this is so beautiful. this track is like religion to me.

Written by Cable
Produced by Dev Hynes
Mixed by Jason Finkel
Artwork by Lucien Smith

Roxanne

Stardust

Wonderland

Honour - Àlááfíà
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 121
Release Date: 03 November 2023
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/Alaafia

Honour’s debut album is a ligament stretching from Lagos to London and to New York, curling across the diaspora and brushing the darker hues of blues, hip-hop, free jazz, ambient, gospel with Christian mythology and Yoruba folklore. As cinematic as it is painterly, Àlááfíà is a meditation on themes of life, death and love that pulls inspiration from the unexpected poetic profundity of casual conversations, field recordings, literature, ephemera, or personal archives. The result is an impressionistic vision in Black and Blur that both exhausts and implicates language—substantiating a mythos proposed by Fred Moten that sublimates boundaries between everywhere and nowhere; history and the present; the individual and the universal.

Àlááfíà delineates a gothic landscape cut by overdriven beats, swooping orchestral blasts, choral bursts and ear- splitting fuzz, where the fleshly and spiritual realms commune. Dedicated to Honour's late grandmother, the title track began to take form after their last embrace and remains steeped in her influence and spirit—a tape-saturated composition that starts in Lagos and ends in London's smoke-stained cityscape, the song’s dream-like quality developed out of the artist’s grief and PTSD coping with this loss. Beneath the stretched guitar drones and stuttering loops, their grandmother's shared faith bubbles to the surface.

“When Angels Speak of Love,” borrows its title from two works by Sun Ra and bell hooks, respectively. Sculpting echoes of praise music into disorienting spirals perforated with syrupy DJ Screw-inspired breaks and sharp splinters of melancholic guitar, “When Angels Speak of Love” engages a conceptual dialogue with the spirits of both late thinkers, folding them into Honour’s pantheon of ancestral guides. The album’s ninth track, “Giz Aard ($uckets),” is a dirge of regimented drums which anchor this somber melody as it whirls into a blizzard of heartache, uncertain if its consequence will be death or eternal joy.

The album’s sole lyrical offering, “Pistol Poem (Lead Belly),” begins with a darkly humorous bar, “He went thru hell and back/ came back/ 2 get the strap,” that swells into a haunting allegory based on the life of Philip “Hot Sauce” Champion. A modern take on the Blues, Honour’s lyrics reify the artist’s status as a student of both literature and popular culture, crossbreeding the artist’s clever wordplay with additional references to Richard Pryor, Robert Johnson, Kelly Rowland & Bryon Gysin.

Setting core principles of hip-hop, R&B, jazz and gospel music to atemporal soundscapes and compositions, Honour crafts a record that marinates in its own knotty contradictions. The ghosts that sit on the artist’s shoulders have never been more tangible than with this emotive debut.

Built and destroyed by Honour
Additional production by Bridgegroom
Mixed by Honour
Mastered by Jason Goz
Artwork by Honour

Honour - First Born (Redeemed) (PAN 121)

Billy Bultheel - Two Cycles
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 138
Release Date: 08 March 2024
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/TwoCycles

Billy Bultheel's debut solo album is an ambitious distillation of the composer's,' sprawling litany of influences and his unique approach to site-specific composition. A compilation of pieces created between 2016 and 2023, the album is a forceful testament to Bultheel's expansive performance practice and collaborations with cutting-edge visual artists like Anne Imhof and James Richards.

Drawing inspiration from industrial music and metal as well as medieval and baroque polyphony, Bultheel devised a way to present this collection of works side-by-side. The record is split into two distinct cycles: the Snow Cycle, which collects Bultheel's electro-acoustic and compositional work, and the Game Cycle, which assembles his electronic productions. These two suites have unmistakable symmetry; Bultheel's traditional compositions are bolstered by his understanding of electronic production, while his electronic pieces are moulded by his knowledge of classical and traditional music. "Two Cycles" is an album that exhibits duality, embodying the dichotomy of Bultheel's roles as both an ensemble composer and an electronic producer.

