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F.S.Blumm is a man most might not know. He ́s no pop artist, and not overtly experimental either. But somehow with In Sight he has done the impossible: put his own sound in that perfect middle point, leaving his voice behind to deep-dive into some truly memorable, fully composed pieces. 

In Sight is the kind of record you can put on at first crack of dawn, to enjoy its beautiful instrumental varieties during morning routine, while equally fitting as a listening experience towards the darker time of day, in the background or as highly rewarding deep listening experience. It ́s the kind of album that would be great to encounter played in a tiny Japanese jazz bar on a vintage, top notch speaker system together with a handful of local oddities. It sounds incredibly well produced and is full of beautiful, heart-warming, melancholic moments performed on everything from guitars to percussion, vibraphone, strings, piano and who knows what else. Frank shines on this record. He has created quietly composed pieces for moments one could only wish were real. 

As often with F.S.Blumm ́s music, it ́s hard to pin down where to categorize it. He might be best known as frequent collaborator of Nils Frahm. Together they made three great duo albums for Sonic Pieces previously. Although this is far from his first solo album, it is his first for the label, and after listening to it on repeat for some time, we can only say that this is Frank on his finest, creating some of the most thought provoking instrumental music you can find in these parts of the world.​

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Los Angeles based, Phi-Psonics is an instrumental project with an introspective, improvisational approach to creating lush, immersive soundscapes. 
Phi-Psonics is produced by Seth Ford-Young, who also plays acoustic bass.The band is; Josh Collazo on drums, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Sylvain Carton provides Saxophones and Flutes.

Sylvain Carton- Bari Sax, Tenor Sax, Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet 
Mitchell Yoshida- Wurlitzer 200A 
Josh Collazo- Drums 
Seth Ford-Young- Upright Bass, Compositions 

All tracks composed by Seth Ford-Young (sewfoyomusic, ASCAP) except "Drum Talk" by Seth Ford-Young, Sylvain Carton (TZME Music, ASCAP) and Josh Collazo (Joshua Michael Collazo, ASCAP) 
Produced, recorded, and mixed by Seth Ford-Young at Means of Production, Los Angeles, CA 
Additional engineering by Yohei Shikano 
Mastered by Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha Mastering , Oakland, CA 
Cover art and design by TOM GORTON

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Vestals is the avatar of Los Angeles based artist Lisa McGee, whose debut album Forever Falling Toward the Sky was released by Root Strata in 2012. She has also discreetly operated in U.S. underground music for the last decade as a member of the dream-drone duo Higuma with Evan Caminiti, while making vocal contributions to acclaimed albums by Jefre Cantu Ledesma and Sarah Davachi. 

McGee is the sole producer and performer on her sophomore effort, Holy Origin. Since her last offering she has evolved her sound and process, placing a new emphasis on electronic processing, carving out negative space where slow burning rhythms and spectral melodies ebb and flow. Her songcraft is built on the foundations of atmosphere and experimentation that have defined her collaborative outings, but here she has meticulously built up her arrangements into a fully fleshed out vision of luminous dub informed avant-dream-pop. 

Sinuous vocals and desolate guitars are rendered in crisp 3D, swallowed by viscera rattling bass and sizzling clouds of synthesizers. Hypnotic melodies and shimmering harmonies nestle within disorienting digital manipulations, conjuring a boundless, smoky twilight. Passages hover and undulate, sustained in trance states before crashing down into lush chorales that comfortably dwell in the space between euphoria and heartache. 

Fusing memoir with contemplative inquiry, McGee traces the blurred boundaries between the self, the other and the world, capturing various states of desire-ambivalence and surrender. Each track is a meditation on the tension between opposing forces: the ideal and the real, the essential and the cultivated, the erotic and the ascetic. Through the exploration of these dialectics, Holy Origin unfolds as a darkly sublime reverie.

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Recorded and mixed by Al Breadwinner at The Bakery studio Manchester. 
Long awaited follow-up to Sounds Almighty, another deep Roots Rock Reggae instrumental album. Once again featuring the legendary Vin gordon aka Don D Junior on trombone and David Fulwood on trumpet.

