there he unleashed his productions as Dos Attack and his first works as Delone. Riverette quickly became a key creative pole in the Spanish electronic underground, and the label has released records by Legowelt, Kornel Kovacs or HAAi.

Throughout the eleven tracks of "Romanticismo siempre", a story materializes in which the protagonism falls on the adrenaline of passion. Through a very personal sound, with a certain introspective vocation, Andrés tells us a wonderful tale with the help of exquisite arrangements and a rich expressiveness.

"Romanticismo siempre" is a polyhedral album that can change with every listen, with every track, and reinterpret itself almost with every playback. It is a complex record, delicate and full of nuances, at the same time charged with a powerful and primitive energy. More

X-Ray Ted's 'Talkin' EP' finally gets the vinyl outing it deserves, a format that this classic was always destined to fit so well on. On the A-side, 'Talkin' layers strings, horn hooks, and guitar licks over a bed of rolling beats and bass, all topped with that soul-infused earworm of a vocal. On the flip, 'So Much' is no less infectious with vocal refrains interplaying with guitar parts and horns to deliver a perfect blend of vintage-sounding soulful beats. Ahead of X-Ray Ted's debut album, these two tracks showcase why he has picked up an army of loyal fans for the way he can perfectly deliver these original old-school sounds with a modern twist. The sunshine vibes and feel-good warmth practically ooze out of the vinyl grooves. This limited run of 7s on Bombstrikes will not hang about for long. More

classic "black" vinyl (150 copies worldwide).

The "ongakudo / droga muzyki" project is ("The way of music" in English). Initiated by Groh - head of the JuNouMi label (est. 2002 Polish hip-hop label), the project is the result of cooperation between Polish and Japanese artists.

First, Twardowski created music based on samples from Japanese albums. Then MCs KANETSUGU (JP) and Prykson Fisk (PL) were invited. The next element were DJs - 1an from Tokyo and DJ Eprom from Warsaw (former IDA world champion).

An important element of the project is the graphic design, for which Malgorzata "Mauko" Korczak is responsible - exploring the art of Japanese Shodo calligraphy. As many as three versions of covers were created. One limited edition (hand-numbered 100 pieces), a version with a black wax and a version exclusively for the Japanese market.

This 7" is the first part of the Polish-Japanese series. It is the beginning of our journey. More

Grammy nominated producer Gaudi (Steel Pulse, The Orb, Tricky, Lee Scratch Perry) joins forces with Italian Afro-funk band Savana Funk to revive the sound of "Cosmic-Disco" of the late 70s with this limited edition 7" vinyl.


The terms "Cosmic-Disco / Afro" are used to describe various forms of African-influenced and Synth-based dance music with a particular method of DJing originally developed and promoted by a small number of DJs in Italy from the late 70s through the mid-80s, a freeform music-journey created with vinyl records, mixing and beat-matching a very diverse range of musical styles, from electro-funk to Brazilian-jazz, incorporating live percussion and effects. Pioneers such as DJ Mozart, Daniele Baldelli, Loda, Pery, Spranga, L'ebreo, Tosi Brandi, Lelli and venues such as Cosmic, Baia Degli Angeli, Typhoon, La Mecca, Chicago, Arlecchino to name but a few, had truly expanded and helped the development of the club-culture in Italy and subsequently in Europe. In his youth, producer and musician Gaudi was one of the punters who regularly attended these venues and followed the whole "Afro" scene, experiencing from the dancefloor that 90-110BPM hypnotic sound and subconsciously absorbing the essence of it. In fact, it is no coincidence that many of the productions he has released in his 35-year career have a strong Afro-influenced imprinting, the last of which is "Raha", the new collaborative EP released as a combo with Savana Funk, a vibrant tribute to what is considered one of the most exciting and original movement in the club scene.

This "afro-cosmic" 7" will be available next April 26 via Record Kicks on limited 500 copies edition crystal clear vinyl worldwide. On the A side the first single "Raha" that is driven by a solid "afro-cosmic" groove infused with an eclectic krautrock sound, very distinct and very psychedelic at the same time. A texture generated by analogue synthesizers and "space-funk" riffs from guitar and bass. RAHA means "Peace of mind" in Arabic, the native language of the Italian-Moroccan drummer Youssef, who also appears as a vocalist on this track. On the B side the groovy and sexy "OREWA" a funk track to dance to on the beach surrounded by a psychedelic-coloured sunset, with hypnotic guitar riffs that take us into a journey without time and without space.

