Various Artists – Ulyap Songs : Beyond Circassian Tradition (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:16:40 minutes | 859 MB | Genre: Electronic, World
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © FLEE
Flee’s new issue tries to document a Caucasian musical phenomenon mixing criminal songs, Adygean culture and post-Soviet society, and features original recordings of traditional songs, and contemporary reinterpretations by a selected line-up of electronicesque producers: Emmanuelle Parrenin & Colin Johnco, Misha Sultan, Zongamin, Minami Deutsch, Valentina Goncharova, Simone Aubert, and Ben Wheeler. Ulyap is a village in the Caucasus, where one can find an enormous number of accordion and harmonica players. Ulyap Songs: Beyond Circassian Tradition represents an attempt to document ancient bards’ chants and their entanglement with popular rural heritage as well as post-Soviet culture during modern times, through a critical prism. This publication reflects on a music phenomenon involving talented female and male musicians, performing in lively (and sometimes festive) social dynamics. It does so by revealing important songs of the repertoire on the one hand, inviting original artists to experiment with Ulyap songs on the other. Musically, the double LP consists of rare and unpublished archives as well as recordings made by FLEE, Ored Recordings, and Nikita Rasskazov over the last years in various locations of the Caucasus. These original celebrations and drinking songs performed by group of professional and amateur musicians alike have been used as a creative fabric by sonic sound artists and musicians. Also featuring Yura Nagoev, Elena Dokshokova, Damir Guagov, Jrjpej, G.A.M.S, and Vatannar.
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Various Artists – Daryl Runswick: Four Nocturnes, Viola Sonata (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:09 minutes | 415 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ASC Records
‘Four Nocturnes’ (1992-3, revised 2010; perf. London Voices & National Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, conducted by Ben Parry) contains settings of Byron’s night poetry. The range of subjects and moods is enormous, from gothic black to risqué farce, and this provides the composer with a rich quarry for an extended piece. In ‘Viola Sonata’ (2012, revised 2015; perf. Caleb Sibley, viola & Aleksander Szram, piano) the long melody heard at the beginning of the sonata is reintroduced many times in different guises. This gives the piece its unity, while the re-imagining – retrograding, inversion, canon, rhythmic compression, reduction to chords, etc – provides the variety.
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Various Artists – Soul Jazz Records Presents 200% DYNAMITE! Ska, Soul, Rocksteady, Funk & Dub in Jamaica (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:20 minutes | 400 MB | Genre: Reggae, Rocksteady, Dub, Funk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Soul Jazz Records
Soul Jazz Records’ 200% Dynamite! set the benchmark for reggae meets funk compilations that has never been bettered. Out of print for over 15 years this new 2023 edition is expanded with new tracks and is being released in a one-off limited-edition heavyweight special-edition coloured vinyl pressing + download code exclusively for Record Store Day 2023.
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Various Artists – Nippon Acid Folk 1970-1980 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 36:57 minutes | 405 MB | Genre: Folk, Acid Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Time Capsule
A counterculture movement united by an expansive, experimental and deeply soulful sensibility, Japan’s rebel protest music challenged the status quo and changed the country’s music industry in the process.
The birth of Japan’s nascent acid folk scene was rooted in the messy and invigorating political climate of the late 1960s. It is a story of Dadaists, communists, pharmacists and cult leaders, led by a young generation of upstart students, artists and dreamers hellbent on turning their world upside down. Born on the campuses of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, and centred around newly formed independent label and left-wing stronghold URC, this uniquely Japanese form of folk expression provided an outlet for musicians who were tired of aping Western sounds and instead found ways to sing in Japanese and integrate traditional forms in new ways. At the forefront of this movement was Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haroumi Hosono, a polymath innovator whose band Happy End released the first Japanese language rock album, and whose influence would go on to be felt across Japanese music for decades. Alongside, and informed by the Kansai scene’s Takashi Nishioka and Happy End collaborator Ken Narita, they experimented with cadences and accents of the Japanese language to open the door for others to experiment with their own forms of psychedelic folk too.
Various Artists – Music For Dreams, Best of 2023 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:33:34 minutes | 1,61 GB | Genre: Easy Listening, Jazz, Pop, Chillout
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Music for Dreams
The Copenhagen series showcases the best new releases from Music For Dreams, as selected by label boss Kenneth Bager. Spanning gutsy house pop, lush electronic anthems, cinematic synth realms and spaced-out downtempo.
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