Credits
Nat Birchall- Tenor Sax, Soprano Sax, Bass, Melodica, Organ, Piano, Percussion, Hand Drums 
Al Breadwinner- Drums, Guitar, Organ, Piano, Percussion, Hand Drums 
Vin Gordon- Trombone 
David Fullwood- Trumpet 
Stally- Baritone Sax

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This is not music about a fast train to Paris. This is not music for airports. From an East German perspective Gajek´s Vitamin D inscribes itself into the progressive myth of Krautrock by shifting the focus to a different side of German history marked by the material traces of the Cold War. This is music that knows about the coexistence of modernism and its ruins, music about the fact that both can be there at the same time: space programs and the damp smell of unheated houses. It's music that taps into the memory of sudden ruptures, trauma and loss, not out of melancholy but to mobilize the lived experience that things can and do, in fact, change. Vitamin D catches the spirit of motorcycles made from scrap metal, of washing machine engines strapped onto strollers to make lawnmowers; a sonic love letter to people living in the margins of infrastructural programs, collecting copper pipes and engine parts in archives of metal and stone, repurposing the rubble of a violent history for dreams of a different world. There, in secret basements, where machines were built out of trash and stolen parts, Gajek finds the sonic resources for an alternative futurism of private cybernetics and pirated airwaves, creating radical and joyful sounds that claim the possibility of something new. 

Vitamin D is Gajek´s most personal record yet. Alive, detailed, urgent and fresh the album explores evolving textures of highly energetic digital production, vibrant rhythms and haunting lyrical work. Boldly expanding a futuristic and strikingly original musical language Gajek creates a beautiful and deeply moving work of great sincerity and emotional immediacy, making a provocative case for pushing what is possible in a world occupied with calculating what is probable.  
CreditsWritten, produced and performed by Matti Gajek (Copyright Control). 
Lyrics by Matti Gajek and Maren Haffke 
Mastered by Bo Kondren at Calyx 
Design by Paul Barsch and Matti Gajek 

Ⓟ 2020 Throttle Records 
© 2020 Throttle Records

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"His job is inventing trophies of experiences-- objects and gestures that fascinate and enthrall, not merely (as prescribed by older generations of artists) edify or entertain. His principal means of fascinating is to advance one step further in the dialectic of outrage. He seeks to make his work repulsive, obscure, inaccessible; in short, to give what is, or seems to be, not wanted. But however fierce may be the outrages the artist perpetrates upon his audience, his credentials and spiritual authority ultimately depend on the audience's sense (whether something known or inferred) of the outrages he commits upon himself. 
The exemplary modern artist is a broker in madness." 
- Susan Sontag. The Pornographic Imagination.
Credits"purple moonlight pages" 
executive producers: 
R.A.P. Ferreira and Kenny Segal 
produced by the Jefferson Park Boys 
mixed by Kenny Segal 
mastered by Daddy Kev 
artwork by Alexander Kollman 
recorded at Soulfolks thinktank in Biddeford, ME & 
Kenny's house in Los Angeles, CA from 
January 2018 to October 2019. 
RBYT013 

as always 
all bounty due 
to the mighty ruby yacht crew

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‘My Cauliflower Ears’ is the third album from Netherlands-born, Benjamin van Vliet, who makes music under the name, Microwolf.   

‘My Cauliflower Ears’ combines the sonically rich, yet minimal approach of drone music, the sampling techniques of hip hop, and the intimacy of folk-styled songwriting and storytelling. It’s the kind of honest, personal, and roughhewn sort of sound that has inspired Lost Tribe Sound since our beginning in 2010. This type of hard-to-frame vocal music has always been important to us, and helped us convert some of the most diehard instrumental music fans, into fans of vocal-lead music such as this. Music where the vocal truly plays the role of an instrument, just as much as anything else in the song. Microwolf is very much in line with other acts that we’ve championed over the years, such as Mute Forest, Cock & Swan and Graveyard Tapes. 

Before Van Vliet started Microwolf, he’d always made music that was a compromise. Making music with others he’d naturally strive for democracy. So the outcome would always be a mix of ideas, wherein his more outlandish ideas would usually get tossed in the process. Microwolf was designed to be an outlet for those things Van Vliet knew he’d have to do himself to get them right. 