The haunting opening track of the 'Snow Cycle', 'The Arcades Project', — named after the unfinished compendium of architectural contemplations penned by the eminent German philosopher, Walter Benjamin - places four tubas in strategic towers surrounding the audience, creating an immersive auditory experience. Conversely, 'The Snows of Venice' — named after Alexander Kluge and Ben Lerner collection of short stories and poems — was conceived for two flautists directed to intertwine their melodies as they traversed through knee-high water.

The 'Game Cycle' meanwhile places a strong emphasis on rhythm, crafting a sonic landscape that resonates with overdriven metallic clanks and sharp stabs. Drawing upon his extensive experience in composing for choreography, Bultheel envisions a series of jittery dances that purposefully deviate from conventional timelines. 'Decreation' infuses techno with the visceral qualities of noise music and 'Game Theory' offers an unsettling skeletal barrage of saturated, precisely tuned percussive hits. Bultheel brings 'Two Cycles' to a close with 'Gigue,' a reference to the 6/8 baroque court dance that traditionally marked the conclusion of a dance suite; by merging marching rhythms performed by two percussionists on a single drum set with chaotic and evocative synth leads, he establishes a tantalizing counterpoint.

'Two Cycles' is a musical compilation that explores the themes of locale and landscape, elucidating the intricate dynamics that arise between the musicians and their audience, the ears and the architecture. Considering timbre, density and the psycho-acoustic qualities of communal spaces, from the warehouse to the cathedral, Bultheel draws indelible lines between seemingly distant concepts, merging the celestial with the terrestrial.

The double album cover, one for each side and cycle on the record, features a collage created by the Welsh video artist James Richards that merges medieval iconography with snippets of queer memorabilia.

All tracks written by Billy Bultheel
Mixed by James Ginsburg
Mastered by Enyang Urbicks

Billy Bultheel - The Man without Content (Snow Cycle) (PAN 138)

American Standard

All kinds of days

Find My Way

Melodious Thunkkk Remix


Six Girls In Search Of Heaven (cassette spliced)
Secret Life-Material
Love Can Run Faster-Robert Palmer, Lee Scratch Perry
Minibus-Barrington Levy
Take Me Back To Piauí-Juca Chaves
Camaron-George Guzman
Prayer Garden-Clifford Coulter
Blues In The Closet-Oscar Pettiford
Heartaches-Ted Weems
Singing Death Chants To The Stars-Sundowners
She Might Look My Way-Alex Chilton
I Take It-Simply Saucer
Til You Return-Scott Engel
The Mod Trad-Black Beats
Can't Get Enough Of You-Young-Holt Unlimited
No Ball Games-Basement 5
Don't Tell Me No-The Cars
Cou Cou Bazar-Cou Cou Bazar
My Bluebird Song-Blue Byrd

xx K

Reading: Etheridge Knight, James Welch, Nanni Balestrini

Fall Song A

I thought joy was gone.
Sadness pulled me under, and for a long time I couldn’t see a way back.

Then something surprising happened — a spark in a friend’s words, a melody in my head — and I started writing. Not one song, but dozens. Step by step, the heaviness began to lift. Months later, I caught myself laughing again.

This song isn’t just about me. It’s about how healing can return in ways you don’t expect. For me, it was writing songs. For you, it might be something else entirely. Just keep walking, keep your eyes open. Step by step, light can find its way back in.


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Tags: 
#StepByStep #BrookStanley #Americana #Folk #SingerSongwriter #AcousticBallad #Healing 
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Written and produced by Brook Stanley. Music created and performed by Hal Bishop and The Scout Line—a music group created in the studio by TopMedia.ai, blending real Southern storytelling with AI music tools.


Step By Step

“Nubero” is inspired by Asturian mythology, where the storm-bringer controls thunder, lightning and clouds. This instrumental track captures the drama of mountains under dark skies, blending Celtic folk with atmospheric power. A tribute to ancestral forces of nature.

Let Go

JJ

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