Various
Melodies On Wax

Deux Filles was not, in fact, two girls despite what the group name and its elaborate hoax of a backstory suggest. No, they were not Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule, French women who met as teenagers under tragic circumstances and became fast friends, recording two albums together before disappearing into the ether. In reality, Deux Filles was Simon Fisher Turner and Colin Lloyd Tucker, a UK duo who first worked together in an early incarnation of The The. Straddling the line between experimental and pop, Turner was an actor and teen singing star who later composed soundtracks for the iconic queer filmmaker Derek Jarman while Tucker’s career began as an engineer for the famed UK library music studio, De Wolfe, before forming experimental wave group The Gadgets. In Deux Filles, the duo found an outlet for their least commercial tendencies, combining lo-fi proto-dream-pop instrumentals with samples, tape experiments, ambient textures, and drum machines. Even in the vibrant, seemingly endless well of UK DIY, Deux Filles stand out.Double Happiness is the duo’s second album, originally released in 1983 on their own imprint, Papier Maché. Full of meandering guitar and with a more ominous tone than the debut, the album is recommended for fans of Durutti Column and Thomas Leer & Robert Rental’s The Bridge.

All Nations Records new instalment in 2021 is all about a sweet stepper riddim involving three new artists on the label. First comes the magnificent voice of Amelia Harmony from UK delivering a message of hope when all lessons get learned, followed by a dangerous dub version. Next is legendary underground Rastafari singer Ramon Judah, hailing Jah to come and deliver us from trials and tribulations. Last but not the least is female artist Jah 93 from Japan who reinterpreted the riddim with a mellow but strong line of melodica. The maxi 12” is wrapped up wisely by a straight version of the riddim built, arranged, mixed and mastered by Simon Nyabinghi.

The French-Hong Kong DJ and producer Romain FX, founder of Fauve Radio and Fauve Records, debuts on Cracki Records ! After having made his mark on renowned labels such as Exploited, Eskimo Recordings, Novaj 新し, LAGASTA, Fantastic Voyage, Mamie's Records or Hard Fist Records, the ultra-productive artist is about to release Le Sucre d'Adam a new EP of 4 tracks and 2 remixes with the Parisian label Cracki Records.Mixing Italian dream house, jazz, and Italo Disco, Romain FX wanted to create with this EP a timeless record and convey a message of hope for a better world. The first track "Zeste d'Orange" is full of joyful emotions, with a feeling of unity and sharing, strongly influenced by 80-90's pop songs like "Rise Up" by The Parachute Club, and "Send Me On My Way" by Rusted Roots.With its melancholic keyboards, "Le Sucre d'Adam" is a pure concentrate of Italo Dream House, and it's not a coincidence that Romain FX entrusted the remix of the track to the German Lauer, specialist of the genre. "Italominati" with its powerful bass, draws him in the field of the fairy, influenced by artists like Todd Terje or Skatebård. It is the Korean producer Shubostar, new figure of the dark disco scene, who took care of the remix for a very effective cosmic version ! Last track of the EP, "Crave Cave Rave" with its Rave UK and progressive house accents was imagined as a long DJ Set closing. Intense and heavy at the beginning, the track ends with a feeling of extreme release, closing the EP in the most beautiful way.

Misfortunes never come singly. That way AZAR AZAR returns with a strong new EP Inner World / Space Coconut Conspiracy widening its musical universe to join Portuguese label Jazzego 2021 first physical edition.After his first four track EP re-working Miles Davis - Bitches Brew's classic album released in April 2020, AZAR AZAR strikes again with two compositions joining the dots between Jazz-Funk and Hip-Hop grooves.A-side opens with “Inner World” and this new single “Space Coconut conspiracy”, B-side features three club-friendly remixes from Esa Williams, K15 and Minus & MRDolly.This new EP anticipates the already announced album Cosmic Drops set for later in 2021.

When experiencing zero gravity in a space station, looking back at Earth-as-one, most astronauts feel dizzy. A near revelation, this sudden awareness is named the “Overview Effect”. When they eventually come out of these periods of aphasia, they often recall having heard "strange music”, similar to the music they claim to have heard on the hidden side of the Moon. Smagghe & Cross's second collaboration (recorded before the MA album, released last year on Often) is the first attempt to recreate this celestial music.For the past two decades, Ivan Smagghe has perfected the art of making spaced-out clubbers dance, has ridden a Fine Line and run his label Les Disques de La Mort. Rupert Cross is a London-based composer who has worked with Michael Finissy and Julian Anderson as well as writing music for television and theatre.Before/after MA, an album which sat on the fringes of experimental music passed through an industrial particle accelerator. S&C give you the tracks codenamed Timothy Dalton (according to Ivan, "The laser sound in the track reminded us of Flash Gordon"). Neither pop, nor psychedelic, nor ambient, nor house, nor techno, nor post punk nor even new wave are spared, but none are singled out. To nurture this proto-album, the duo also called upon the talents of Tim Felton, the outstanding guitarist from the cult band Broadcast.When listening to Timothy Dalton, the temporal and stylistic boundaries disintegrate to give way to all sorts of speculation: imagine the beardies from Tangerine Dream being kidnapped by Soft Cell, C86 and 1988, the Silver Apples composing a space opera with the help of an electro cardiogram monitor. Or the Wizard of OZ reviewed and reworked by Psychic TV. Eight tracks take us from the New Orderey beaches of Ostend to the rings of Saturn, and gradually unfold before our eyes like a machine to travel through time and space. So what if Timothy Dalton was a one-way ticket to the Twilight Zone?