Active since 2015, Savana Funk are one of the most sought-after "afro-funk" band in Italy, with hundreds of successful live shows nationwide including performances with Kokoroko, Seun Kuti and Nu Guinea, they have released 5 albums so far: 'Musica Analoga', 'Savana Funk', 'Bring in the New' 'Tindouf' and the latest 'Ghibli'.

London based music producer Gaudi has contributed to a number of albums nominated for awards and prizes such as: Grammy Awards 2019, with the album 'Mass Manipulation' by Steel Pulse), BBC's World Music Award, with the album 'Dub Qawwali' by Gaudi & Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. His work and music contributions have topped international charts such as: Billboard Reggae Chart no.1 with the albums 'Heavy Rain' by Lee "Scratch" Perry, no.1 with 'Mass Manipulation' by Steel Pulse and again no.1 with 'Vessel of Love' by Hollie Cook. Studio works include name acts such as: Groove Armada, Simple Minds, African Head Charge, Lamb, Horace Andy, Brian Ferry, Don Letts, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Mad Professor, The Beat and more. More

** UNRELEASED DYKE & THE BLAZERS-COVER FUNK BOMB **

Taken from the forthcoming "Movements Vol.12" compilation album, "Funky Broadway" by The Villagers has never been released - until now. The B-side features the Garage-Rock cut "You're My Baby (Don't You Forget It)" from 1966, the same year as Dyke & The Blazers recorded the original version of "Funky Broadway". More

Catching Flies - aka multi-instrumentalist, producer and DJ George King – produces a bass heavy yet melodic mesh of broody electronics and intricate rhythms, containing shades of everything from hip-hop to house, from soul to jazz. Catching Flies has released on labels such as Cercle, AnjunaDeep and Ninja Tune.

LIMITED EDITION TRANSPARENT VINYL.

'Tides' artist support from: Nils Frahm, Jungle, Sofia Kourtesis, Bonobo, Lane 8, Gui Boratto & more.

Radio support from: Sian Eleri (BBCR1), Lauren Laverne (BBC6Music), Cheryl Waters (KEXP), singles playlisted across SiriusXM (& exclusive mix aired for them). Press support from the likes of Billboard, The Guardian, Arte TV, Mixmag, and Crack Magazine.

Includes the 'absolutely brilliant' hit single 'GLY' (25 million streams already!). It has also been remixed by Hot Chip and DJ BORING.

Headline tour in the US in June 2024 (NYC, LA, Denver, San Fran, Portland, Vancouver, Phoenix, Montreal, Miami, Seattle, Calgary). Headline tour in the UK/EU in September 2024, and AUS/NZ in October 2024.

Previous press support includes The Guardian, Complex, Nowness, Mixmag, iD Magazine, Dazed & Confused, The Line of Best Fit and more. He has received radio support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Pete Tong, Annie Mac, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbes & Huw Stephens. Artist support for has come from the likes of Bonobo, Caribou, Loyle Carner, The Blessed Madonna, Keinemusik, Rufus Du Sol, George Fitzgerald and Lane 8.

“Mesmerising”
The Guardian —

“One of our favourites”
iD Magazine —

“Absolutely brilliant”
Lauren Laverne — BBC6 Music

“‘Catching Flies is emblematic of a new spirit in London’s club culture…. A fresh kind of eclecticism…leaping between hip-hop, techno, jazz and everything in between’”
Clash Magazine —

“‘Fuelled by late night, dark introspective beats and soulful vocal cuts...ruthlessly emotive’”
The Line of Best Fit —

“Keep an eye on this guy!”
Gilles Peterson — BBC6 Music

“I'm a big fan!”
Sian Eleri — BBCR1

“‘With fans in just about every pocket of UK music, Catching Flies is no doubt a name we'll all be very familiar with in the coming months.’”
Mixmag — More

David Versace is an Australian multi-genre keyboardist, composer and producer based in Meanjin, Queensland. Growing up in a very musical household it was always important to express and embrace all types of music and sonics. His sound ranges from Jazz and Samba to ambient works and the odd dance-floor heater. David also plays in Meanjin nu-jazz dance outfit First Beige.

Supported by Gilles Peterson on his WWFM show and Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2. More