Pierre Henry - Labyrinthe ! - VINYL LP

Vinyl LP pressing. 2016 . Journeyman, DJ, radio presenter, beat raconteur - it's been hard to keep up with all of Izem's movements lately. The innovative Lisbon-based French producer has been hard at work on his debut LP Hafa, exploring the sounds of Latin America and North Africa in a vivid analogue-digital, genre-defying soundscape that is sure to leave your head spinning. Inspired by cultural greats like Jack Kerouac, Paul Bowles, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Matisse, Izem spent time soaking up the atmosphere at the inspiring Café Hafa, an idyllic cliff-top joint overlooking the strait of Gibraltar, in Tangier, Morocco, which has formed a golden backdrop to his debut LP. Brimming with soulful exoticism, personal narratives and adventurous collaborators, Hafa has been an experiment in taking on the afro-centric sounds of his journey to-date by incorporating modern, introspective songwriting and hybrid beats. Often writing music whilst crossing continents, the only place Izem allows dust to settle is in the heart, heat and rhythms of his local-global future sounds. Izem is an acronym for InchIn Ze Early MorningInch and his Hafa evokes new days dawning in far-off lands and stirring horizons of the present. So if you aren't hearing Izem's pastiche of future tropical rhythms and organic grooves on stations such as BBC, KCRW or Funkhaus Europa, then make sure you you catch him raising the dance floor temperature on one continent or another.

Anthoney Hart returns with his second Basic Rhythm album for Planet Mu, 'Electronic Labyrinth'. The title itself conveys the overarching theme of the album, evoking the journey that Hart has undertaken. The underlying themes are of a more personal nature, the cover photo of St Fabian Tower where Hart first joined Rude FM in the late 90s, as well as explicit references to books such as Wilson Harris' Palace of the Peacocks. What you end up with is an album that not only draws upon a wide range of influences from both the musical and literary worlds, intertwining them within a deeply personal context that imbues the music with a depth of meaning, but that is also somehow more coherent despite such a wide range of references and hidden meanings. It is at once both an album of subtexts open to interpretation, and a cohesive whole that fits together perfectly.A CraftHayward RoadAcid TrackLarkin AroundB Electronic LabyrinthTechnoPalace Of The PeacockThe Secret Ladder

Los Angeles trio Faetooth sophomore album Labyrinthine is a deeply felt exploration of emotional weight grief, memory, uncertainty, and the quiet work of growing around your own wounds.Following the band's 2022 debut Remnants Of The Vessel, which introduced the band's signature blend of heaviness and mysticism, Labyrinthine pushes further inward. True to it's name, the album winds through a maze of feeling and form, where meaning is never handed over easily. It's rooted in self-discovery through disorientation, the idea that understanding comes not from escape, but from getting lost.Ari May (guitars and vocals), Jenna Garcia (bass and vocals), and Rah Kanan (drums) manage to stay grounded in the immediate in parallel with fantasy themes of the band's namesake. Labyrinthine holds space for this contradiction; tenderness and intensity, restraint and . The band's self-branded Inchfairy doomInch sound fits between shoegaze, doom, and grunge. It isn't just texture; it's a framework for navigating the unsaid.Like the myth that inspired it's title, Labyrinthine doesn't end in victory, but in confrontation-not with escape, but with the Minotaur. Only here, the Minotaur isn't a monster. It's something quiet and more familiar unresolved feelings, old memories, and sadness that refuse to stay buried. The album winds like a maze, sometimes heavy, sometimes hushed, always intentional.Faetooth isn't chasing catharsis. They're creating space to reflect, to feel, and maybe to get a little lost along the way.