Having never fully taken the creative reins before, the first two Microwolf albums ('You Better Go Now' and the mini-album 'You Are The Everything') were a huge learning curve. 'You Better Go Now' is sonically all over the place and absolutely stuffed with ideas. That album could have been the beginning and the end of Microwolf, but about two years later Van Vliet realized he had at least one more solo album in him. After taking a refugee vow with a Buddhist lama in 2018 and diving deeper into drone music and contemporary classical music, Van Vliet set out to make a statement that was far more subtle and better articulated. An album that was short, quiet, conceptually precise, but executed loosely and freely. No tight rhythms, no strummed guitars, no loud singing. Music that embraces its own emptiness, awkwardness and fleetingness. 

The resulting album, ‘My Cauliflower Ears,’ in the words of Van Vliet, is the most radical music he’s ever made. In that it achieves exactly what he set out to do, following up on rhythmic ideas and sonic landscapes that he has walked around with for years. There’s a humbly triumphant dynamic at play here, one that feels like Van Vliet has turned inward, learned some lessons from his past, and now has the clarity to express this intimate discourse. 

‘My Cauliflower Ears’ arrives in a few limited physical formats. Lost Tribe Sound is releasing a reverse-print gatefold CD version with lyrics insert (100 Editions). In addition, the artist is releasing a truncated 10” clear vinyl version of the album, featuring two exclusive remixes (40 Editions). Also, LTS is releasing a bonus album, ‘My Cauliflower Ears (Instrumentals)’ on the same day as the album proper. All who pre-order the original album, or subscribe the the Fearful Void Series will receive a free copy of the instrumentals. 

All songs written and recorded by Benjamin van Vliet 
Mastered by Martijn Comes 
Layout and design by R. Keane 
Cover art by TBA 
© Lost Tribe Sound LLC / Microwolf 
℗ Settled Scores LLC (ASCAP)

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Shinki Water is the first new solo offering from ML Wah since 2019's devotional double-shot Deep Roots and Heavenly Host. With soul-jazz, psych-funk, and dub-inspired bass guitar and percussion setting loose parameters for wide-ranging improvisations on guitar, melodica, and trumpet, the EP shares some common ground with those 2019 releases; in spirit and tone, its general vibe more closely resembles the warm summer breeze of the "No Slack" split with Herbcraft [Crash Symbols, 2018]. Despite these links, the music on Shinki Water stands apart in the otherwise mostly-acoustic ML Wah discography due to strong electronic currents and a joyful, wonder-filled tack that excludes nothing from an expanding field of inspiration. 

The shift is evident immediately as opener “Jerry Roan” turns a backwards-looped bansuri sample into the apparition of a horse whinny, with brass beds and melodica locking into a new-jack-swing-inspired 808 gallop for something like a psychedelic take on Pure Moods sonics. The centerpiece 11-minute title track takes its time New Age Stepping through shifting sands, nodding to dub and dancehall visionaries past and present with shimmering melodica, reverb-heavy vocal stack drops, wah-wah'ed organ stabs, and psychedelically filtered electric guitar riffs. "Gremling" is pure celebratory uplift: layered handclaps and tambourine join a simple programmed drumbeat to propel ecstatically whirling, backmasked solos on guitar and melodica, finding perfect harmony with a wordless choir. 

For those seeking a more direct branch from Deep Roots, the horn-led instrumental "Hold Fast to the Rose and Bloom" adds “Santal’s” heaping ladle of Arabic / cosmic jazz to the cauldron, tabla-grooving in a waltz meter and alternating between sections of feral 10-string guitar leads and the hook of a trumpet-blasted refrain - more Orkustra than Arkestra. And the shortest track by a mile--"Buckfull (Remix)"--pares the arrangement down to just a hand-percussion loop, bouncing bass, a few stray bell-tones, and a live-looped, echo-warped acoustic guitar, its notes flying wild and free on desert winds. 

If earlier ML Wah recordings reflected devotion in terms of ceremony and initiation, Shinki Water honors the same mysteries in the form of celebration, encountering divinity through freedom of movement, a light heart, and open space. At times when all three feel impossible to come by, Shinki Water seeks to hold the vision.  
CreditsMusic by ML Wah. 
Performed, produced, and mixed by Matt LaJoie, summer 2020 at home in Portland, Maine, USA. 

RD-8, percussion, bass guitar, 6- and 10-string acoustic guitars, electric guitar, melodica, trumpet, bansuri, Rheem Mark VII organ, voice, FX 

For Shinki, the Gremlings, and the Fae.

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